A museum dedicated to vaginas and vulvas opened its doors in the north of London last year. It is the world’s first. The museum hopes to help destigmatize this part of the female body and debunk myths around it.
A museum dedicated to vaginas and vulvas opened its doors in the north of London last year. It is the world’s first. The museum hopes to help destigmatize this part of the female body and debunk myths around it.
The Museum’s first event, a comedy fundraiser, was held on 19 May 2017 headlined by Hayley Ellis. It has run a number of events since, including participating in a residency with The Mothership Group called Super culture.
Events as part of this residency have included a talk on “Vulvanomics” by Emma L. E. Rees, author of The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History, and a screening of the film Teeth followed by a Q&A with Amanda DiGioia, the author of Childbirth and Parenting in Horror Texts:
The Marginalized and the Monstrous and various comedy nights. They have also done events at Limmud Festival 2017 and the Royal Institution. The first exhibition took place in August 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Its second pop up exhibition was called “Is Your Vagina Normal?, and it traveled around the UK to Ancient House, Thetford, Brainchild Festival 2018, SQIFF 2018, and Museums Association Conference 2018. In the 2017 Women of the Future Awards, Schechter was commended in the arts and culture category for her work with the Vagina Museum. https://youtu.be/2KYKBjdWeeQ
On 21 March 2019, the Vagina Museum launched a crowd-funder to raise money to open premises in Camden Market. The founder and Director of the vagina museum said the challenge is not only to educate and improve self-image, but it is also a question about public health.
“I think the worst myth for me is that they are dirty and they need to be cleaned, and I think this is just going to be shampooed for having normal natural bodies.
The vagina and the vulva are not dirty parts of the body, they are self-cleaning and the idea that they are dirty is just another way of the patriarchy reasserting itself”, Schechter said.
The museum is also keen to dispel myths about the billion-dollar feminine hygiene industry, showcasing a box of products including lightening creams, tightening gels, and virginity soap, purported to create an “ideal vagina.”
Curators say the museum is only opened for educational purposes. It has not yet been opened to the public, but events have already been organized, attracting people from 2 to 98 years.
