Racism in Sexual and Reproductive Health with Annabel Sowemimo | Transcript
Find the episode shownotes here!
Annabel Sowemimo
So in terms of the policy, it's actually got worse. So it's been reintroduced by every republican president since Ronald Reagan, including Trump who's extended it. And essentially it means that organisations that provide any kind of sexual health services often have their funding cut because, generally, public health measures tell you that you have to mention abortion because you know, it's a good public health measure. If you don't mention it, more women die. So obviously any health organisation is going to mention it, even if they don't provide that care. But if they do, they don't get US funding.
Hannah Witton
Welcome to Doing It with me, Hannah Witton, where we talk all things sex, relationships, dating, and our bodies. Hi everyone, welcome back to Doing It. I'm really excited to share this episode with you because it's one of those ones where I felt like I learned so much from my guest, and I really hope that you do too. So this week, my guest is Dr. Annabel Sowemimo.
She is the founder of Decolonizing Contraception, and they are a nonprofit community organisation, created by people of colour, working in sexual and reproductive health. They provide resources and run events and workshops, and they crowdfunded for the first SexFest. So it is happening on the 18th of April in Camden and I believe tickets are on sale now, and they describe it as a sexual health and wellbeing event for people of colour. Annabel is a community sexual and reproductive health doctor, and she founded Decolonizing Contraception in 2018. In this episode, we talk about racism in sexual and reproductive health, the different treatment and levels of access that people of colour experience when it comes to sexual wellbeing. We talk about the work Decolonizing Contraception do and what you can expect from SexFest. It was an absolute pleasure talking with Annabel and learning so much from her, and I hope you enjoyed this episode, and make sure you check out SexFest.
Annabel, thanks so much for joining me.
Annabel Sowemimo
Thank you for having me.
Hannah Witton
I want to ask you so many questions. But first, what is Decolonizing Contraception? How did it start? Why did it start?
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, big question. So Decolonizing Contraception is collective, a nonprofit, found by me and led by black and people of colour, working across sexual reproductive health and wellbeing. Started because I wrote some articles and I've written for a long time for gal-dem, and I was discussing sexual health issues, specifically the difficulties black and people of colour have around accessing sexual reproductive health, and how mistrust amongst health professionals and those issues that we don't usually discuss. And I used to have people DMing me, people come up to me and say, this really resonated with me, and I'd like to discuss it more, so then decide upon events around the issue, and then it just kind of spiralled and grew out of that
Hannah Witton
Nice.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Why the focus on contraception? Or is that just in the name, and then you kind of - it's broader than that?
Annabel Sowemimo
So the focus on contraception, because within sexual reproductive health, I think that's probably had some of the murkiest and most difficult issues in terms of contraception is obviously used to prevent pregnancy, and it's often being used for population control or to further repress populations. But then we talk about all of sexual reproductive health. And I was also really keen to highlight that contraception is not just like a cis-women's issue, it's everybody's issue. And that's, and bring it to the fore, because it just, contraception just really just get sidelined in the whole sexual reproductive health discussion.
Hannah Witton
How do you mean? I always feel like it's one of the first because at least in like school, whatever limited sex ed, you have, like contraception is, or like how to not get pregnant, is always something that they teach teenagers.
Annabel Sowemimo
So I think in terms of sex ed, first of all, in terms of sex ed, I think contraception is very much just limited to you put a condom on
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Annabel Sowemimo
And then that's really the discussion. And then in terms of actual sexual health care provision, and interventions, and even research, contraception very badly under-researched, and also in terms of provision, people really do focus on STI and HIV care, which are all very, very important. But the kind of holistic picture is not really taken taken into account. So that's why it was we decided, or I decided, calling it Decolonizing Contraception, but it was, it's about discussing everything related to sexual reproductive health.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And what's your background? Because you are a clinician, doctor?
