London: Oxford University is replacing portraits of famous men with gay, female and black icons to counter its ‘male, pale and stale’ image, it has been revealed. The portraits will cost £900 each and comes along with a sticker campaign with the words “next in the frame” around the world famous university asking staff and students to nominate suitable subjects by the end of this week.
In addition, colleges are redecorating dining and lecture halls with new pictures and photographs, including a portrait of the first female Anglican bishop, Libby Lane, The Sunday Times reported. The university said the first phase of its “Diversifying Portraiture” project, launched in 2014, involved collecting 250 existing portraits of people who had “challenged the stereotypes and preconceptions of their times” and putting them online.
It was now looking for suggestions for “fresh portraits of living figures connected to Oxford representing our diversity in gender, race, disability and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer) identity”. Stephen Goss, Oxford’s pro-vice-chancellor for personnel and equality, said these would be “displayed prominently at sites right across the university, reflecting the remarkable contributions made by so many individuals to modern Oxford’s culture of inclusion, equality and tolerance”.
“In my college, New College, there are portraits of men everywhere. While pictures are not the same as gender or race equality, I do not think this is trivial. If all you see are white men, white men, white men, it is very hard to believe that people in your society think you have a place in history,” feminist and author Naomi Wolf, who left Oxford in the 1980s, said.
