It's a curious thing when you start to think about it.
We are fairly well blessed with sons of our town who have gone on to do wonderful things. And it's quite right that we continue to appreciate the significant things they have contributed.
Gustav Holst for example is rightly honoured with a statue in Imperial Gardens. Another favourite Cheltonian Edward Wilson is immortalised in a statue in the Promenade.
We have statues to honour royalty too with William IV commemorated in a statue in Montpellier Gardens and the Drew Fountain in honour of Edward VII in Montpellier.
The ornate lamp on Lansdown Road is called the Gordon Lamp in tribute to General Gordon.
One of the most poignant statues is the Boer War statue on the Promenade, in memory of the men who lost their lives in that conflict.
And another of my favourites is the possibly iconic Neptunes Fountain.
However, there is a bit of a theme going on, we don't seem to have had the time, money or inclination to commission works of art to celebrate the wonderful women of our town.
Even the bronze figure adorning the 'plug hole' of the Flood Alleviation Scheme at Sandford Park is called the 'Weathered Man'.
Yet there are women who have lived in Cheltenham and have achieved great things either individually or collectively. You wouldn't know this though if you wandered around the town.
There is a distinctly patriarchal flavour to our public art. Why do I think this is important? Society is still fairly sexist, measuring a woman's worth in how she looks rather than what she is saying or what she has achieved.
Leaving the achievement of women out of the narrative of the art we have in our public spaces is just a little symptom of this. An oversight borne of habit I think. But one that we should challenge if anything to remind ourselves of just how wonderful women are, for all sort of reasons.
I am starting a #WhereAreTheWomen campaign to encourage the towns civic guardians including the Public Art Panel to think about celebrating the individual achievements of notable women associated with the town.
There are often opportunities from section 106 money associated with development to provide new works of art for the town. Also pieces have been bought by public subscription so there are ways of funding this which are not reliant on council tax payers.
Women like Dorothea Beale and Rowena Cade who spent time living in our town were both amazing people who achieved amazing things.
Dorothea Beale was an educator and suffragist best known possibly as a Principle of Cheltenham Ladies College and founder of St Hilda's College, Oxford.
Rowena Cade was born in Derbyshire but lived at Ellerslie House in Pittville with her family for a number of years before moving to Cornwall. Rowena built in my opinion one of the wonders of the modern world, the Minack Theatre at the headland looking over Porthcurno.
There are other local women too from all walks of life who either individually or collectively have achieved great things.
When I think about the many voluntary and community groups around the town, an awful lot of them have quiet and resourceful women at the helm who have moved heaven and earth to make our town better.
So here's my challenge.
Do you think the achievement of the women in our town should be celebrated in some of the pieces of public art around the town?
Where are the existing statues and works of public art which celebrate either notable women or the collective achievements of women in our town? Apart from the Hare in the Hare and the Minotaur which seems to have a female form I can't think of any.
If there are any please let me know so I can help raise awareness of them.
Can you suggest any notable women from the town whose achievements could be commemorated in some way by a new work of public art? It doesn't have to be a statue of them but something that shows why they and the things they have done for the town or wider society are worth celebrating.
