Denmark society has a statue problem. Activists recently covered nude female statues with clothing to highlight an uncomfortable truth: the country has more monuments to naked women than to women who actually shaped Danish history.
Now the Ministry of Culture has a solution. A government committee released a top 100 list of historically notable Danish women who deserve proper commemoration, from 9th-century queen Thyra Danebod to former Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
Public picks seismologist over royalty
The committee collected 3,834 public nominations covering more than 500 different women, according to TV2 Kosmopol. Seismologist Inge Lehmann topped the public vote, beating out Queen Margrethe II and author Tove Ditlevsen.
Lehmann discovered Earth's solid inner core, yet her existing monument on Copenhagen's Frue Plads looks like "a black stone and a blue-green ball" rather than a recognizable person. She stands among rows of male scientists depicted as traditional busts.
The disconnect reveals Denmark's monument gender gap. "When we walk around our urban spaces, there are incredibly many gentlemen on horseback and on foot who have done all sorts of important things," explains committee member Sara Alfort, a literature historian. "The very few statues of women are often abstract."
Poet Inger Christensen's monument exemplifies the problem: it has a body but no head. Museum director Julie Rokkjær Birch, another committee member, argues this "historical skewness shapes our view of who created the Denmark we know today."
Kulturministeriet pushes visual equality
Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt established the committee in 2024 through Aalborg University to map which women deserve public recognition, according to Kulturmonitor. The initiative created a database of nearly 3,000 women with local significance across Danish municipalities.
The committee recommends that future monuments actually resemble the women they honor. "When you walk around your city, it actually matters that you can see: There stands a man, there stands a woman," Alfort says. "It shouldn't be necessary to go right up and read with a magnifying glass on a small metal sign."
The report targets municipalities, foundations, and private donors who commission public art. Beyond statues, the committee suggests street names, murals, and memorial plaques as alternatives.
Expected resistance will come from traditionalists who view monument changes as historical revisionism. But with public input collected via borgerbidrag.dk showing clear demand for female representation, Danish cities will face pressure to balance their bronze and stone.
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