Is the bronze statue an emblem of equality or faux-feminist fraud?
In her young public life, Fearless Girl, a bronze statue of a daring child facing off against the Wall St. bull, has been tweeted by celebrities, humped by a man in a suit and characterized as both a feminist emblem and a fraud.
Installed in March, in the middle of the night, on the eve of International Women’s Day, Fearless Girl received an immediate and stunning public response, generating millions of social media posts as people flocked to the financial district to photograph her.
Commissioned by McCann New York, an ad agency, for the investment firm State Street Global Advisors, the statue was part of a larger campaign to encourage companies to recruit more women to their boards.
Bursting into the public eye weeks after a man who bragged about grabbing women by the vagina was elected president, the statue was championed as a powerful symbol of equality and female resilience. Before long, however, others began to chip away at her sheen, arguing the statue represents hypocrisy, fake feminism and, as one depressing think piece put it, “basically everything that’s wrong with our society.”
Fuelling such arguments was news in October that State Street Corp., parent company of the firm behind Fearless Girl, paid $5 million (U.S.) to settle a lawsuit alleging it underpaid women and Black employees.
Even so, Fearless Girl has a large and enthusiastic fan base. Popular demand led to the extension of initial permits to a full year, til March 2018. Fearless Girl’s most ardent supporters, including nearly 40,000 petition signatories, want her to stay permanently. Her detractors want her gone.
The statue, created by sculptor Kristen Visbal, is of a ponytailed child in a windblown dress standing nearly four feet tall, hands on hips, head held high. Timed with the anniversary of State Street’s gender diversity index fund, which trades under the symbol “SHE,” critics derided it as a publicity stunt by a company that manages more than $2.5 trillion (U.S.) in assets and does not practise what it preaches, with three women on its 11-member board and five on its 27-member leadership team.
The original plaque below the statue, which included a plug for the index fund — “SHE makes a difference” — was removed weeks after installation. The campaign generated free advertising for State Street worth $27-$38 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Detractors argued the whole thing reeks of corporate feminism, which “operates with the singular goal of aiding and abetting a universe of mothers who tuck their daughters in at night whispering, ‘Someday, honey, you can lead the emerging markets and sovereign debt team at Citigroup, and then become a director at Yahoo,’” Ginia Bellafante wrote in the New York Times.
Others said using a girl to represent the interests of women is infantilizing, part of a long and harmful tradition of toning down feminist messages into condescending feel-good messages palatable to a larger audience. The kind of feminism that urges us to “take the bull by the horns, girls!” as one supporter tweeted.
Fearless Girl’s fans came to her defence when, a few days after installation, a man in a suit was seen simulating a sex act with the statue. Witness Alexis Kaloyanides snapped a photo, which she shared.
Soon after, Arturo Di Modica, who created the 3,000-kilogram bronze Charging Bull that has stood in the square since 1989, publicly raged about Fearless Girl.
Di Modica, 76, said Fearless Girl changed the meaning of his art, casting the bull as a villain when it was created as a symbol of strength and prosperity after the 1987 stock market crash. He was shut down by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tweeted, “Men who don’t like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl.”
In October, State Street settled allegations it underpaid women, while denying the lawsuit’s claims. A week later, the Times published its game-changing investigation about sex assault and harassment allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, and the dominoes of men in power began to fall. The timing led some to draw comparisons between the two revelations. Weinstein and other men had positioned themselves as allies and champions of women.
“In both cases, a public-facing feminist ended up essentially serving as a front, a superficial sheen that distracted from systemic sexism,” Sarah Banet-Weiser wrote for Salon. “What does feminism mean if it functions as an alibi for structural discrimination?”