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, so I'm a sexual reproductive health registrar, I'm based in Leicester. So that's my background. So that kind of means I do some gynaecology, and I do some sexual health as well. So it's quite nice, and within that we do lots of different things, say psych psychosexual health, deal with unfortunately, like assault and things and also do public health. So it's quite a wide range of things that we do within my specialty.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. How did you get into that? Like, when did you decide that was what you wanted to specialise in?
Annabel Sowemimo
So I think, as you will appreciate, sexual health encompasses quite a range of issues. So whilst I was at medical school, I was always really interested in the, you know, the social aspect of medicine. I studied anthropology, how all the socio-economic factors influence health care, really interesting global health, and obviously, sexual reproductive health is a really big global health issue as well. So it kind of led me to looking for something that combined all of my interests and things. Then I found this specialty, which is really small, and I was like, oh my God, something that like brings everything all together. And I was like, that's me, don't really want to do anything else.
Hannah Witton
Nice. That's so cool that you can specialise in that as well, because obviously, I know that you can like specialise in gynaecology, but I didn't realise that there was like this nice middle ground that included that, but then also has that, I guess, like you said, like the psychological element and public health element. That's cool.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah. So it became its own specialty in 2010 in this country, and nowhere else in the world really has this this specialty. I mean, people have like community gynaecology, but we're really unique in having our own kind of training pathway and our own specialism and I guess, what would be really great to see over the next few years, though I'm not sure we're gonna see this in the current in the current climate, is, you know, seeing more sexual health hubs that cater. We don't need to people don't need to go to hospital so much for their care. So smear and procedures and cervical follow up and that kind of thing. It could just be done in the community. And that's kind of what our specialty is more geared towards taking some of some of the stuff that's in hospital, out of hospital and doing it in the in the community.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
That makes sense. Although, like you said, especially because even in the last 10 years, with sexual health clinics closing down, like all across the country, I'm not sure if this governments priority is going to be reopening those, and making more.
Annabel Sowemimo
Under one roof.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, no, I don't really think that is the the priority at the moment and unfortunately, just the way sexual health has been funded and, you know, it's now in terms of local authorities, they have to cut budgets, and sexual health is always seen as the kind of least important, important thing. And unfortunately, this is kind of why part of why Decolonizing Contraception, and DC came into existence, because for me, it's so clear that cuts to certain services affect certain groups of people. And there's just a really absent part of the conversation that that's, that's the effect it has. And I I just don't know why people are so unwilling to address the elephant in the room, so I thought I'd do it.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Tell us more about this elephant.
Annabel Sowemimo
Sexual reproductive health for, people use different terms, people like to use BAME. For various reasons I don't like that term, because I think it amalgamates data together and it's very policy based term. And when I say black and people of colour, I'm trying to address a white supremacist structure in terms of policy and things like that, that influence poor health care for people, and I separate out and I say black and people of colour because even within the black community, South Asian community, there is colorism directed against the darkest skin toned people so that's like my way of bringing that into the conversation.
Hannah Witton
Oh, okay. All right.
Annabel Sowemimo
But in terms of sexual reproductive health, there's really poor outcomes whether it means poor maternity, black women being more likely die in childbirth five times, Asian women two and a half times more likely, being 10 times more likely to have gonorrhoea if you're a black man, be more likely to use the morning after pill if you're a black woman. And these things show that people are not maybe getting the sexual education and intervention that some of their white counterparts are getting. And we need to ask why that is, whether that's because they're getting substandard care, or whether that's because they're not, they have other barriers to accessing information. And it's just a really poorly researched issue. And the statistics have been poor for decades. They've not got any better. In some areas, the Public Health England data this year shows they've actually got worse. So it's about really asking why we're not researching things. If you can't research something, then you can't get interventions to address this. And yeah, this is what DC is ultimately trying to start discussions around.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, because I have heard the statistic about black women being five times more likely to die in childbirth. And I was gonna be like, why, though? And you've kind of just answered that be like, there's no research. But is there any idea, like, is there any indication that like, is it?
