Time to find Welsh Idols from the Land of Our Mothers

Mar 3 2008 Carolyn Hitt, Western Mail

WHEN will Wales be a land fit for heroines? Just when I’d stopped ranting about Catherine Zeta-Jones being the only woman in the top 20 of Wales’ 100 Heroes, they do it again. Another one of those lists that scours two millennia of Welsh history for a definitive list of Cymric icons and the only female they can come up with is Katherine Jenkins.

No offence to Katherine, of course. Lovely girl, good ambassador, very impressive crossover classical sales. But why couldn’t the National Assembly’s shortlist of Welsh Idols – voted for by the public – include any other notable Welsh woman?

We make up 50% of the population, but scrape just 10% of the vote. As usual, in the Land of Our Fathers, the Land of Our Mothers doesn’t get a look in.

The National Assembly says its Welsh Idol project is “designed to highlight the importance of voting to the Welsh public.” But is this really the way to get the nation to grips with the meaning of suffrage?

Politics doesn’t come into it. As far as most folk are concerned in these text-vote/phone poll/interactive red-button/ OK!-magazine reading times, the failure of the democratic process is what happened when Rhydian got robbed on X Factor.

Hence the celebrity-tinged choice of icons on the shortlist. And just like those all-time album lists that feature half the previous week’s Top 40, Welsh Idols includes those whose claim to fame is very recent. It has been criticised for its reliance on modern celebs and sports stars.

Cultural historian Peter Stead said, “It’s not a bad team by any means. But it just shows that, as a nation, we are totally fascinated by popular culture and entertainment.”

But even when we go showbiz, it’s always bloke showbiz. So there’s Tom on the list but no Shirley, Strictly Come Dancing Gethin but no I’m A Celebrity Cerys. As for sport there’s Ryan Giggs, James Hook and Joe Calzaghe but no room for world-beating women like Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and Nicole Cooke.

Yet it’s not entirely about men of the moment. Hywel Dda gets in there and it’s not as if he’s been attempting a triple axel on Dancing On Ice lately. Which makes the lack of women even more frustrating. They’re knowledgeable enough to vote for a chap whose celebrity rests on ruling Deheubarth, minting his own coinage and developing the Welsh legal system in the 10th century but they can only come up with one famous female from the past 2,000 years.

They do exist. Dig them out of the history books – the likes of hymn writer Ann Griffiths; “mother of the coal industry” Lucy Thomas; preacher, poet, mariner and editor, Cranogwen; industrialist and novelist Amy Dillwyn; the “Welsh Florence Nightingale” Beti Cadwalladr; suffragette and journalist Margaret Haig Mackworth; pioneering politician Megan Lloyd George, and campaigner Elizabeth Andrews.

Or consider our living lady legends: actress Siân Phillips, starring on Broadway this spring in her 70s; Elaine Morgan, ground-breaking television screen writer, columnist and the woman who pointed out evolution’s female dimension; award-winning poet Gwyneth Lewis, Grammy-winning opera star Rebecca Evans and bard Mererid Hopwood.

“Welsh women are culturally invisible,” wrote Prof Deirdre Beddoe in her seminal 1986 essay, Images of Welsh Women. More than 20 years later it’s a statement that still seems to hold true. It’s ironic that the Welsh Idols list with its single female is a National Assembly project. Unlike Westminster, the Senedd has boasted an impressive gender balance since its inception.

But getting in touch with Wales’ feminine side can be difficult. Evidence of male achievement is all around us. Statues of industrialists, soldiers and statesmen loom in towns and cities in Wales. If a female is immortalised in bronze, however, she is usually a generic embodiment of Welsh Mam. The media doesn’t help. How many times do we watch Welsh TV documentaries and see the same old male faces voicing their opinions.

Welsh Idols could just be an example of list-fatigue, of course. Popular culture is driven by mass interactivity and the need to arrange famous people into top 10s. Decisions are never left to experts, the people will always decide and Heat magazine will increasingly have more influence than the history books. There is a plus. The only thing about lists is the way they provoke debate about who’s left out rather than in.

So the public have spoken and we must abide by their decision. They’ve done it in Ireland for Eurovision and now Dustin the Turkey will be carrying the hopes of a nation. The question is, when is Wales ever going to get past the token bird stage?