The prominent feminist organisation the Victorian Women’s Trust has called for a public nomination process to determine which female luminaries will be immortalised in bronze, as part of push to counter the gender imbalance in Melbourne’s statues.
On Tuesday night the Melbourne city council passed a motion to fast-track the erection of at least three new statues of significant Victorian women.
Mary Crooks, the executive director of the Victorian Women’s Trust, said a panel could narrow down nominations to make selections.
“It would give women and men a say about extraordinary women in their communities and their society,” she told Guardian Australia.
“That more inclusive, democratic process would be a good fit. I don’t think women want to see an elitist approach.
“There are women who haven’t been up there on celebrity pedestals or positions of obvious power, but they have been enormous social capitalists.”
Crooks said any panel process should be transparent and include members with a“finely grained appreciation of the kind of roles and contributions women made over generations”.
“The selection process will have to be considered and rigorous because the field is replete with potential,” she said.
The deputy lord mayor, Nicholas Reece, who moved the motion, said a public nomination was a “great suggestion”, adding the council was finalising its approach to community consultation and how the first three statues will be determined.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by public interest in this matter,” Reece said.
He said it was “long overdue” to recognise the “immense” contribution women had made in Melbourne.
“The gap between male and female statues in Melbourne is beyond absurd, it is a moral hazard,” he said.
He said the decision would also place pressure on other capital cities to also improve gender equality of their landmarks.
“Other cities also suffer from chronic underrepresentation of female statues. This is not just a Melbourne issue, but a national issue.”
Reece said Melbourne had numerous women to pay homage to and pointed to the Boon Wurrung woman and civil rights campaigner Louisa Briggs; the suffragist and Australia’s first female federal candidate, Vida Goldstein; and Helena Rubinstein, who migrated from Poland and became a cosmetics entrepreneur.
Crooks also suggested Henrietta Dugdale – who created the first female suffrage society in Australia – and Jean McCaughey, a social justice activist and researcher who wrote the first Australian study to recognise and investigate homelessness among families with children, could also be honoured.
Prof Clare Wright, an historian at La Trobe University and co-convener of the advocacy group A Monument of One’s Own, has led a push to erect more female statues after research commissioned by the group found just nine out of Melbourne’s 580 statues depict historical female figures.
Wright, who has campaigned for Vida Goldstein to be honoured with a statue, said gender inequality in public commemorations was Australian-wide and evident in regional and metropolitan areas.
“It’s also happening in London, New York and Milan. It’s not isolated to Australia,” she said.
Wright said Australia was on the “cusp of monumental change” regarding rewarding the achievements of women.
“There is a tipping point now where there is a recognition of the problem in terms of gender inequity, and the motion from Melbourne city council shows there is capacity for leadership from these important institutions at a policy and planning level” she said.
A Monument of One’s Own and Victoria’s peak union body are due to unveil their first statue of Zelda D’Aprano – a trade unionist who fought for equal pay – next year, after receiving funding from the Victorian government.
