WHEN I saw on social media that a pair of splayed legs had appeared on the gates of my local park, at first I was sure it must be a mistake. It surely couldn’t be my local park, I thought, because that park doesn’t even have gates, does it?

In all the years I’ve spent walking, running and lounging in that little park, I’d never paid attention to the gates because they are never closed. It’s the last remaining trace of the fabled Glasgow Garden Festival of 1988, and while it’s not quite the hidden gem it used to be – the pond has dried up and the heron departed – it’s still treasured by the small number of locals who use it morning, noon and night.

Last week, the gates were half-closed: all the better to show off the crudely rendered appendages attached to them. Even if my hackles had not already been raised by the dubious nature of the art, I would have been peeved to see this.

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Public parks are for everyone, and this gave the appearance that access might be restricted or the park might be being used for a special event. No explanatory information was provided about the artwork; not so much as QR code to help explain that it was part of an intervention called “A Safari of Sorts”. Perhaps this was just as well, given subsequent revelations about the artist’s intentions.

But the half-closure of the gates troubled me. It struck me how easily someone with ill intent could pull the other gate closed behind him, and push the two drop bolts into holes in the ground. Exit points matter. They particularly matter to women using public parks.

These thoughts were particularly on my mind because earlier this year a man appeared in court charged with raping an 18-year-old woman in the park. Astonishingly, it has emerged that the artist behind the work was aware of this when she decided that a depiction of spread legs was suitable for this site-specific installation. Rakel McMahon says she carried out “research on the area especially looking at safety for women”.

Questioned on Instagram about the thinking behind the art, she said she was aware that “it might be interpretet (sic) as sexist” but that it aimed to challenge assumptions. “The work is two legs in high heels, are they female?” she wrote “I feel the work touches upon the discourse on victim-blaming in sexual harassment as well as giving the park area a feminine vibe that these green areas need.”

Sorry, what?

Leaving aside the question of whether this piece adds to “the discourse” in any useful way, why on earth would a public park need to be given a “feminine vibe”? What is so unfeminine about the grass, the trees, the birds and the insects? Is the sky masculine? Are the park benches? Gies peace.

Given the near-infinite range of settings in which women are subjected to sexual harassment, how about giving us a chance to avoid “touching upon the discourse” for a few minutes while taking a gentle stroll, going for an invigorating jog or having a sit down on a bench with a book?

Male interests and concerns might currently be steering the “feminism” of some misguided individuals, but I will dare to propose that few members of the park-going public in Cessnock would have looked at a pair of spread legs, framing an ellipse-shaped hole in the gate’s metalwork, and thought “I really must question my assumptions about gender”. Instead many rightly asked “why on earth was someone allowed to attach this rapey art installation to the gates of a public park?”

The answer, it turns out, was that they weren’t. Glasgow City Council says it was unaware of the art “safari” and did not give permission for its park to host it. Soon after local councillors were made aware of objections to McMahon’s piece, it was removed.

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Ltd Ink Corporation, the arts organisation behind it, still features a picture of the installation on its Instagram account and has ignored comments asking questions about it. The group’s website notes that because it is privately funded, it can “take more risks” while promising to “engage with the public in a personal and intimate manner”.

I’d be failing to challenge my own assumptions if I mentioned that at least four of the six people running it have male names, but I must say I’m not looking forward to the next time they decide to take risks by engaging with me and my neighbours in an intimate manner.

I expect they are making some assumptions of their own – for example, that anyone who objected to this particular artwork is a greetin-faced philistine who doesn’t deserve a response from the edgy, risky, predominantly male gate-keepers of contemporary art.

But wouldn’t “the discourse” benefit if this stooshie was used as the jumping-off point for a conversation about sexual harassment and public space? Or indeed about artistic freedoms vs the constraints of bureaucratic box-ticking? I’d certainly be interested to hear it. The question is, do those who commissioned the piece have the balls to publicly defend it?