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Communicating Global Cultures
7ABLGC06
Assignment:
(may be abbreviated)
Critical commentary on a case study
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Dr. Clara Bradbury-Rance
Deadline:
17 August 2023
Date Submitted:
16 August 2023
Word Count:
3051
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What does the Vagina Museum’s ‘Muff Busters’ exhibi8on tell me about the rela8onship
between knowledge produc8on and the body?
“Myths and legends are for fairy tales”: Construc>ons of the body and bodies of
knowledge
This essay explores how and to what extent the Vagina Museum’s digi<sed
exhibi<on, ‘Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them’, challenges and complicates
the rela<onship between the ins<tu<onal order of knowledge produc<on in museums and
hegemonic ideologies about the body.
The Vagina Museum in London is directed by science communicator, comedian,
public speaker and writer Florence Schechter and is curated by Sarah Creed. Together they
posi<on it as “the world’s first bricks and mortar museum about the female reproduc<ve
system” (“Home”, 1); however, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic its physical
premises has temporarily closed, and their exhibi<on has since migrated online. But is it
hiXng the spot?
Muff Busters is split into five main categories: Anatomy and the Basics, Sex and
Pregnancy, Menstrua<on, Cleanliness, and Clitoris. Each seeks to challenge “unachievable
ideas of what is normal”, confront the “lack of informa<on and lack of relatable, accessible
examples of where the vagina is and what a vulva contains” and show the world that “myths
and legends are for fairy tales – not our bodies” (“Muff Busters Naviga<on”, 1). It is a
bricolage of ar<s<c expression and scien<fic discourse, feminist ac<vism and capitalist
venture, of material and digital spaces. There are mul<ple cri<cal paths we could inves<gate
– the contemporary and necessary shi_ toward the digital, debates around access, the
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centring of white bodies, or the commodifica<on of feminism, art and female bodies. For the
purposes of this essay, we will put queer and feminist thinkers including Susan Bordo, Carrie
Smith-Prei and Maria Stehle, Amy K. Levin and those featured in her collec<on Museums,
Sexuality, and Gender Ac8vism and cultural historians such as Laurence Gourievidis, in
conversa<on with the form, content and tone of Muff Busters to determine how successfully
the Vagina Museum rethinks, reimagines, and perhaps even queers the tradi<onal role of
the museum, in order to meet the contemporary needs of people with vaginas. As we
explore the exhibi<on, we must ask ourselves: what, how and to what extent do certain
tradi<ons, ideologies and discourses of the body get debunked? Whose perspec<ves and
interpreta<ons are privileged and whose remain marginalised? As we will uncover in this
essay, perhaps there is in fact, “no direct, innocent, or unconstructed knowledge of our
bodies; rather, we are always reading our bodies according to various interpre<ve schemes”
(Bordo, 289).
According to Laurence Gourievidis, who is responding to representa<ons of migra<on
and memory but whose observa<ons are useful to our understandings of museums as a
means of knowledge produc<on, museums’ “tradi<onal remit” is to “educate and inform
through their collec<ons and their interpreta<on”, usually asserted by white, colonialist, cis,
heterosexual men, and to therefore sustain “perceived status as sources of authority – as
sites of meaning-making and valida<on” (9). Historically, this so-called tradi<onal remit of
meaning-making has had the power to posi<on the male body as the anatomical standard,
while the female body is inscribed with narra<ves of secrecy and the unknown. This dates as
far back as fourth century B.C. Aristotle; from an<quity through to the Renaissance, trusted
physicians and field-defining thinkers presented the female body as a site of “reproduc<ve
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mystery” and asserted that female genital organs were "lesser" than male organs (“A History
of”, 1).
