As someone who advocates for men and boys falsely accused of rape, I am perpetually baffled by the religious-like fervor with which some women’s advocates resist the very notion that men, simply because they are men, can be victims of anything caused by women.
The story of a now-obscure, 89-year-old statue in New York City, much maligned as both “sexist” and “kitsch,” has helped clear away some of my befuddlement. The eye-opening history of this statue ought to be studied for what it teaches not about art, but about gender relations, because its lessons still resonate.
“Civic Virtue Triumphant Over Unrighteousness” is the official name of the 22-ton marble statue by sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, but it has been derisively called many other things, including “Fat Boy.” The statue was, at one time, one of the biggest news stories in New York City. Even before it was unveiled in 1922 outside New York City Hall, it had offended many women, and many women’s groups. It can now be seen in all its crumbling glory, encrusted with the patina of soot, pigeon droppings, and neglect, outside Queens Borough Hall in New York, where it has stood since it was exiled in 1941. See here.
The statue portrays a nearly nude, sword-wielding, strapping male youth, his foot crushing the necks of two writhing female sirens, Corruption and Vice — one defeated, the other cowering — in an exultant posture of triumph. It is an allegory of triumph over temptation. (A siren is a mythical seductresses who was said to lure sailors — who, of course, were male — with their enchanting music to the rocky coast of their island, causing the men to shipwreck.)
Before all the controversy, MacMonnies, an important artist in his time, was paid $60,000 for this work, a vast sum of money at the time. The city of New York considered the piece so culturally important that it took out an insurance policy on MacMonnies’ life. But once women’s groups got wind of what he was up to, all hell broke loose.
What was so offensive about this statue? MacMonnies had the audacity to give vice a feminine face, and to depict virtue as decidedly male. The reaction of many women to this statue, from 1922 to today, is eye-opening.
When the statue was about to be unveiled, many women were downright furious: “As though the only virtue the city required were the crushing of women who lured men to their undoing!” jeered one woman in a letter to the New York Daily News.
The statue was so controversial that the mayor of New York scheduled a public hearing on the propriety of placing the statue in front of City Hall. “All of those who think that woman has been degraded because the righteous youth representing virtue has his foot planted on a ‘mermaid’s’ neck will have an opportunity to express their views.”
The mayor was not above pandering to women, who had recently been given the vote. In scheduling his hearing, he announced that the city should take counsel “with the women of the city” regarding the propriety of the statue. How times have changed: even The New York Times took umbrage at the mayor’s statement. “Is art, which knows no nationality, to be circumscribed by considerations of sex?”
At the mayor’s hearing, gender lines were drawn. Elizabeth King Black of the National Women’s Party declared: “Men have their feet on women’s necks, and the sooner women realize it the better.”
But a letter written by a Dr. William Norman Guthrie of St. Marks-in-the-Bouwerie, which was read aloud, echoed a sentiment shared by the statue’s defenders: the outcry is unwarranted because if the genders were reversed, there would be no similar protest. Dr. Guthrie wrote: “Of course, temptation to the male appears as female. Would the women objectors object to a Civic Virtue trampling on a ‘male’ temptation? Hardly.”
Park Commissioner Francis Gallatin chimed in by noting that he didn’t think women should object since men didn’t object simply because the devil is always represented as a man.
MacMonnies, the artist, summed up the double-standard at work in the women’s protest: “Suppose I made virtue the figure of a woman, with her foot on the neck of a male tempter, do you suppose all the men would make a fuss about it?”
The question, of course, scarcely survived its statement. MacMonnies might have been onto something when he wondered aloud: “Can it be that the women are angry because some man finally found the strength to resist temptation?”
The statue’s defenders prevailed, but not without grumbling from the opposition. When Gallatin announced that the statue was, indeed, going up, he tried to put the debate into perspective: “It is true . . . that it is customary to represent virtue as a woman. Witness the figures on our coins, the statue of liberty, the muses, the graces and the innumerable other specimens known to art.” But Gallatin added: “In this age of equality man should be given some consideration . . . . He needs to have his good qualities extolled a little . . . . of his many good qualities, virtue, after all, is not the least considerable.”
