Will Women Ever Break The Bronze Ceiling?

Will Women Ever Break The Bronze Ceiling?

- Maya Rhodan

KANISHKA KARUNARATNE JOGS REGULARLY IN San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and until recently she never paid much attention to its monuments. Then she heard an interesting fact from former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios: there are no women among the 22 statues of historical figures in Central Park, though you find effigies of Alice in Wonderland, Shakespeare’s Juliet and Mother Goose.

Karunaratne, a legislative aide for San Francisco’s board of supervisors, decided to look into the vast green space near her home and was shocked to find it fared even worse. The only female figure in Golden Gate is the Pioneer Mother, who symbolizes the matriarchs who moved west along the Oregon and California trails. And across the 87 statues in the entire city, only U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale are represented. “In San Francisco, where we think of ourselves as this inclusive, liberal bastion of a city, even we’re not doing well,” she says.

At a moment in the nation’s history when statues have never been more political, Karunaratne set out to change that. She and fellow legislative aide Margaux Kelly convinced city supervisor Mark Farrell to introduce a resolution that would affirm the city’s commitment to increasing female representation—in statues, street names, public art and appointed commissions—to 30% by 2020. If the measure passes, the city would become the first in the U.S. to sign on to an international movement with the same 30% goal.

The first project is an effort to erect a statue at the city’s main library of the late poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, who had deep roots in San Francisco. The statue would cost about $500,000. The resolution would also create a fund for similar projects.