Feminists see red over plan for pink plaques to honour famous women

A row has broken out over a heritage project to commemorate the lives of prominent London women with pink plaques.

Visitors to a weekend festival at Highgate’s historic Lauderdale House will be asked to suggest names of famous former residents to be honoured with the plaques.

Possible candidates include socialist activist Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl; 19th Century explorer Mary Kingsley; and Angela Burdett-Coutts, who was once Britain’s richest heiress.

But critics today said the use of the colour pink risks reinforcing damaging gender stereotypes.

Lauderdale’s director, Katherine Ives, said the project is aimed at making visitors aware of the “fascinating” women who have lived in and around the exclusive village.

She said: “Without being too political, a lot of history is written from the male perspective and it’s really great to learn about the women’s history.

“The pink plaques is an initiative by several artists to help create our own accreditation for the area’s remarkable women.”

Once the nominations are received, a selection will be chosen and included on local heritage walks or trails locally, with a view to putting up pink plaques on houses in the future. A similar scheme in Hampstead has seen memorials on buildings to notable former residents.

Gina Martin, a feminist activist best known for a successful campaign to make upskirting illegal, told the Standard: “I’m really glad they’re doing this project, the idea is fantastic.

“But I can understand the issue with the chosen colour. We have a massive issue with gender and the colour theory has a lot to do with that.

“We shouldn’t be associating colours with genders because we know how it can psychologically affect people.

“I get that a lot of people would see the pink plaques and automatically go ‘Oh it’s for a woman’ but that’s a problem. We won’t progress unless we stop that association.”

Feminist activist and journalist Caroline Criado Perez said: “That’s just a shame. It’s such a great idea. I thought I’m so delighted especially as I live in north London.

"Around the time of the centenary I was trying to find out about suffragettes and suffragists who lived near me but couldn’t find anything – it was very difficult. So obviously I think this is incredibly important. It’s unfortunate because of the way that pink has become associated as now ‘time for the girls’ that it’s pink and fluffy.”

A spokeswoman for the Women’s Equality Party added: “We’re delighted women’s history is being celebrated. It’s a shame it takes a gimmick like this to bring the importance of women’s lives and work to life.”

Alicia Pivaro, one of the artists behind the project, said the plaques were aimed at reinforcing the need for more women to be celebrated.

“It wasn’t our intention to offend. The idea for this project is to stimulate a conversation around the idea of people that should be celebrated,” she said.

“We have used the colour pink for the branding for our Women Only exhibition we had last year.

“We wanted people to connect those two projects together. But if you think about it, is it also a provocation in the sense that if pink is still seen as a female colour, then where is the female history?”

Feminist commentator and beauty columnist Sali Hughes said: “It seems like it’s broadly a good thing if they feel that people are being honoured who would not be recognised in a classic blue plaque…but making them pink cheapens it for me. It makes it a bit childish and makes it a bit infantilising.

“It should not be about the colour but the incredible women and their history.

“It’s a bit like when the guy in the phone shop automatically offers you a pink phone. Why not red? Why not green? It does sound like a great project.”

Last year, English Heritage launched a campaign backed by Dame Judi Dench to address the imbalance of men and women represented on blue plaques after a survey found only 14 per cent of the markers commemorate women.

The London Assembly recently called on the heritage body to relax its “archaic rules” in order to ensure more women are commemorated with blue plaques.

The ‘Pink Plaque’ project launch will take place at 3pm tomorrow. The first plaques are expected to be unveiled in June.