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| photo by Kim Caristi |
My friend Kim has been posting pictures on Facebook of monuments in Washington D. C. They all seem to be dedicated to men. Seems like we have, once again,
forgotten the ladies" as Mrs. Adams admonished her husband that he should not do. (Of course she was talking about laws and you can read the exchange of letters on this subject
here and I encourage you to do so)
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| photo from Wilipedia |
But I realized that we should have a monument to
Eleanor Roosevelt (if we have one for her husband), perhaps there should also be one to Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Women have largely been forgotten in our country. We couldn't even get an
Equal Rights Amendment passed. I do not want to take away from the great men who helped build and make this country but I do think that it is high time a monument to women should be placed on the Mall also. After all the ancient Greeks had a statue of
Athena high on the Acropolis over Athens. They were pretty sexist. I know there are museums dedicated to women but we should have a national recognition of the contribution which women have made to this country. How about it? Who would you have on such a monument? Comments please
5 comments:
Amen, Jay!
the only one I can think of is the monument to women soldiers near the Vietnam wall
in answer to your comment, you are always distinguised to me :)si
I'm a DC native, so let me just say this: there are some nods to women on the National Mall.
The WWII Veterans Memorial, for example, does include a couple of bas-relief sculptures that show women in the military, and also the women who, at home, stepped in the fill the shoes of the men who went to war. I'm trying to find the exact quote about women's service from Oveta Culp Hobby, which is engraved into the memoriall, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.
Also, when one walks thru the FDR memorial, one of the first things one comes to is a very dignified, simple scupture of Eleanor, probably the greatest First Lady this nation has ever seen.
Not only that, but the sculpture that is atop the Capitol building is a woman - her name is Freedom. You can Google "us capitol freedom" and do an image search, and you should be able to find a photo of a replica of this sculpture standing in the lobby of the Visitors' Center of the Capitol. She's dressed in Native garb, with feathers and stars in her hair, and a sword at her side.
So the women have not been completely left out. :)
Found a pic of Freedom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Freedom
Oh, I almost forgot! Arlington National Cemetery also has a memorial to women who served:
http://www.womensmemorial.org/About/facts.html
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