Greg Wright: It's time to erect a statue of a Yorkshire feminist who can inspire a new generation

STATUES have a strange hold over the public imagination.
Drawing of Isabella Ford  from the Yorkshire Factory Times, 1890 (British Library, Newspaper Library, Colindale)Drawing of Isabella Ford  from the Yorkshire Factory Times, 1890 (British Library, Newspaper Library, Colindale)
Drawing of Isabella Ford from the Yorkshire Factory Times, 1890 (British Library, Newspaper Library, Colindale)

In Charlottesville, the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E Lee, who had fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the US Civil War, sparked passionate protest and counter protest. The dispute proved that statues are not simply mute monuments; they ‘speak’ to something contemporary and much deeper.

The decision to place a statue of Millicent Fawcett, the leading suffragist, in Parliament Square, has been rightly applauded as long overdue recognition for a woman who challenged and defeated many of the sexist conventions of her time.

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But the erection of Fawcett’s statue should also make us consider how far we are from true gender equality and the long term damage that is being inflicted on the UK economy as a result.

This terrible imbalance is most apparent in the fastest growing, and arguably, most important sector of them all. That’s all work linked to Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, for short.

British manufacturing firms are crying out for new talent, as the middle-aged and, predominantly, male workforce heads to retirement.

The catastrophic decline in manufacturing during the 1980s, combined with the rapid demise of traditional apprenticeships, left a generational void in the talent base. There’s a desperate need for more young women to enter engineering, and a host of other sectors where a firm grasp of science and technology is essential.

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Tragically, we are a long way from anything remotely resembling equality. As the Leeds-based networking group Forward Ladies has highlighted, just nine per cent of engineering, 19 per cent of computer studies and 38 per cent of maths graduates are female. In fact, just 13 per cent of the entire UK STEM workforce is female, a shamefully small number.

As Forward Ladies observed: “Despite continued efforts to bridge the gender gap in our STEM workplaces, the number of women engaging with STEM careers is decreasing.”

As we prepare for Brexit, our attention must focus on the UK’s ability to develop a workforce which may have to be less reliant on EU nationals. The Forward Ladies research suggests we are terribly ill-prepared. The absence of women in the STEM sector is a long term barrier to economic growth.

The skills crisis in the STEM sector is already costing the UK economy up to £27bn a year.

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There’s no quick fix. School careers advisers have a vital role to play in encouraging girls to choose science subjects. There is also a need for powerful role models.

It’s a good time, therefore, to erect a statue in our county in honour of an iconic female figure. My choice would be one of Millicent Fawcett’s closest friends, who came from Yorkshire and is almost forgotten outside academic circles.

Born in 1855 in Leeds, Isabella Ford was a suffragette, pacifist, and humanist. Her biographer June Hannam describes her as “a truly remarkable woman of her age, she had considerable impact upon the forerunners of today’s political movements”. By the time of her death in 1924, she was an internationally respected authority on suffrage issues.

If Parliament Square can have a memorial to Fawcett, surely Yorkshire people should build a statue in memory of one of our own? Ford rattled the cage of the Westminster elite, and encouraged women to take control of their destinies. She believed education was a great liberator and would have been horrified by the lack of progress in gender equality. Our sister paper, The Yorkshire Evening Post, has long campaigned for a statue dedicated to a powerful female figure.

A memorial to Isabella would act as a rallying point; a reminder of how far we have come and a warning about the struggles ahead. Her boldness and clarity of thought are needed more than ever.

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