IWD walk 2022
To celebrate IWD, The Bridge organised a walk to visit some sites and statues of women in the local area. During the walk we were reminded not only of the work and lives of extraordinary women that have fought for the freedom and rights that we enjoy today, but also of those whose sacrifices and struggles have been erased/overlooked and are a testament to the long-lasting structural inequalities that women continue to experience today.
As a group of staff, gym members and project participants, we set off from The Bridge Café. We were also joined by staff and participants from another organisation SCULPT who did the walk as part of their aim to walk 31 miles in March to mark IWD.
We started our walk along the Southbank of the River Thames. The sun was shining and the City’s silhouette contrasted with the clear blue London sky – a city that is home to around 4.496 million women.
We walked through Southbank to our first stop Waterloo Bridge.
Despite being known for a long time by Thames riverboat pilots as The Ladies’ Bridge, the idea that women had been largely involved in building Waterloo Bridge wasn’t included in any official history of the structure, or detailed in any records. Inspired by the urban myth of where its name came from, in 2015 Historian Christine Wall discovered that around 350 women helped build Waterloo Bridge during WWII when there were labour shortages. Because of Wall’s discovery, Historic England has finally incorporated the bridge as a heritage site.
Our walk continued alongside the River Thames towards Westminster Bridge where we briefly stopped at the COVID-19 Memorial Wall. A painted mural approximately a third of a mile long running alongside St Thomas’ hospital in front of Westminster Palace. The mural is painted with thousands of red and pink hearts to commemorate those who died due to coronavirus in the UK.
photo credit: Faieka
We then took the steps up from the River Thames to Westminster Bridge and walked towards our second stop in the gardens of St Thomas’s Hospital where a large memorial statue of Mary Seacole stands.
Mary Seacole was a Jamaican-born nurse who cared for wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War in the 19th Century. The unveiling of this statue was a seminal moment for Londoners as it’s the UK’s first memorial of a black women.
The challenges that Mary Seacole experienced due to her ethnic origin and the fact that her mark on British public life was relegated to obscurity until recently, are a reminder of the overlapping forms of oppression that black women and women from other ethnic minorities continue to face. Fighting for gender equality is not only about fighting gender injustices, but rooting out all forms of oppression.
photo credit: SCULPT staff
After taking a group photo in front of Mary Seacole’s statue, we crossed Westminster Bridge towards Parliament Square, where we visited our third stop – the statue of Millicent Garret Fawcett.
Millicent campaigned for women’s right to vote during the early 20th Century and is seen as one of the most influential feminists of the past 100 years. Fawcett is the first and only women featured in Parliament Square.
Next to Fawcett’s statue of her holding a banner reading ‘courage calls to courage everywhere’ were many other women, holding colourful banners one of which read ‘climate change is a feminist issue’. They were on a Women’s strike for climate action because: It is women who are overwhelmingly hit the hardest in countries impacted by climate change, it is women that make up 80% of climate refugees and yet it is women who have the least voice in high level climate negotiations.
photo credit: Faieka
On our way to our next IWD stop we passed through Leake Street Graffiti Tunnel. This 300m tunnel is famous for its graffiti. The graffiti started when Banksy held a ‘Cans festival’ in the tunnel (it’s also known as the Banksy Tunnel). It is now legal to graffiti in this tunnel and so its art is constantly changing. On our walk we came across several graffiti’s responding to current state of affairs such as the war in Ukraine.
photo credit: WALK participant
We were also happy to see that this year’s IWD theme #breakthebias was also featured.
photo credit: WALK participant
On our way to our last stop we crossed through Emma Cons Gardens, right in front of the Old Vic.
Emma Cons was a British social reformer who campaigned for educational opportunities for women and the working class, determined to make a good life accessible to all. She founded Morley College (still open today) and re-opened the Old Vic in1880, a place where topics such as London’s air quality and women’s rights characterised the discussion.
We passed through The Cut and went straight towards our last stop – Crossbones Graveyard – where we were welcomed by two volunteer wardens who gave us a small tour.
Crossbones Graveyard is a former post-medieval pauper’s burial ground located in the area that was formerly known as The Mint, one of London’s poorest slums. The graveyard pays tribute to the capital's historic working classes and those who were forgotten, considered ‘outcasts’ or unworthy of a Christian burial. According to local lore it was once the final resting place for the Winchester Geese, medieval sex workers licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work in the brothels of The Liberty of the Clink.
photo credit: WALK participant
A skeleton of a nameless teenage girl who was buried in Crossbones Graveyard in Southwark now rests in the Human Osteology collection of the Museum of London. The osteological team there suggests that she lived in the first half of the 19th century in terribly hard living conditions. The analysis shows that the teenage girl suffered from malnutrition, rickets – a condition related to poverty that caused her legs to bend and bow, as well as syphilis – a sexually transmitted disease. The suffering of both poverty and gender inequality is written in her bones.
The walk reminded us that there is still much to do to create a fairer society - one where more stories from those who are underrepresented and silenced in history are shared. Across the UK only 2.7% of statues honour women for their achievements and there is no official data on how many of these are women from ethnic minority backgrounds. The black plaque project is an initiative that aims to recognise the achievements of black people who have been central figures yet have gone largely unnoticed in British history.
As an organisation that works to fight health inequalities, the walk was a great reminder of the interconnected systems of oppression that women experience. There are clear inequalities in health related to gender, socio-economic status and ethnicity. Fighting for health and gender equality goes hand in hand with dismantling all interconnected systems of oppression.
if you would like to do the walk yourself:
Thank you to everyone who joined us on the walk this year!