The Potential

“Women appear in memorials galore, as the Victims of, the Spirit of, the Contemplation of, the Apotheosis of—but hardly ever as real women from lived history, with first and last names.”

— Kriston Capps, Citylab

As the lack of Scotswomen in public memory is increasingly pointed out, one of the most common rationales is the idea that notable Scotswomen are not known, or perhaps more devastatingly, do not exist. The reasons for this are numerous — from the idea of separate spheres that has kept women out of the public eye for centuries to the hypermasculinity of the Scottish national narrative — but they all have the same damaging effect. Campaigns for women’s memorialization fail due to lack of input, indecision, and inactivity. Gender inclusive campaigns often receive an overwhelming proportion of submissions for men’s monuments, encouraging organizers to maintain the status quo and erect yet more monuments to men. After all, the trends hold well into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, an era when we should be able to do better.

As such, the first step in remedying this discrepancy is bringing these women to the forefront and making their names and their stories just as popular and just as accessible as their male — and animal — counterparts. Here are a few Scotswomen who would make ideal subjects for public memorialization. Click on then hover over their pictures for more information about their lives.