New monument is too phallic with all these vulvas around

Jonathan McLeod

Jonathan McLeod is a writer living in Ottawa, Ontario. (That means Canada.) He spends too much time following local politics and writing about zoning issues. Follow him on Twitter.

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28 Responses

  1. MikeSchilling says:

    I think it would be space awesome if the two monuments reproduced.Report

  2. James Hanley says:

    Oy. Just because the penis happens to be pillar-shaped does not mean all pillars represent phalluses (phalli?).

    But if the laughably uninspired Irish monument is close enough to the vulvas to cause immature folks (like Schilling and, oh, sure, me) to crack jokes, then maybe they should find a better locations or, better yet, a more creative design. Hell, they’re making use of Celtic knots in, why not make the whole damn thing a Celtic knot? (I’d suggest a bottle of Guinness, but beer bottles are obviously a phallic symbol, too–why else would hundreds of millions of straight men put them to their lips each year?)

    On the plus side, it’s always comforting to be reminded that Canada is every bit as silly as the U.S. You Canooks do give us a bit of an inferiority complex now and then.Report

  3. Damon says:

    Oh dear Jebus! I wasted 5 mins reading the linked articles…..

    Who do I invoice to get compensation?!Report

  4. Burt Likko says:

    I can confirm Jonathan’s claim to titular primacy for use of the word “vulva.”Report

  5. Brandon Berg says:

    Aren’t angry feminists just adorable?Report

  6. Rufus F. says:

    I’m not really sure I understand why the best way to memorialize murdered women is with sarcophagi with vulva images carved into them in the first place. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems a little reductive.Report

    • I had the same thought.Report

    • James Hanley in reply to Rufus F. says:

      This is a good thought. One of the feminist criticisms against porn is its focus on the sex organs, and how that reduces women to nothing more than an object of sexual desire, a vehicle for reproduction. So even though the intent here is not to represent women as objects of sexual desire, it seems a bit awkward.

      On the other hand, there is another strand of feminism that very actively celebrates the female role in reproduction, women as the life-givers, women as being more intimately related to Gaia, by virtue of their common reproductive capacities. I would be inclined to think that the designer of the monument came from the latter approach.Report

      • It should also be noted that the design on the monuments aren’t obviously vulvas (at least from what I saw), so the argument could be made that from the viewer’s perspective the women aren’t being represented purely by their sexual organs.Report

      • Rufus F. in reply to James Hanley says:

        I guess they could have. What made me a bit uncomfortable was the thought that the Montreal murderer came at women from the former perspective. So, it seemed a bit crass. But I think probably this is a good time to look up the artist’s intent.Report

        • Rufus F. in reply to Rufus F. says:

          Yeah, okay- according to the public art registry, they’re actually benches and the ‘depression’ at the top collects rainwater, which is a reference to tears. Interestingly, the most controversial aspect of the project was the engraving that it was dedicated to ‘all women who have been murdered by men.’Report