Why does this maier when considering our contemporary context? Because the
body is not merely “a biological arena” but an arena “shaped by the social and economic
organiza<on of human life and, o_en, brutalized by it” (Bordo, 33). In turn, one can infer
that the socio-poli<cal implica<ons of these supposedly scien<fic discourses about
male/female bodies con<nue to persist today – they help form the heteropatriarchal
backdrop of gender inequity in healthcare, gendered violence, binary ways of thinking about
iden<ty and insufficient sex educa<on in schools. This is further supported by Susan Bordo
who goes on to explain that the body, “is also, as anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu and
philosopher Michel Foucault (among others) have argued, a prac<cal, direct locus of social
control” (165). Museums have historically been direct contributors or mobilisers of such
social control, “used by authori<es and elites as a tool to serve and legi<mize ideological
purposes and programmes” (Gourievidis, 2) – in this case the dismissal and mys<fica<on of
female anatomy in scien<fic, cultural and social spheres. However, we must also recognise
that museums now have the poten<al to “contest, challenge or reposi<on (de-centre)
dominant interpreta<ons and as a means of gaining recogni<on” (Gourievidis, 2).
Fulfilling this poten<al is exactly what Florence Schechter and Sarah Creed are
aiemp<ng to do with the Vagina Museum’s Muff Busters exhibi<on. By addressing taboo
topics and commonplace myths like “if you use a tampon, you’re no longer a virgin” or
periods are “dirty” (“Menstrua<on”, 1-2), the exhibi<on not only contests, challenges and
decentres dominant interpreta<ons as described by Gourievidis (2), but also seeks to create
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en<rely new ones. Through constella<ons of artwork, anatomical diagrams and wriien text
with feminist undertones, it too becomes an authorita<ve site of meaning-making. Visitors
are both informed and reassured by alterna<ve facts such as, “the idea of virginity has been
made by society, not science” and “a big reason society has grown to believe the vagina is
smelly and dirty is due to the ever-growing feminine hygiene industry” (“Menstrua<on”, 12). Frequent references to the damaging role of commerce, the media and social norms
bring the exhibi<on’s feminist tone to the fore and again expose the stark reality that
“culture’s grip on the body is a constant, in<mate fact of everyday life” (Bordo, 17). While
the Vagina Museum too is a part of “culture’s grip”, culture in the context we’re discussing it
has two aspects: “the known meanings and direc<ons, which its members are trained to;
and the new observa<ons and meanings, which are offered and tested” (Williams, 22). The
former is the museum’s “tradi<onal remit” (Gourievidis, 9), the laier being the more
imagina<ve, experimental, even experien<al mode of knowledge produc<on as
demonstrated by the Vagina Museum.
The exhibi<on’s effort to offer trans-inclusive observa<ons and meanings should also
be commended as a way of transforming the role of knowledge produc<on in museums. As
Alice K. Levin tells us in her collec<on, Museums, Sexuality, and Gender Ac8vism, individuals
who iden<fy as LGBTQ+ or nonbinary have been largely invisible in museums and
curatorship o_en remains implicitly heteronorma<ve (7). The Muff Busters’ curator seeks to
change this through small but refreshing acts of solidarity such as favouring trans-inclusive
language, “people with vaginas”, and urging visitors to be “inclusive of all genders”
(“Anatomy and the Basics”, 2). More explicitly than that, one of the very first hegemonic
falsehoods to be presented then busted is, “if you have a vagina, you are a woman”
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(“Anatomy and the Basics”, 2). The text that follows, “gender is a social construct that refers
to things like social norms, behaviours, and expressions”, decentres essen<alist claims that
gender reflects a natural and biological difference between men and women (Rivkin and
Ryan, 766), and instead echoes a rather Butlerian view of gender: “gender is constructed
through rela<ons of power and, specifically, norma<ve constraints” (Butler, IX). The choice to
educate and advocate a construc<onist view of gender both renders the body more complex
than the binary systems we have been taught to be truths and rethinks and reshapes the
idea that museums are ins<tu<onalised spaces where “texts (panels, signs, labels, and
catalogues in print and digital formats) serve as lenses for audiences, reproducing and
magnifying mainstream aXtudes toward nonbinary gender and sexuality, policing and
disciplining unruly bodies” (Levin, 9). Instead of “policing” and “disciplining” non-norma<ve
bodies (emphasis added), the Vagina Museum is arguably represen8ng and libera8ng them.
