The latest battle in our inane culture wars broke out in Edinburgh this month when hundreds of concerned citizens signed an open letter objecting to a planned statue of suffragette Elsie Inglis on Royal Mile. But the row is not about the statue’s subject, it is about whether or not a male sculptor could possibly do her likeness justice. To add to the absurdity, the artist in question is Alexander Stoddart, one of the world’s most accomplished realists and certainly Scotland’s best sculptor. 

Over the last decade or so, statues of suffragettes have been sprouting like mushrooms across the UK. In 2018, one appeared in Parliament Square and two were erected in Manchester. Last year, another popped up in the Welsh city of Newport, and two joined Queen Victoria outside Belfast city hall. Across the Atlantic, a large statue of a suffragette will soon appear on the National Mall in Washington, DC. If anything, Edinburgh is late to the game. 

Dr Inglis (1864–1917) certainly deserves to be honoured. Besides campaigning for female suffrage, she saved the lives of poor mothers in Edinburgh and injured soldiers in WWI. But commissioning public sculpture is fraught with risk because vandalism has now become respectable. A charity called A Statue for Elsie Inglis started out well, raising more than £50,000 for the monument. But they rather bungled the selection process. First, they announced an open call in early 2022, then they called it off a few months later and announced that the job would go to Alexander “Sandy” Stoddart. This kind of dithering is hardly unprecedented, but it vexed other artists preparing pitches.

Even so, Stoddart ought to have been an uncontroversial choice. The King’s Sculptor in Ordinary, his magnificent statues of Scottish Enlightenment philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith stand nearby. Stoddart wins commissions like Ronaldo scores goals but it transpired that this illustrious track record was part of the problem. 

“Sandy Stoddart is always picked for everything,” complained Natasha Phoenix—a feminist sculptor “who specialises in figurative sculpture, portraits through the female gaze” and who had spent a month preparing a proposal of her own. But she insists that her main objection to Stoddart’s selection is principled: he has “no links to feminism or to Elsie Inglis.” And he’s male. “It’s incredibly important,” Phoenix told the Observer, “that women’s stories are told through the female gaze. When men create sculptures of women, they often portray them through the patriarchal lens, whether intentionally or not.”

This kind of cant is catnip to metropolitan progressives but it’s hard to tell whether Scottish papers are actually swallowing it or just enjoying the scrap. Either way, they have inflamed the row further by repeating Phoenix’s accusation that the project is somehow “anti-feminist.” The National Scot ran an article on the controversy under the headline, “Objections to Elsie Inglis statue after female artists excluded,” which falsely implied that only men were allowed to apply for the commission. The outrage this kind of reporting has produced from Scottish feminists was entirely predictable.

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And once the pile-on got underway, other worthies arrived to pick holes in Stoddart’s design. Labour councillor Margaret Graham called it “dowdy.” Nicholas Oddy of the Glasgow School of Art said it looks like “somebody waiting for a bus.” They may have a point. Judging by the sketches—which is all we currently have—it’s not likely to be Stoddart’s most inspiring work. But, frankly, that criticism can be levelled at most statues of suffragettes. Stern Edwardian ladies in ankle-length dresses and unflattering hats are not inherently dynamic.

Stoddart enjoys a de facto sculptural monopoly in Edinburgh, but so what? No one complains that Rome has too many Berninis. A daft comparison? Stoddart has produced a remarkable oeuvre (my favourite is his glowering bust of Blind Harry in Stirling) and acquired a reputation for exacting standards. He’s outspoken and forthright and cheerfully expresses views that most trained artists can barely admit to themselves. He disdains British Modernism and its reigning deities, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. “I find it very odd when they describe art as challenging,” he told the Scotsman in 2008, “because I always thought art was meant to calm you like a lullaby, not challenge you like some skinhead in an underpass.” He’s also a Wagner-loving Christian who admits to being “a thundering egotist,” none of which endears him in the precincts of refined progressive opinion.

Certainly, hell hath no fury like a Facebook campaign group. Over the past three years, members of the ELSIE ON THE MILE chatgroup have worked themselves into a lather over the fact that neither the commissioners of the sculpture nor the sculptor have “lived experience with feminism or sexism.” Moreover, by depicting Dr Inglis in military uniform, they “are only celebrating the patriarchly [sic] acceptable part of her life that they’re interested in. She was a huge feminist who only employed women.”

Should a commission like this necessarily go to a woman? The implications of such a rule are troubling. First, the realism this commission demands is difficult to accomplish and only a fraction of artists—male or female—can do it well. It takes a lot of training and most contemporary artists leave art school with none. That’s not to say that if the commissioners had decided Dr Inglis must be sculpted by a woman they’d have had no options. While few artists of either sex have résumés as illustrious as Stoddart’s, there are many proficient female realists working today. Just off the top of my head, there’s Maudie Brady, Alicia Ponzio, Valentina Zlatarova, Amelia Rowcroft, Ellen Christiansen, Elizabeth O'Kane, and Poppy Field.

But even if there are plenty of contenders, where would this type of selective discrimination end? Should only men sculpt men? Should only Africans sculpt other Africans? Is a homosexual permitted to sculpt a heterosexual and vice versa? And who gets to decide these questions and on what authority? Whether Ms Phoenix’s complaint is merely sour grapes or principled, the world would be no fairer if she got her wish. Meritocracy isn’t perfect but once discrimination is permissible based on an applicant’s characteristics—sex, race, sexual orientation, party affiliation, age, you name it—that power will be abused just as it was in the past.

I suppose Sandy Stoddart could solve the impasse by announcing that he now identifies as a woman. He wouldn’t even have to change his name.