I thought you might have an interesting take on this.
Found your first 'thread' more interesting than the second.
I'm still thinking I hate it just on artistic merits related to form, juxtaposition, scale, proportion but I would like to see it in situ because maybe I am missing something.

"most memorials to men do not depict nudity at all."

Wait, what? The statue of David and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel spring to mind. I guess it is fair to say that recent polite art tends to shun male nudity, but that wasn't always the case. There is no shortage of male nudity in Renaissance art. Or Roman. Or Greek.

Still, women in her time/place were literally considered possessions of their fathers or husbands, with little or no rights. And women's bodies are clearly still objectified today. So I think on those grounds, you could argue that objectifying a nude female form in a statue recognizing Mary Wollstonecraft as a pioneer of women's rights is pretty ridiculous, without the spurious claim that men aren't portrayed nude.

The statue doesn't do anything for me, but I guess I'm probably not its intended audience. I suppose if it causes people to look at it and want to know more about the person and what she represents, then it succeeds on those grounds.

If it is indeed supposed to be a memorial of Wollstonecraft, I wonder why they made no attempt to make it actually look like her. There were a number of paintings of her made during her lifetime. So we do actually have a pretty good idea what she really looked like. Unlike, say, Cristopher Columbus (there were no paintings or sculptures made of him during his lifetime, and only a few very vague descriptions of his appearance in writing (we know he was blond), so all the paintings/drawings/statues of him are blind guesses as to his real appearance). Since we know what she looked like, why not make an actual statue of her, instead of this weird misguided approximation of generic everywoman?

@2- you make a very good point about verisimilitude... the Opie portrait is pretty stunning in depicting inherent dignity and intelligence, really well done. It is also quite flattering. so perhaps our sculptor was intimidated by it and shrank from the challenge.

@2 Clearly Wollstonecraft and David aren’t the same. I think that's an almost deliberate misreading of the line.

@2:

Certainly the examples you cite are realistically wrought representations of the male physique, but it does seem that nude depictions of actual once-living men, as opposed to mythological figures, are very rare. And therein lies, I think, the justification for this, which, as the statement makes clear, is apparently intentionally NOT the likeness of Wollstonecraft herself, but rather is a generic depiction more in the same guise as one of Plato's "idealized forms"; hence an "everywoman" and not a particular woman.

@4, Fair enough. I guess the examples I gave weren't real men, but idealized mythical figures.

I guess my poorly made point was that, (1) I don't really object to a nude female statue because its nude. The nudity itself doesn't bother me at all. But (2) I think it is problematic to make an objectifying female statue memorializing a woman who is most notable for being a pioneering feminist. Isn't one of the goals of feminism to eliminate female objectification? Maybe I'm totally off base and a shitty feminist. Or maybe I'm just used to seeing 18th century women clothed from neck to ankle, and a nude depiction is totally throwing me off.

For the record, I will also fully concede that I'm probably not the best critic of this piece. If the artist was a feminist woman, and other feminist women generally like this depiction of Wollstonecraft, then I fully support them. I feel like I'm mansplaining a little, and that is not my intent.

I vote for fewer monuments that are statues of people period, or even none sounds good. For the most part the result will be cheesy and/or have the air of crude idolatry (although I am kind of fond of all the giant heads around Mexico and some of the retro-futuristic/dystopian brutalist monuments that litter eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union).

I find it interesting that many people do not know Wollstonecraft up until now and it takes a bad sculpture to make her known to them.
Would she want herself depicted in this way?
Whenever I see this sculpture I see such poor choices made with scale. If the goop shape was smaller and the figure coming out of it gigantic suggesting "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" I would be ok with it but it I just see a Barbie stuck in a spray foam shape. Which is a sad statement to make because Vindication is not small it is a great acheivement this sculpture feels weak and is fails express greatness.

@9 - You beat me to a question I intended to pose: what would Mary Wollstonecraft herself have thought of this memorial to her. Methinks she would not be impressed.

To my layman's eye, its kitschiness and seeming objectification rob from the sober and dignified legacy of the woman it memorializes.

Glad the Brits take their art criticism so seriously.
So another sculptural tribute to a feminist icon is planned - this one to Virginia Wolff.
And it seems to have swung the pendulum back to a very safe, conventional style -
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/13/virginia-woolf-statue-fundraiser-flooded-with-donations-after-wollstonecraft-controversy

"Many people are calling bullshit on that statement and idea, pointing out most historical memorials to men do not depict nudity at all." True: "most" do not, but there was the embarrassment "George Washington Enthroned," which "many people" are either deliberately ignoring or, to their credit, are unaware of through wasting no time reading the silly books of Dan Brown where the statue of naked GW plays a role. (My own knowledge of it comes from Robert Hughes' American Visions)

@13 ....that statue is wild. Weird to see a ripped George Washington in a demigod-like pose. Wish I could scrub it from my eyes.

It looks like a statuette resting atop a statue. It looks silly. It doesn't evoke the reverence, marvel, and respect that a memorial should. It's like one of my daughter's toys protruding from a pile of her other stuff. The nudity hurts more than helps, given the "toy/statuette atop statue" configuration.