Annabel Sowemimo
I mean, people and RCOG are doing, so the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have, I think put together working group now and they're trying to explore this issue. It took a really long time to get to this point, and obviously, the statistic has had to get so bad that people are demanding answers around that.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, five times. That's so huge.
Annabel Sowemimo
I think there are some factors that are at play. And this is, bearing in mind, this is when you take out things like educational attainment and socio-economic factors, the statistic is still very elevated and high. So it's not because of those obvious things that people keep wanting to point their finger at.
Hannah Witton
What would those obvious things be?
Annabel Sowemimo
Lower education.
Hannah Witton
Okay, right. Yeah.
Annabel Sowemimo
Not having the same economic resources, and those those factors. And I think what it speaks to is when you have conversations with black women and other marginalised groups about their maternity experiences, they're usually very bad, or often much worse than their white counterparts, because people are, maybe judge them, maybe don't give them the same level of care, maybe have certain prejudices that they can manage for longer than their counterparts. I think it's really uncomfortable conversation, especially, and I try to have this conversation with medical professionals to have that we have our own biases that feed into the care that we provide. And the place that it's going to manifest most heavily is probably maternity care, because that's when somebody is the most vulnerable.
Hannah Witton
Wow, okay. Yeah, I guess, because everyone has unconscious bias. Yeah, I've heard a lot of stuff about was it called, like, the pain gap as well, which is, like the gap between like, how men and women are treated in terms of pain levels, and like, if it's taken seriously. Is there like a racial element in that as well, like?
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, it's funny that you bring this up, because yeah, there's also been papers coming out of the US that suggest that black patients are less likely to get pain relief compared to their white counterparts. And in terms of Decolonizing Contraception, we often talk about, like intersectional frameworks, it's probably a buzzword that a lot of people are familiar with now, and when you marry up all of these different issues, such as, you know, racial elements, gender bias, and you know, ableism, and homophobia, all these kinds of things, you lead to people be more and more marginalised. And probably, they're the people that are going to get the worst care, because there are obviously othered and people will have stereotypes and prejudices, not engaged with them in the same way. And it's just about addressing that massive elephant, that people feel so uncomfortable talking about because everybody, especially medical professionals, want to think there are a blank canvas of like altruism.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. So what are you like campaigning to be done? Like, what are some changes that can be made, to make sexual and reproductive health more inclusive or culturally specific? Because I guess, depending on someone's background, they might need a different kind of care as well, or like different levels of intervention.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, no, absolutely. So I, amd some of the others, teaching schools and then also lecturer at universities and higher education institutes. And I think one of the key things that Decolonizing Contraception is trying to address first of all, is talking about the historic element of sexual reproductive health, which people -
Hannah Witton
Oh yeah, let’s go in.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah. And people often, you know, really surprised that there is any history to really discuss, and I and I'm really passionate about the fact that if you know what has happened before, then you're unlikely to repeat the same mistakes and actually, there's learning opportunities there. So a lot of people don't really understand where we've obtained certain information, and we still obtain some of our sexual health or just general medical research information today. So the one that often comes up is like the Sims’ speculum and you know, the speculum that's, not the traditional one that people see, but the one we often use in theatre, but we do use it in theatre regularly, the Sims’ speculum.
Hannah Witton
What is this?
Annabel Sowemimo
So it's a type of speculum that we put into the vagina when we're mostly doing operation procedures. And that's named after J. Marion Sims who was known as like the forefather of gynaecology, and he often, he amassed a lot of his medical information from experimentation on enslaved African American women. And that's something that's been historically discussed for decades, predominantly by black Americans and they've been, you know, advocating for awareness to be raised about this, renaming the speculum and just like reclaiming the space around that. But it goes far beyond this issue. And that's one of the most more widely known kind of examples. But if we look at things such as syphilis and why we know everything about syphilis, that's again through experimentation on black Americans. Men who were recruited into a, the trial, the Tuskegee trial, they didn't know what the trial was really about. They were left to suffer when there was a cure for syphilis, several people went on to develop syphilis complications, their families haven't really been properly compensated, and to be honest, this list is quite endless. And there's only kind of the tip of the iceberg that we know.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, cuz the one that I know about is the trial, the pill trials in Puerto Rico.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah. So even in terms of relation to the contraceptive pill, and as I mentioned, and you know, Decolonizing Contraception is called Decolonizing Contraception because actually, in terms of contraceptive history, it's a really powerful tool in terms of trying to oppress or marginalise or reduce population size.