For nineteen years, the statue stood in front of City Hall. But in 1941, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, namesake of one of the most maligned airports in America, finally evicted the statue, and likely because of the gender it depicted. The “Little Flower” reportedly tired of being mooned every day by the nude male figure. See here. If the statue had been female, my guess is the diminutive mayor would not have had a problem. LaGuardia had the sculpture moved from City Hall Park to its current site at the corner of Union Turnpike and Queens Boulevard, outside Queens Borough Hall.
After the statue was exiled to the relative obscurity of Queens, the vilification continued, even to today. Modern observers call the statue “sexist.” Former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman wanted to have the statue evicted: “A municipal building is not an appropriate place for a statue that portrays women as evil and treacherous.” An 18-year-old college student from Queens, said: “It’s discrimination against women.” Borough President Helen Marshall said: “I have no enthusiasm for that statue. . . .. Its depiction is one that is viewed as sexist. Vice is portrayed in the form of a woman. I have no enthusiasm for restoring it.” Another woman said: ”Degrading. For the government to sanction that? Imagine the message that sends. Terrible.” Sometimes someone will hang a sign on the statue: “This sculpture doesn’t represent women well.”
One woman took delight in the fact that the statue is now a neglected mess, covered in pigeons and pigeon droppings, surrounded by garbage, weeds and graffiti. “Public censure through neglect: a most fitting demise, even better than removal,” she harrumphed.
How do we account for the irrational vitriol of so many women to this statue? Perhaps it is as simple as this: the protestors were, and still are, so accustomed to picturing vice as “male” that when it is given a feminine face, it is so jarring that they assume it is somehow wrong and must be “sexist.”
That worldview is still prevalent, and, in important respects, many men share it. For example, doesn’t this worldview account for the fierce resistance of progressives to even the suggestion that presumptively innocent men and boys accused of rape have unique needs worthy of society’s attention? And doesn’t it account for the infamous female sentencing discount where, all things being equal, women tend to receive more lenient sentences than men when they are convicted of criminal wrongdoing? And for the other-worldly resistance of women’s groups’ to the presumption of shared parenting, as they hide behind the awful stereotype of men-as-abusers? And for the policy of at least two airlines of not permitting men to be seated on flights next to unaccompanied minors? And for public service announcements that depict boys as potential batterers, rapists and predators, and girls as potential victims? And for the vile suspicions raised whenever a father, unaccompanied by a woman, is “caught” playing with his own children in the park? And for the refusal of most people to accept that female-on-male domestic violence is a serious problem, and that a kick to the testicles is decidedly unfunny? And for college indoctrination sessions that shame young men into thinking they are predators?
And I could go on and on and on. On a rational level, most people know that neither gender has a monopoly on either vice or virtue. But emotionally, most people seem to have a difficult time accepting that vice sometimes has a feminine face.
My blog, False Rape Society, has no intention of maligning an entire gender. But unlike the sculptor of “Civic Virtue,” I did not choose the gender of our villain. It just so happens that when it comes to the issue of false rape claims, women have a near monopoly on vice. This is because, usually, only women can tell rape lies that are deemed plausible, so men rarely bother. Even though this does not mean women are inherently evil (after all, only a tiny percentage of women tell rape lies, just as only a tiny percentage of men rape), people who have convinced themselves that the world is skewed in favor of males simply recoil at our efforts.
The young man depicted in “Civic Virtue” can well serve as a symbol of the struggle faced by men and boys falsely accused of rape. Hateful groups hope that, like MacMonnies’ statue, our efforts will fall into decay due to neglect. But fortunately, with each passing month, more and more people of good will have joined with us in keeping our statue clean, robust, and defiant. With their help, just like the young man in the statue, the men and boys for whom we advocate will triumph over the evildoers attempting to destroy them.
