Vagina Museum founder Florence Schechter on body politics, teasing trolls and millennia of marginalisation

Pussy riot: Museum founder Florence Schechter
Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd

Ask Florence Schechter why she is opening the world’s first bricks-and-mortar vagina museum in Camden Market — naturally — and she will not miss a beat. “Why not?” she shrugs, evenly. “I discovered there’s a penis museum in Iceland, but no vagina equivalent anywhere in the world. And I thought that was bulls***.”

So Schechter did not fanny around. She spent six months workshopping the idea with “people from museums, medical people, random people I knew, saying, ‘Do you think this is something you’d visit?’” She drew up a plan, pitched successfully to some trustees and registered as a charity. “And here we are.”

Here we are indeed: sitting inside the museum, an airy Grade II-listed site in the Stables, on a drizzly autumn day. It opens to the public on Saturday, with its inaugural (free) exhibition, Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How to Fight Them. While none of the artefacts will be “super-old or precious, because you need to have temperature control, humidity control”, examples of potential props include menstrual cups and artworks. There’ll also be a programme of events on many evenings — including Bajingo Bingo next Monday (“Have you ever wished you could play bingo and learn about the world’s most misunderstood body part?”), and a monthly “cliterature” book club, and the premises has a small bar. “If you’re coming to a play about abortion, sometimes it’s nice to have a glass of wine to help it go down easier.”

Despite Schechter’s breeziness, inevitably the news that a vagina museum was coming to town has raised certain fairly predictable reactions from certain fairly predictable cohorts; a Venn of prudes, trolls and misogynists. “We’ve got a fair amount of backlash, but I think it’s probably only 10 per cent of the reactions we’ve got,” Schechter shrugs. “A minority.” She convinces the “morality brigade” by arguing for the importance of destigmatising vaginas in order to tackle gynaecological cancers. Trolls — the museum has almost 31,000 followers on Twitter — are also easy to detoxify. “What you need to do is get in on the joke with them.” Easy, since they’re not very unimaginative. “‘I thought there already was a vagina museum — it’s called the House of Commons.’ We get that one all the time.” L-O-L. There have also been clashes with a few people who contest the museum’s trans-inclusive stance. “I’m happy to have a conversation if they want to come in.”

In the last few years, the body in all its fleshy glory has become the cornerstone of a new fourth wave of feminism, — or as Schechter puts it, “vaginas are definitely having a moment”. Books such as Period, by the BBC presenter Emma Barnett, and Vagina: A Re-education, by journalist Lynn Enright, both published this year, have taken discourse about female anatomy from the margins into the mainstream, destigmatising and consequently prioritising the conversations. “I think it’s been brewing for a few years now, and then I think Harvey Weinstein was the cultural trigger that turned fourth wave into something that was going to happen into something that is happening,” Schechter agrees. “I think one of the things that it’s concerned about is the body, how it’s represented, how we’re looking after it.”

Femtech — software and products that focus on women’s health, from breast pumps to pelvic floor trainers to organic tampons — is expected to be worth £39 billion by 2025, which, admittedly, might be more to do with the mercenary savviness of investors than fourth-wave feminism, but has had some impact in driving conversations (and money) towards female health. And activists such as Jameela Jamil and Lizzo — two of Schechter’s dream patrons — have amplified conversations about body positivity online. “Body positivity is what we’re all about.”

Still, there’s millennia of marginalisation to overturn here; a museum is a potent symbol. “Museums are used by society to showcase what they think is important,” Schechter observes. “We have museums set up to our most important artists to set the art canon, museums to tell the official history of our nation. Communities use museums to inform their cultural identity and I think a vagina museum is important because that’s then us as a community making this official statement, ‘Hey, this is something we think is important.’” Well put. The team will be launching a podcast, too, and the dream is to “have a big permanent collection and exhibitions on everything from science to culture to history.”

Schechter hopes school parties will be some of the first through the doors. “The first exhibition is going to be about vagina myths, so it’s good for kids and teenagers.” Frankly, it would take a fairly robust teacher to lead a scrum of teenagers into a vagina museum, but Schechter is more than up to the task of tour guide (besides her, there are two full-time members of staff and 40 volunteers who’ll play front of house). She is “unembarrassable” — “I was a healthcare assistant for four years so I’ve seen a lot of fannies in my life” — plus her background in “science communication” (namely documentaries and podcasts) and a degree in biochemistry means she also speaks fluently and eloquently on the science part — and has become used to being introduced at parties as “vagina museum lady”. Watercooler conversation in the office skews gynaecologically, “but we have regular office chats, too”.

Inevitably, saying vagina or vulva countless times in a meeting comes with her territory — though Schechter has been “surprised” by others who have taken it in their stride. On the day we meet, she has spent the morning “with our solicitors and a policeman, who were checking out our premises licence. I was surrounded by older men, and they were all just saying the word ‘vagina’ really casually, which was interesting — because older men is one of the demographics that I was sure we were never going to be able to engage. It was really weird to hear them be super-cool.” All the traders in the Market are “really excited” about the new kids on the block. “All the security guards think we’re hilarious.”

So, who would she like to cut the ribbon for the opening ceremony? “Helen O’Connell, an Australian surgeon who did the first scientific study on the clitoris. I really like her.”

The Vagina Museum is at Unit 17 & 18 Stables Market, Chalk Farm Rd, London NW1 8AH, vaginamuseum.co.uk

The Vagina Museum in Camden Market - in pictures

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