We could even go as far as to claim that this exhibi<on is queering both the
construc<on of the body and the construc<on of knowledge in museums. Broadly speaking,
queer describes the “destabilisa<on of allegedly stable rela<ons between chromosomal sex,
gender and sexual desire” (Jagose, 3). It is possible from our discussion thus far that one
myth, or rather one muff, at a <me the Vagina Museum is doing exactly this – destabilising
outdated no<ons of sex, gender and sexual desire. The term queer itself fiXngly reflects the
possibility of transforming historical meanings and structures, namely in its shi_ from being
a pejora<ve word used to vic<mise people, to a posi<ve appella<on reformed and reclaimed
by queer communi<es in the 1980s. For many, queering remains a way of “reconstruc<ng
and – maybe more importantly – retelling stories in a more inclusive way.” (Rensma et al.,
279).
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Our queer interpreta<on of the Muff Busters exhibi<on is also likely to be supported
by many other authors featured in Levin’s collec<on, who show us that queering museums is
a task that does not need to be limited to LGBTQ+ representa<on:
“Rather it can be seen as a way to ques<on, disturb, and disrupt the status quo, a
way to refresh what we do and say within our museums, and a way to ensure that
these great organiza<ons are as representa<ve and relevant to the popula<ons they
serve as possible” (Smith, 77).
Museums no longer need to be stuffy, eli<st, exclusionary and saturated by the past. It is not
just about refreshing what we do and say within our museums, but rather how we do and
say it. The convivial tone of the Muff Busters exhibi<on proves this, and significantly
contributes to its ability to “ques<on, disturb and disrupt the status quo” (Smith, 77). As
argued by Carrie Smith-Prei and Maria Stehle, who lean on Jasbir Puar to frame their ideas,
conviviality offers a useful way in; it is a method of moving away from thinking about
sexuality, gender, race, and feminism in terms of iden<ty poli<cs and, instead, helps us to
think of social and poli<cal cri<ques as “events” or “encounters” (206). In fact, the Vagina
Museum’s incep<on was through community-building and comedy events, with its first
fundraiser held in 2017 headlined by comedian Hayley Ellis (Dawson). By embedding word
play into the exhibi<on <tle, comically delivering frank yet sage advice “don’t put Coke in
your vagina!” (“Sex and Pregnancy”, 2) and displaying giant gliiery tampon sculptures
(“Menstrua<on”, 2), the Muff Busters exhibi<on makes the otherwise taboo topic of the
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body feel more social and accessible, which again enables it to combat the historical idea
that female anatomies should be bound by secrecy and mys<fica<on.
While there is clearly a great deal to be celebrated in the way the Muff Busters
exhibi<on rethinks, reimagines and queers the rela<onship between the museum and the
body through convivial, crea<ve and trans-inclusive language, we cannot ignore the
tensions, complexi<es and contradic<ons <ed up in its digital presenta<on and the collec<on
and dissemina<on of knowledge.
By predominantly featuring photographs taken of the anatomical diagrams and
artwork displayed at the museum’s physical site in London (before it closed due to COVID19), not all the content on show can be picked up by a screen reader. As advised within
important resources such as the Shape Arts How to Put on an Accessible Exhibi8on guide,
curators who are showcasing work online should alt text any images of work, or provide a
descrip<on of them (“Shape Arts”, 1). There are mul<ple other resources available dedicated
to designing for and with disabled people and yet by doing neither, the curator of Muff
Busters has not accounted for people who are blind or have limited vision, for example. This
ul<mately excludes them from key sources of knowledge such as the clitoral anatomy
diagram (“Clitoris”, 2) and ar<s<c visualisa<ons of what vaginal discharge can do to your
underwear (“Cleanliness”, 3-4). Similar conclusions can be drawn about interna<onal visitors
who rely on built-in web translators to present online exhibi<ons in their own language. For
a website that claims to be “a vital resource in a world of shame and s<gma” with “worldfamous exhibi<ons and events” (“Home”, 1), there are a surprising number of references to
the globe without any real considera<on for global audiences. This raises an important
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ques<on asked by Smith-Prei and Stehle: “How do we understand the digital as
simultaneously so widely and openly accessible but also so exclusive and divisive?” (204).