Hannah Witton
It's like a microcosmic example of colonisation, I guess, as well.
Annabel Sowemimo
Well, it goes hand in hand with colonisation, because if you want to take over space, or you want to reduce the group, you sterilise, and you, and you quarantine, and you segregate.
Hannah Witton
And a lot of the contraception was born out of the eugenics movement.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, no precisely. And these issues, and how some of the four founders of modern day family planning whether that means like Margaret Sanger, who founded like Planned Parenthood and things like that had, you know, eugenic beliefs and had, you know, we don't
Hannah Witton
Marie Stopes in the UK.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, we don't, we don't address these issues, because people like to say that they're not relevant anymore and they don't relate to our current practice. But unfortunately, we do still have really similar policy or issues still arising today, whether that that's in kind of how we manage global health, and how we, for example, global health is funded. So we have Western governments funding global health programmes, I'm sorry, specifically kind of contraceptive family planning programmes in the global south. So we have direct control over the reproduction of other countries almost, and it's it's very weighty stuff that people don't necessarily want to talk about. But it definitely has huge implications for how a lot of black and people of colour feel when accessing their sexual reproductive health care. Whether those are genuine issues or myths that arise, and yeah, I was fed up of not having that conversation that for me, I know people need and want to want to have.
Hannah Witton
Oh, that's so interesting that you bring up the kind of like the global, international, like policy element of. Because that I am not aware of. But please, please explain that more, because my brain is struggling to separate, yes, this seems like white Western intervention in the reproductive lives of predominately black and people of colour, but then also, there is an element of like, when you do have access to contraception, that can be a good thing.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
So like, where, where is this line of like, is that appropriate? Is it not appropriate? Like, is it helpful? Or is it just controlling?
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, and I think this is the problem with specifically family planning, but all of kind of healthcare, generally. A lot of things are done under the guise of it being beneficial to a community.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Annabel Sowemimo
And a lot of the conversation I have is, you know, you have to really go back to you know, what that community wants, because if it's just imposition, that is a form of like colonising people is not what you think is good for somebody, it's what they feel is good, as well, and they come into that common ground. But in terms of your point, when it comes to the global aspect, now, this is something that people can go away and read about because it's quite dense. But essentially, I'm referring predominantly to things like the Mexico City policy, but there are similar similar issues to be found elsewhere. And that is a policy that was first introduced with President Ronald Reagan, which essentially says that any organisation that discusses abortion doesn't necessarily need to offer abortion care, but discusses abortion at all, can't receive US funding in -
Hannah Witton
What?
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
But that kind, I would have, I would have assumed Ronald Reagan would have wanted less Mexicans. Do you know what I mean?
Annabel Sowemimo
This kind of happened, and I think there's a really good film at the moment on Netflix that kind of goes into detail about this, I can't remember the name, in more detail. But essentially -
Hannah Witton
I'll get it from you later and we put it in the show notes.
Annabel Sowemimo
It happened, this policy was born out of a lot of political wranglings at the time where he was trying to pander to the Christian far right at the time.
Hannah Witton
Right.
Annabel Sowemimo
So whether it fit in with other kind of political notions, it was about winning, you know, votes and issues at the time, and now it's kind of stuck. So in terms of -
Hannah Witton
Wait, so does it still exist, this policy?
