The ideological contrast between the artist who created the Charging Bull and the marketing firm that created Fearless Girl could not be more different. The iconic bull has been an inspirational example to aspirational men, women, and children since immigrant sculptor Arturo Di Modica was inspired and placed it there without permission following the Wall Street crash of ’86. I’ve actually rubbed its horns for luck and inspiration, much like one might be inspired to kiss the Blarney Stone in Ireland or perhaps visit Honest Abe for advice at the Lincoln Memorial. I even saw a little girl jostle beneath the tourists to do the same, much to the amusement of her parents.
The bull is synonymous with the ideals of America. That anyone can make it and be prosperous (within reason) with hard work and a little ingenuity without reliance on the State. Di Modica got it. He exemplifies positive ideals that elude so many artists. He wasn’t about exploiting and fostering division for profit (grants). He saw a crisis that could be minimised with a little good old-fashioned American exceptionalism and market confidence, and did his best to help in his own small, yet influential way.
Arturo Di Modica has quite rightly ‘called bull’ on Fearless Girl. Clearly he understands the nonsensical, divisive, and obstructive nature of virtue signalling as well as he understands the need for exceptionalism and national pride as part of America’s social fabric. Many women have felt inspired and motivated by the same bullish ritual that I took part in that day to better themselves and chase their dreams and aspirations. No woman will ever be inspired to achieve anything on their own by Fearless Girl. Here’s why.
Fearless Girl, like most of third-wave feminism, isn’t so much about equality or exceptionalism as it is about Marxism and Stateism, and the perpetual state of underachievement and victimhood that keeps the red fires burning. The sculpture itself even shares a similar pose to countless Soviet-era sculptures that you’ll find in Eastern Europe and Russia, that were commissioned with the intent of crushing the human spirit rather than nurturing aspiration. This example from Moscow could almost be relocated to Wall Street beside the latest addition as ‘Parents of Fearless Girl’.
Feminism hasn’t been about equality or betterment of women for a very long time. Decades. Well, it is, but only in the sense of providing more grist for the mill. Feminism isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be) about encouraging women to lessen their quality of life by being thrown into needless competition with their male counterparts for menial jobs and helping along wage erosion and the destruction of the family unit. Nor should they be encouraged that it is somehow an admirable stop-gap to amend our declining birth rates with somebody else’s children as they pass on raising a family and the joy that it brings, merely so that she and her husband can enjoy the same standard of basic living that our parents or grandparents did on one wage.
Older generations had their hardships of course, and didn’t have the luxuries we do. But it’s a poor trade-off in regard to quality of life when you consider that only one member of the household had to work in the ’40s and ’50s, and did so for a minimum of half the combined hours your average couple does in 2017. Obviously women have every right to choose a career. But choose is the operative word. Trading the chance to raise a couple of kids as a stay-at-home mum for a thankless, demeaning, low-income job that barely covers 50% of the household running costs (that your grandfather was able to cover by himself) along with hubby’s 50% from his thankless demeaning low-income job, is a s— deal in anyone’s book. A well-paid corporate gig might qualify as ‘girl power’, but women deferring motherhood because they and their husband are working minimum wage, as cheap labour for the benefit of a state that isn’t fussed about whether their children or new migrants take their place when they retire, should be very bitter indeed.
Don’t be fooled. Fearless Girl is not a symbol of empowerment. It is just as oppressive of women (and everyone) in a practical sense as any Marxist monument you will find in the former Soviet Union. It does not encourage women to be entrepreneurs or be self-sufficient. It portrays them as a hapless and helpless minor component of the identity politics coalition, reliant on the state to provide a life of ‘equal mediocrity’.
Fearless Girl is conspicuously obstructing the freedoms, aspirations, and entreprenuerial flair of the women and men who have been inspired by the Charging Bull. The sculpture is a sinister wolf in sheep’s clothing, a symbol of strong-arming and intimidating those who are self-reliant and believe in American exceptionalism, with some very overt socialist symbolism. Don’t buy into it, ladies. Look to the sculpture of the bull for inspiration, not the fifth column sculpture disguised as a little girl.
It’s your XYZ.
Photo by htmvalerio 