Book Review: Vagina: A Re-Education by Lynn Enright

Everyone’s talking about this book, but what’s it about?

Vagina: A Re-Education provides girls and women with vital information they need about their own bodies – about the vagina, the hymen, the clitoris; about conditions like vulvodynia, endometriosis (did you know that it takes, on average, seven-eight years for a woman to get a correct diagnosis?) and vaginismus. It confronts taboos, such as the ‘elusive’ female orgasm, miscarriage, infertility, abortion and masturbation. And it tackles current social issues like period poverty, female genital mutilation and the rights of transgender women with an authoritative, yet extremely readable tone that’s not dissimilar to that of your friends down the pub.
 
It’s through Enright’s moving first-person accounts that we’re presented with well-researched and eye-opening facts and stats. Right up front, we’re confronted with a 2016 study, where 60% of women could not correctly identify the vulva – that’s the clitoris, mons pubis, urethra and vaginal openings plus the inner and outer labia – in an anatomical diagram. As Enright puts it: ‘Plenty of us can’t even bring ourselves to say ‘vulva’. After we grow out of words like ‘front bottom’, we continue to incorrectly name the vulva, calling it the vagina instead. The word vagina is considered embarrassing and shameful: the word vulva is just absent.’

The chapter continues with individual sections on the vulva, vagina, clitoris, pelvic floor muscles, uterus, the Skene’s and Bartholin’s glands (if you’re wondering what on earth they are, take this as another sign you need to buy the book), labia and cervix, complete with anatomically correct diagrams (as Enright notes, the ones in school textbooks are often incomplete, at the expense of female pleasure). Armed with this very personal education, it’s time to re-instruct yourself about your own body, via chapters that probe mis-prescribed contraception, the anguish of infertility and many truths about childbirth that are often shielded from those who are yet to endure it.

Are there any surprising revelations?

In her chapter ‘The Clitoris’, there’s a powerful segment on female genital mutilation (FGM), where it lists the four distinct types of FGM. Type 1 is known as a clitoridectomy, where some or all of the visible nub of the clitoris is removed. Type 2 is an excision, where parts of the clitoris and inner labia are removed. Type 3 is known as infibulation and involves the vaginal opening being narrowed and a seal is created by cutting the labia. Type 4 refers to any other harmful procedures, such as piercing, cutting, scraping or burning the vulva.

If this makes for painful reading, prepare yourself for the rest of the section, which details the horrific procedures which two hundred million women suffer from worldwide every day. We learn that in Somalia, 98% of women have had FGM. Enright also explores how the process was used in Victorian Britain as a cure for female masturbation, ‘hysteria’, mental illness and those with ‘a distaste for marital intercourse’. Much of this book shocks and surprises, but it’s this particular section that lingers long after you close the book.

Will you enjoy the read?

Resplendent with an abstract image of a vulva and the word ‘vagina’ prominently placed on the front cover, I certainly enjoyed reading it proudly on public transport. And no matter how old you are or how well you think you know your own body, we can guarantee you’ll learn plenty in this smartly written debut.

Naturally, there’s a decent dose of feminism that comes with a book like this. The chapter on ‘Appearances’ offers plenty of grist for the mill when it comes to the patriarchal policing of female bodies. A section on labiaplasty – particularly the focus on one doctor who claims to have created the ‘Barbie’, where the inner labia is completely removed to create a ‘clamshell’-like vulva – is shocking, but unfortunately not surprising. There is one thing to take away from this gloomy chapter, and that’s that knowledge is power: learning everything about your body is a deeply feminist act in itself.

Among expert interviews, first-person narratives and meticulous research are Enright’s own bold accounts – the arousal she felt the first time she looked at her vulva in the mirror ages 12, her Catholic version of sex education, the pain she felt when her younger sister had her first period, the misdiagnosis of vaginal bleeding at the hands of a male doctor, the fact she’s had an abortion. It’s all laid bare in these 210 deft, informative pages. At a time when cervical cancer screenings are at a 20-year low and labiaplasty is the fastest-growing type of plastic surgery in the world, Vagina: A Re-Education couldn’t have hit bookshelves at a more essential time.