Rise up, Women
Rise up, Women
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Rise up, Women

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125918

Rise up, Women

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Rise up, Women

Rise up, Women, also known as Our Emmeline, is a bronze statue of Emmeline Pankhurst in St Peter's Square, Manchester. Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom. Hazel Reeves sculpted the figure and designed the Meeting Circle that surrounds it.

The statue was unveiled on 14 December 2018, the centenary of the 1918 United Kingdom general election, the first election in the United Kingdom in which women over the age of 30 could vote. It is the first statue honouring a woman erected in Manchester since a statue of Queen Victoria was dedicated more than 100 years ago.

The statue was created following a five-year campaign called the WoManchester Statue Project. This was led by Manchester City councillor Andrew Simcock. He had initiated the campaign following a meeting in March 2014 with his friend Anne-Marie Glennon in the Sculpture Hall in Manchester Town Hall. Over coffee she had commented "these (busts) are all men. Where are the women!"

Simcock's campaign was also inspired by a craftivism exhibition held at Manchester Town Hall during February and March 2014. Frustrated by the gender imbalance in Manchester's civic statues, Warp & Weft (artist Helen Davies and heritage researcher Jenny White) devised the Stature project, yarnbombing eight male portrait busts with crochet masks depicting local historical women of achievement.

Councillor Simcock invited Warp & Weft to restage their exhibition on 30 July 2014, the day Manchester City Council gave its unanimous backing to his resolution that a 'statue of a woman of significance to Manchester' be created.

Initially a 20-strong list of women was compiled for consideration for the statue:

In June 2015, Simcock cycled from Land's End to John o' Groats in 20 stages, each one devoted to one of the women on the list.

A shortlist was created in the autumn of 2015 and Emmeline Pankhurst was decisively selected following a vote by thousands of people across the world.

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