statue

Hm. There are a lot of ways to read this statue, and not many of them good. So let's get right to it. Yes, it may be a female version of "The Thinker;" yes, if that's true then there's a linkage of women's intellectual labor to earth and matter and the labor of birth; yes, that linkage is, as they say, deeply problematic.

What really strikes me, though, is the gaze. Not my male gaze, but her backward gaze. At me. A gaze that asks, "Why are you watching me poop? This is a private moment. You are a pervert with a strange fetish for pooping statues. I'm a sculpture happily pooping near a historic Paduan cafe, the site of a student revolt in 1848. You're just another coprophiliac tourist with a blog and childish fascination with butts that says way more about you than about me. Who knows what you'll be tomorrow. At least I know I'll still be a pooping statue."