Decolonise Your Vagina

Twenty years ago, in my first cultural studies lecture at university, the professor had a diagram on the whiteboard showing an Eisenhower Matrix of race and gender. If you were white, you got a +; if you were male, you got a +; if you were Black, you got a -; if you were female, you got a -.

Now, I can’t quite remember the exact context in which he drew that diagram, but I was stunned, then angry, before my quick mind said—well, in maths, a double negative is a +, so Black women are the PLUS! So there! And I settled back into my lecture.

But the thing is, twenty years later, based on how society views us, he’s still correct. Malcolm X said, “The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman.” Today, we have higher death rates, we experience more violence, we earn the lowest pay, and so on. I watched an interview with Issa Rae where she said sometimes it feels like a conspiracy, and it really does.

As part of my New Methods process, and as a way to build my self-image and thus self-esteem, I’ve been on an intersectional race/sex/class journey—unpicking and understanding why things still are the way they are and what I can do about it.

And so today, my dear readers, I want to talk about Decolonising Your Vagina - a huge part of learning to love yourself for who you are.