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah. So in terms of the policy, it's actually got worse. So it's been reintroduced by every republican president since Ronald Reagan, including Trump whose extended it. And essentially it means that organisations that don't just provide, that provide any kind of sexual health services often have their funding cut, because generally, public health measures tell you that you have to mention abortion, because you know, it's a good public health measure, if you don't mention it, more women die, they take measures into their own hands. So obviously, any health organisation is going to mention it, even if they don't provide that care. But if they do, they don't get US funding. And the US fund provides so much funding in terms of global health, that you lead to whole programmes across the global south collapsing when you get a republican president. And there's actually research papers that show that there's a spike in maternal mortality, like deaths, from whether that's from botched abortions, unsafe abortions, or people having kids when they they shouldn't be having more, because they've got seven, or the risks are higher, every time this policy is introduced. But it's still happening. And we haven't found ways to, you know, plug that funding gap by organisations or other countries that are not going to, you know, keep withdrawing funding every few years. And why are we in this situation? And why have we still allowed it to exist?
Hannah Witton
I had no idea about this.
Annabel Sowemimo
And also, is it an accident, you know, is -
Hannah Witton
Surely not?
Annabel Sowemimo
You know, is it an accident that the US still has so much control over the reproductive health of certain countries? Probably not.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, yeah, I'm sceptical about that. That is so interesting, and terrifying. I think, at least like people that I know who work in sexual health, and I'm sure you're the same, like, you know, it's all very research based in terms of like, what you think would be like a good policy, or like good sex education. You know, like, we know that if you start sex education younger, then young people are actually more likely to delay their first sexual experience, like, this is what the research tells us. But sometimes I'm just like, how are like more right wing governments just blanketly ignoring what the data says. And it's just completely ideological and I, it just frustrates me so much.
Annabel Sowemimo
I think it frustrates everybody and I but the thing is, is like we're really in a time and post a really stressful kind of election, where, you know, I think what really we see is intellectuals, and like researchers, like, just at this point in time, not important. It's not as important as it has always previously -
Hannah Witton
People don't trust like experts anymore
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah. People are really quite resentful about being given factual information that, you know, people just want to make a decision based on like, a guttural motive.
Hannah Witton
A good story.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, and a good story, um, obviously, and often like a false story. And I think we're all trying to learn what's the best way to combat that is and how we build kind of trust again, with people because obviously, research and fact based information that kind of thing has is not resonating with certain groups of people anymore.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. What, what is the alternative? Like, what is a good story? What is a compelling story that we can tell people that, I don't know, it's so tricky.
Annabel Sowemimo
I mean, I don't know very much from like a Decolonizing Contraception point of view, I think one of the things that we talk about a lot is like mistrust and poor interactions with, from marginalised groups with health care professionals. And my way to combat that situation is, so Decolonizing Contraception is kind of working in a few areas. We're trying to do public engagement stuff, and do workshops, and we did a pleasure workshop a few months ago -
Hannah Witton
Was that at Shush?
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, it was so fun that and it was just, yeah, I did it with Gayathiri, who also at Sexplain and we just yeah, it was just really fun. People that came hadn't been in a kind of sexual, or even in an environment where they felt that they could openly talk about sex and pleasure before. So yeah, I think we just need to do more of that was really great. But yes, we do public engagement kind of events and like to in the public and then also to in health professionals about their practice and some of the issues that I've already raised, and then also just like supporting each other, and like hanging out and, you know, talking to each other, and WhatsApping each other if we have any issues. And I think one of the key issues, for us, of how to address the mistrust, is talking about some of the bad stuff that we've done and we've got wrong over the years as medical professionals and say, and also teaching people a bit about history and themselves, because we span lots of different cultural backgrounds. And one of the reasons some people may form views, like in terms of homophobia, or transphobia, or you know, sexism or certain things is because, you know, it's just what they've been taught, right. So if you unpick things and you say to somebody, okay, why do you think that is? I don't know, un-African, you know, or why do you think that is, you know, why do you think like, a Bangladesh person can be trans or something like that. And then you go back, and you look at your kind of rich tapestry of history, and sometimes that elicits different responses from people, not everyone, but is a different approach, which is often has not really been tried or looked at, and -
Hannah Witton
Just all of those assumptions that you've just got throught your whole life
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, because a lot of the things that are our value, beliefs and stuff, we don't actually know where we've got them from. It's just things that we just carry on believing until somebody's like, actually, that's a bit odd, doesn't really make sense.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, no, that's totally true. I want to chat about SexFest.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
What is SexFest? Tell us everything.
