Over the years, it has become one of Wall Street’s major tourist attractions. The Fearless Girl, the little girl without fear, is a bronze sculpture 1.28 meters high, the life size of a child, in a dress and sneakers who stands straight, hands on her hips, head high , chin up and bravado, the air of defying the stock market institution.
It was installed in 2017 by an investment fund that wanted to make a publicity stunt on the place of women in the world of finance. It should have been removed after a week, but with success, it remained for a month, a year, five in the end, each time surviving procedures to have it removed.
Officials voted on Monday for the “Fearless Girl” sculpture to continue to stand outside the New York Stock Exchange but are requiring stakeholders to return in six months with plans for a permanent location. https://t.co/VS2v5AeRsD
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 11, 2022
Because, of course, the fearless little girl appears on all the Instagram photos of tourists who make the trip to New York, but above all she was very disturbing. Starting with the sculptor of the other Wall Street icon, the Charging Bull, the muscular bronze bull installed there in 1989 to symbolize the economic strength of the United States and which the little girl has clearly eclipsed, even ridiculed by being placed right in front of him.
There were also criticisms from several American feminist figures, pointing to the fact that the investment fund that commissioned the statue was itself convicted of discrimination against several of its employees. Finally, there were many debates at the municipal council to find out whether or not his presence was legal, whether he had to renew his permit.
Monday, April 11, this same council therefore decided to leave it in its place, in front of the New York Stock Exchange, for another eleven months. The work escapes a little from power. Petitions were launched to preserve it, the artist Kristen Visbal who initially did not know that she was sculpting for an investment fund tried to recover her work, the investment fund took her to court, but copies have flourished everywhere.
Because whatever the law, politics, finance thinks, its message is universal. The fearless little girl is photographed every day because she reminds us that real equality between women and men has yet to be achieved, everywhere, not just in distant lands but in countries that want to be vanguard of the fight for equality.