Women's groups hit out at UK plans to build statues of Victoria Cross winners

The scheme would also see memorials built, plaques put up, and roads and public buildings renamed in honour of the recipients of the George Cross (GC).

Announced on Sunday, the plan was put forward by a group of Conservative MPs calling themselves the “Common Sense Group”.

It has won the backing of two Tory Ministers, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick.

Dowden, who is in charge of preserving heritage, is planning to meet the group to take forward the plan, while Jenrick will be writing to councils to suggest they take it on board.

However, concerns have been raised that the plans will result in memorials for almost 2000 men, with very little female representation.

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The VC is the British military’s highest honour. It is given for valour "in the presence of the enemy". Of the 1355 people who have been handed the VC across its history, not one has been a woman. Three men have been given the award twice.

The GC is second only in prestige to the VC. It is awarded "for acts of the greatest heroism or for most conspicuous courage in circumstance of extreme danger". Of the 406 individuals who have been given a GC, just 11 are women.

Felicia Willow, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, the UK’s largest membership charity campaigning for gender equality, told The National the Tories’ plan “beggars belief”. She labelled the proposal “unsupportable” and called on the Government not to push it any further forward.

French-born British WW2 spy Odette Hallowes is one of fewer than a dozen women to have been awarded a GC

Alys Mumford, the chair of the Women 50:50 campaign group, said the plans seemed “misguided”. She argued that men and the military “are already hugely over-represented in our public spaces” and the Government would be better served commemorating those who have been “forgotten and ignored”.

Willow said: "The proposal to erect a statue to every person who has won a Victoria Cross (100% men) and George Cross (more than 97% men) in their birthplace is a slap in the face to those who have campaigned for years to get recognition for the extraordinary women who are yet to be honoured by a statue.

"Why does it take years of campaigning or fundraising to get statues of worthy women erected - people like Millicent Fawcett and Mary Wollstonecraft - while nearly 2000 more statues commemorating men are pushed forward by politicians and funded by the public purse? It simply beggars belief.”

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She went on: “These past few weeks we've seen a campaign for a statue of the ground-breaking fossil hunter Mary Anning in Lyme Regis gather enough private donations to commission, but it still needs more to cover the extra costs. Where is the political support for recognising Mary's contribution?

“This proposal is unsupportable and should not be taken any further forward."

Mumford told The National: "Men, and the military, are already hugely over-represented in our public spaces through monuments, plaques and place names. At a time when statues are being rightly scrutinised, and questions asked about how public memorials reflect our attitudes and beliefs as a society, these plans seem misguided.

“If local councils are minded to erect monuments to commemorate figures in history we would instead encourage them to consider commemorating some of the invisible, forgotten and ignored women in our nations’ past."

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “Celebrating the history of the places where we live and the men and women who shaped them builds a sense of pride in our communities. It is important that we recognise the diverse contributions of everyone who has shaped our nation. I look forward to discussing these ideas further with the [Common Sense] group.”