While not all ques<ons can be answered as eloquently as they are posed, this is the kind of
cri<cal thinking that Sarah Creed, Florence Schechter and others should apply to current and
future digital exhibi<ons. By determining the posi<ons of privilege from which we display
and disseminate knowledge, we can become more conscious of which kinds of bodies get
represented and included, and which have the poten<al to be excluded. It is true, a_er all,
that “privilege can nurture blindness to those without the same privileges” (Mohanty, 508).
Privilege can also lead to certain people and perspec<ves being ac<vely favoured in
processes of gathering and wri<ng content over those which are less ‘norma<ve’ and
therefore more likely to be marginalised or ignored. One must ask: were any queer folk
consulted as part of this exhibi<on’s cura<on? Perhaps even the Vagina Museum can’t
escape the fact that, “for too long, informa<on, ideas, and interpreta<on have all come in
the form of a monologue rather than a dialogue. Because the former is so ingrained in our
educa<onal systems – whatever the venue” (Adair, 288). Despite its efforts to turn the dial
on the rela<onship between the body and educa<onal ins<tu<ons, it could be argued that
the Vagina Museum fails to truly showcase a dialogue with queer voices. It claims to act as a
forum for feminism, women’s rights, the LGBTQ+ community and the intersex community
(“About”), but where are their stories and contribu<ons? Where does it explain how
informa<on, ideas and interpreta<ons are gathered? It promises to challenge
heteronorma<ve and cisnorma<ve behaviour (“About”, 1), but where are the narra<ves of
queer sex, rela<onships and sexual pleasure?
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It is therefore possible that the Vagina Museum is complicit in Levin’s earlier
asser<on that curatorship remains implicitly heteronorma<ve – perhaps because, “even
when museums aiempt to be more inclusive, they fail because of the overwhelming
presence of tradi<onal structures and assump<ons” (7). Within the Muff Busters exhibi<on,
this is best demonstrated by the ‘Clitoris’ and the ‘Sex and Pregnancy’ sec<ons. The only real
myth to get debunked in the former is, “the clitoris is hard to find” (1). When the
accompanying text does finally reference sex and sexual pleasure, it does so rather
problema<cally by only covering penetra<ve sex while outer clitoral s<mula<on goes
unmen<oned: “The internal clitoris is made of erec<le <ssue that swells with blood during
sexual arousal – its expansion can cause pressure to the external wall of the vagina, which
can contribute to pleasure during penetra<ve sex” (2). In a similar vein, from its very <tle the
Sex and Pregnancy segment signifies a rela<onship between the two. Its content only adopts
a procrea<ve, penetra<ve, and therefore heteronorma<ve model of sex, the kind of sex that
one will find at the centre of Gayle Rubin’s charmed circle. Rubin’s charmed circle highlights
how certain sexual rela<ons (monogamous, married, procrea<ve), are structurally, socially,
economically and poli<cally deemed normal, natural and blessed (152). By primarily limi<ng
its content to this model of sex, the Muff Busters exhibi<on is arguably limi<ng its ability to
authen<cally airact, include and represent pleasure-seekers and LGBTQ+ communi<es.