Annabel Sowemimo
So SexFest is a festival for black and people of colour, to explore their sexual health and wellbeing and it's going to be on April the 18th -
Hannah Witton
In Camden?
Annabel Sowemimo
In Camden, partly at The Vagina Museum, and then partly at Pirate Castle, and maybe a couple of other areas surrounding the stables. But we'll be doing workshops, and panels, and have stalls on everything sexual health and wellbeing. Just as a different wa,y and a fun way, to open up conversations around sexual health and pleasure really, and from the other events we've done, whether that be panels or the workshops we've done, people just been like, oh, I want to discuss this more.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Annabel Sowemimo
Could you do this. And it was just a really nice way of saying, oh, we can just do this all in one day. And we can take the weight off because often people are coming after an exhausting experience, whether that be with like a contraceptive journey, whether that be with you know, erectile dysfunction, whatever it is, people sometimes have experienced a really horrible, long, journey, and not been able to find answers and we just thought, let's make it a fun thing. We'll have an after party, people can network -
Hannah Witton
Just a full day of events, workshops, talks.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, and talks and things like that. And I think what we've seen over the last kind of few years is that format really is really helpful and useful for some demographics, particularly younger people, or people that can't really take time off, or they're studying, and it's just an easy way of getting information, and it's a fun way, and it's doing something in a way that, you're, like my community, like once -
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Annabel Sowemimo
We like like we, you know, we like to socialise, like, we like music, like, let's just throw it together in a format that like we would enjoy like, how would I want access that information?
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And you crowdfunded it.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, people were so lovely. And you know, it was really hard because it's one of these things. First of all, SexFest, as we know, sex is already taboo. And I remember like -
Hannah Witton
Still a great name though
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, I remember sending this link to like, my dad and me, like, can you ask your friends? And he was just like -
Hannah Witton
This is a professional thing, please take it seriously.
Annabel Sowemimo
And he was actually like, my dad, my parents are really open in a way that I know a lot of Nigerian parents and a lot of other people from similar backgrounds might not experience. And he was like, yeah, cool, fine. And then obviously, I had loads people, whether it's from educational institutes, or just random members of the public, or people from previous events, like they all chipped in bits of various money. So yeah, that's allowed us to realise that the SexFest, and also we've been working for like the last 12 months to raise more money in various guises and tours and workshops to just, yeah, support it more and make it the best it can kind of possibly be. Because I'm really passionate about also the SexFest being an opportunity to empower black and people of colour sex educators. Because often, there's not enough people in that space.
Hannah Witton
Yeah
Annabel Sowemimo
Running workshops and speaking to people that looks like them. And not everybody needs that. But some people have other nuances to their identity or their experience that they've not been able to discuss with somebody before. And I think when we live in London as well, I don't live in London, I live in Leicester, but equally as diverse, if not more diverse, and I'm from London. There's a really also big assumption that people have had the same opportunities to talk to people from their community. And it's not the same up and down the country. So also really going to be trying to work hard to give people the opportunities to come down for it. And then possibly afterwards, do nice, smaller events elsewhere, as well.
Hannah Witton
So who's it for, is it for just like anyone, so sex educators, but then also just people who want to come and learn and chat?
