Re: re: An unsettling sculpture has appeared at College

From: head_porter.cowspan@gmx.co.uk
To: bursar.cowspan@gmx.co.uk, chaplain.cowspan@gmx.co.uk, [Fellows and senior officers list]
Refer: re: An unsettling sculpture has appeared at College
Refer: An unsettling sculpture has appeared at College

Dear Tamsin and Chas,

I usually don't get involved in knitting-needles at dawn (if these aren't too phallic), but thought some background may be germane to the issue of the "feminine" sculpture of an orchid, which has been provoking annoying comments all day and driven me to drink.

When Sir Roger de Vachepont founded this institution as Vachepont College in 1283, there was no gender bar to the children of workers on his estates from whom the students were then almost exclusively drawn. In fact, Vachepont provided the Middle Ages with its first professionally-trained women.

Once the running of College was put into the hands of College Council during the Hundred Years War and the name was anglicised to Cowspan, female students were chased out so as not to alienate rich families whose scions Council were trying to attract. Just imagine if that step had not been taken: come more enlightened times, the University would have been begging to amalgamate with us, instead of vice versa.

Also, a bronze does not need a probational period of standing for "settling" or any other issues. Any knowledgeable and ethical firm would have tested the soil composition before even commissioning the work, and would have factored this into calculations as well as humidity, weather patterns etc, which are freely available.

Instead of placing a suggestive statue that seems to have been commissioned to gather attention, regardless of whether that attention is positive or negative, I think an alternative strategy would have been more useful. I'm not in favour of apologising every time somebody decides to take offence at something, but an apology for the real harm done to women's equality when Cowspan kicked female students out would have been, I am sure, the right path to take.

Yours

Wat

Charles Watson Tyler
Head Porter
Cowspan College
Vachepont Parva