The Sex and Pregnancy sec<on does however successfully bust a mul<tude of
ques<onable myths around contracep<on and in turn champions the second-wave feminist
no<on that the personal is poli<cal, “what, a_er all, is more personal than the life of the
body?” (Bordo, 17). Yet the topic of contracep<on s<ll arguably centres heteronorma<ve
sex. The facts and falsehoods it shares around preventa<ve measures not only interrupt our
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focus on female anatomy with phallocentric references – “penises”, “ejacula<on”, “sperm”,
“penis in vagina intercourse” (“Sex and Pregnancy”, 1) – but also reinstate binary ways of
thinking. As argued by key feminist thinkers such as Audre Lorde, the exclusion of queer folk
(and other minori<sed groups) from earlier waves of feminism s<ll lingers. There is a
tendency to homogenise people’s experiences in the name of unity (Lorde, 118); in other
words, the Vagina Museum aims to unite people with vaginas and arm them with the
knowledge to “fight myths” (“Muff Busters Naviga<on”, 1), but in doing so assumes
regularity in their needs and experiences. Had the Vagina Museum lived up to the values
outlined in its mission statement (“About”, 1) by plaworming inclusive feminism and crea<ng
an effec<ve forum for dialogue with LGBTQ+ and intersex communi<es, the curators of Muff
Busters may have had the knowledge, courage and convic<on to educate a wider breadth of
taboos and bust a more inclusive myriad of myths. How about discussing masturba<on,
orgasms, queer sex and sex toys, for example?
It’s o_en true however, that in queer and feminist endeavours which seek to ignite
posi<ve change, one or more bailes must be set aside in order to have a figh<ng chance
with another. This is demonstrated by the very fact that our case study is called The Vagina
Museum, despite the scien<fically accurate term being vulva not vagina. When projects like
the Muff Busters exhibi<on aiempt to oppose societal norms, there is a tempta<on to focus
so much its apparent absences and shorwalls that they eclipse its achievements and
poten<al for growth. Instead, let us consider that, “if queer is in opposi<on to the norm, and
we accept that societal norms are in constant flux, then any opposi<on will also be in a
constant state of transi<on” (Smith, 77). In other words, the Vagina Museum is in a constant
state of transi<on; from the material world to the digital, from the tradi<onal to new,
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crea<ve and imagina<ve modes of knowledge produc<on. Could we ever consider queering
the museum complete? (Rensma, 285).
Throughout this essay we have demonstrated that there is no straighworward path to
success; in the rela<onship between knowledge produc<on and the body exists tensions,
entanglements and problema<c exclusions, par<cularly to the detriment of LGBTQ+
communi<es. We have however shown that through its scien<fic yet crea<ve and convivial
presenta<on of alterna<ve facts about the body, the Muff Busters exhibi<on effec<vely
shakes up historical, hegemonic means of knowledge produc<on and educates, empowers
and enlightens people about the otherwise untouched topic of vaginas. This does not,
however, make the exhibi<on immune to the dominance of heteronorma<ve, exclusionary
structures, nor does it mean its curators are uninfluenced by their own iden<<es, privileges
and perspec<ves. No site of knowledge produc<on exists in a vacuum.
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Works cited
“A History of Female Anatomy”. Stanford EDU,
web.stanford.edu/class/history13/earlysciencelab/body/femalebodypages/femalean
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“About”. Vagina Museum. www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/about/story.
“Anatomy and the Basics”. “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them”. Vagina
Museum, www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/muyusters/1b-genderandsex.
“Cleanliness”. “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them”. Vagina Museum,
www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/muOusters/4c-discharge.
“Clitoris”. “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them”. Vagina Museum,
www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/muOusters/5b-clitoraldiagram.
“Home”. Vagina Museum. www.vaginamuseum.co.uk.
“Menstrua<on”. “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them”. Vagina Museum,
www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/muOusters/3a-tampon.
“Muff Busters Naviga<on”. “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them”. Vagina
Museum, www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/muyusters/naviga<on.
“Sex and Pregnancy”. “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them”. Vagina
Museum, www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/muyusters/2a-cantgetpregnan<f.
“Shape Arts”. How to Put on an Accessible Exhibi8on. Shape Arts,
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