Annabel Sowemimo
So it's for black and people of colour that want to know more about their sexual reproductive health, essentially, and the group we're kind of targeting is just 16 and over. And that's like a range of people, and the workshops and panels will be variable and cater into, you know, various things that people want to talk about, whether that's like, pleasure, a workshop we did before and just getting an overview of kind of like, pleasure devices and like how that works, and like your anatomy, whether it's like understanding kegel exercises -
Hannah Witton
Oh my God, now that you've mentioned that I'm like, oh, I need to do mine!
Annabel Sowemimo
Yep, kegel exercises. Whether it's, you know, a discussion on, I don't know, colorism and relationships with like in the black community, or South Asian community and that kind of thing. So it's just, we have quite a varied day.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Sounds amazing.
Annabel Sowemimo
But I just, I hope, and the feedback we've got, just a very necessary day.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Because obviously, I work in a lot of sex education spaces and it is very dominated by people like me, like, by white, straight, cis women, and then sometimes a bit of like, the white, like, gay cis man.
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah. And I'm, you know, I think it's not that every single person is going to not respond or, you know, not engage, or not, you know, understand the sex education given that would be ridiculous or preposterous. But we, you know, we had a discussion the other day, in the DC whatsapp group about kind of like, what you called your genitals when you were younger, and that kind of thing. And no one ever asked me that before. And I was like, oh, yeah, like, I call it my pumpum, which is like, really, quite, quite, probably quite random toa lot of people, but there's like, little nuances to people's identities from, you know, the background, whatever they've grown up in. And I remember, you know, like saying that word to somebody when I was younger than just being like, I don't know what this child is on about
Hannah Witton
Like, what is that.
Annabel Sowemimo
And obviously, that's not like a huge thing, it doesn't really feed too much into the sexual health or experience. But it's just, there can be subtleties to whether maybe either the abuse somebody is experiencing, the dynamic of their relationship, or whatever, that are really rooted in a cultural aspect, and they need that specificity. And I think the other, the more important thing about it outside sex education, is that when an area or a space is dominated by a specific demographic, then often the needs of other people don't necessarily get heard.
Hannah Witton
Right, yeah
Annabel Sowemimo
You know, it's like drowning out a lot of voices. And as I said, with sexual reproductive health, the inequality is so high, specifically amongst like, the black population, whether that means 80% of black African women accessing HIV care in this country, whether that means, you know, higher rates of STI, particularly among black Caribbean populations, or things like that. And we don't really still understand why these things happen. But there's probably likely overlaps with things like poor mental health, other issues like economic issues, and you know, problems accessing services, whether that's because they're not appropriate for them, because the timings -
Hannah Witton
And there isn't just this one size fits all model
Annabel Sowemimo
Yeah, and that's why I'm saying people need to unpack a lot more things than just their sexual health. A lot of the workshops that I've we've run so far, you know, sexual health is a part of it, but people are bringing up all kinds of other issues that they're experiencing. Whether that means in their family life there, and they can't have these discussions in our current structures that exists. There's nowhere to have them.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for the work that you're doing. Really excited to see like what DC do in the future, and also how SexFest goes and everything.
Annabel Sowemimo
Thank you so much for having me. And it's just been so beautiful and wonderful how a lot of people have been responsive to DC and the work that we've been doing. Because when you put anything out there, you don't know if it's gonna resonate with people, or if people are going to be really, you know, awful about something. And actually, it's been really lovely that even if people don't get it immediately, they've really taken that time and been like, actually, you know what, this has potential to help somebody.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I think I've not seen anything really like it, and so I think it's definitely needed. And it's amazing what you're doing. And I've learned so much from this conversation. So thank you so much.
Annabel Sowemimo
Thank you. Bye!
Hannah Witton
Thanks for listening. Bye! Thank you so much for listening to Doing It. If you enjoyed it, I would really appreciate it if you left a rating and a review. You can find show notes at DoingItPodcast.co.uk and do go follow us on social media and I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye.
Hannah Witton
This was a global original podcast