Notices by Vagina Museum (vagina_museum@masto.ai)

Pubic Service Announcement

The Vagina Museum is trans inclusive. Always has been, always will be.

Today the new EHRC Code of Practice comes into effect. Let us be clear, the guidance changes nothing about how we operate. The Vagina Museum is free and open to all and we have one accessible bathroom, part of the Tower Hamlets Community Toilet Scheme, that anyone can use.

The Museum is free and open to all, five days a week at 275 - 276 Poster Street, Bethnal Green.

https://www.vaginamuseum.co.uk/

📢 Public Cervix Announcement 📢

We got hacked today! If you received an email from info(at)vaginamuseum today with an invite to a networking event, please ignore. It has been reported and security measures have been taken.

We apologise for any confusion caused.

On this day in 1969 a man walked on the moon. Meanwhile, you couldn't buy adhesive menstrual pads in a shop because they didn't go on sale until later that year.

What’s your Kegel Face?

Our Pelvic Appeal is well and truly underway, and we are keen to encourage and challenge you to learn more about your pelvic floor. See our last post about how to find the muscles we’re talking about.

Have you been doing your pelvic floor exercises*?

💪 Squeeze and hold for 4 seconds, then relax for 4 seconds. Repeat 10 times. As you get stronger, gradually build up to 10 second holds.
⭐ Then do 10 quick squeezes.
🔁 Do a few times a day!

Presenting: A masterthread of our spotlights on old-timey patents for weird objects that interface with vaginas. We regret to inform you we'll probably update it occasionally.

So thank you, Madison Vedder, for inventing a product which nobody asked for and sounds uncomfortable af. We cannot be certain of your gender. But we can say we're glad that your doohickey never went into mass production.

We will also note that there does not appear to be a ready way of emptying the pee-pouch without disassembling the entire gadget, so you're probably walking around with a bag of piss smacking the back of your leg until you're home.

Madison Vedder specifically describes the purpose of the wee pouch as "for the reception of urine in traveling or under other circumstances in which it is diflicult to find a suitable place or opportunity to urinate". i.e. exactly the purpose of the bourdaloue, but in the era of public loos.

You may now be wondering where the pouch of wee is supposed to go. Vedder informs us it "sit[s] against the back part of the leg in walking, or to be suspended over the edge of a seat in sitting down". Just what you need on a long train journey or a brisk walk in the park.

This is an alarmingly piss-focused thread for a summary of an old-timey menstrual product, but it's time to talk about piss yet again. See the little bag in the diagram, attached to the gravy boat? That's for pee. And according to the patent documentation, not as a medical aid.

Bourdaloues were widely used in the Georgian and Victorian eras because there weren't really many other places for women to pee. It was a useful portable object to take to the theatre or whip out when the ladies all retired to the drawing room after dinner to relieve yourself.

In short, the form of the bourdaloue was not just not innovative by 1935, it was downright old-fashioned. It also wasn't especially novel to use this shape for a menstrual product - many patents before Madison Vedder's use that shape because it's kind of ergonomic around the vulva.

And this brings us on to reason the second that we suspect Madison Vedder was probably a man: this object doesn't really seem to be designed with comfort or an understanding of how women live in mind.

Reason the first that we suspect Madison Vedder was probably a man: this is a classic example of presenting an object with which women had interacted for centuries as something new, novel, and had not existed until this patent was filed. With an air of supreme confidence in this assertion.

See the little gravy boat shape between the thighs? This shape is almost identical to an object called a bourdaloue, which was used in the 18th and 19th centuries to pee in. Here's a 1760s painting by François Boucher of a woman using one.

Good morning, eager beavers. We regret to inform you we're going to show you another awful old-timey patent. Today, let's take a look at the "Improvement in catamenial and urinal bandages and receptacles" or "Catamenial sack" patented by Madison Vedder in 1935.

"Catamenial sack" was a term used for early menstrual products at the time. There are hundreds of patents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for various innovations in this field, of wildly varying degrees in quality. This one falls straight onto the "yikes" side in design.

We will also admit that Madison is a sufficiently gender neutral name for us to be unable to definitively say that Madison Vedder was a man, but on balance of probability, which we will present below, we suspect that Madison Vedder was probably a man.

Writer's Gym

A gathering of storytellers, this Writer's Gym provides a casual space to explore the written word. Each meeting will feature a new variety of prompts to encourage experimentation. Be playful! Find what excites you about writing! All writers of any genre and experience level are welcome to join.

📅 14th June
🕰️ 2.00pm
📍 Vagina Museum
💸 PWYC

https://www.outsavvy.com/event/24013/writers-gym?mc_cid=23b8cc718d&mc_eid=473ce2ecb5

The Vagina Museum Bookclub: Hysterical : Exploding the Myth of Gendered Emotions

Cliterature, the Vagina Museum's book club, offers you a generous and satisfying fingering through the feminist pages. We’ll include a mixture of fiction, non-fiction, essays and poetry. Everyone is welcome. Our book club is led by former trustee, Niharika Jain.

📅 17th June
🕰️ 7.00pm
📍 ONLINE
💸 PWYC
https://www.outsavvy.com/event/31786/cliterature-the-vagina-museum-bookclub-hysterical-exploding-the-myth-of-gendered-emotions?mc_cid=23b8cc718d&mc_eid=473ce2ecb5