Laetitia Ky

[HardyBuckette]

Thought this Guardian article might be of interest. Laetitia is an Ivorian woman who makes sculptures from her hair. Lots of them are political.

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/mar/31/some-people-are-freaked-out-how-laetitia-ky-tackles-abortion-sexism-and-race-with-her-extraordinary-hair

I've been aware of her for a year or two now, she's brilliant, but this is the first I'd heard of her attracting Western criticism for her discussion of sex as a reason for African women's oppression. The absolute fucking cheek of it.

She’s so cool!

She’s amazing.

She is amazing. What a role model.

But what really took Ky by surprise was how her work got caught up in the slipstream of a western discourse about gender identification. Her focus on the punishment of biological womanhood has attracted comments that she is excluding trans women from her feminism. Ky is upfront about how the context is unfamiliar to her. “I’m not gonna lie, I don’t fully understand it. But in Ivory Coast we have things like excision, we have things like breast flattening. So when I come out there trying to express all this and someone tells me sex doesn’t exist, only gender exists, I’m like: ‘What are you saying? Sorry, but no.’”

She explains that her anger on this issue is about her work being critiqued by what she believes is a self-centred western issue. She also hears from western women who thank her for saying women have wombs. “Every time I talk about sex as a reason of oppression of African women, some western people get mad. And I’m always like: ‘I’m sorry, maybe your experience is different but I’m not going to shut myself up to make you feel better about your convictions. Because those things are really happening where I come from. I also understand they have an experience I don’t have, so maybe what they think is OK concerning their experience. I’m talking about me. If it was different for you, that’s cool. I think inclusivity is a very good thing. I’m a black woman.”

Fantastic. I just copied that exact section to paste, Eresh!

It must be really hard to make those sculptures - I'm thinking of the intense physicality of them.

'I’m not going to shut myself up to make you feel better about your convictions'

Go on yoursel, hen.

www.instagram.com/laetitiaky/

Do those people who try to persuade her that sex doesn't matter, only gender does, and so invalidate her experiences, never realise how colonial they're being?

@Rightsraptor

Do those people who try to persuade her that sex doesn't matter, only gender does, and so invalidate her experiences, never realise how colonial they're being?

I think you know the answer to that one already...

Such entitlement, to think your needs should be able to erase a woman's own experiences. It just leaves me speechless, what an embarrassment. Yuck.

Whenever I read comments like this I feel so relieved. Thank God for people speaking up. I think part of the issue is that we all know it’s all so much a part of reality that we never assumed we’d have to.

So western male born individuals are trying to commandeer an African woman's platform and shame her for not using it to further their agenda.

Given that her medium is her own hair, they believe that her body (hair) should be annexed in the battle towards their goals, for full acceptance or whatever. Whilst sharing few of the experiences she makes art about, female reproductive issues etc.

It isn't enough that she's not saying anything at all against trans people. Now all women making art in any way about femininity, the female sex's experience, need to find some way to include trans women. It's very unclear why. She's not a trans women and does not mention knowing any at close quarters. Why would she be particularly well placed to comment on their experiences? What would a trans women be able to say about the personal experience of female puberty, childbirth, etc? Both these and transitioning are fraught topics but they aren't the same nobody has experienced both (well, maybe trans men but as ever, they're not asking to be included in everything). Make your own bloody art.

She's amazing, I'm still smiling from reading the article. My kids tried telling me that sex was a colonial imposition on Africa, actually it could have been gender, I was laughing too much and they weren't very clear.
I'm going to remember this artist's name.

So everything needs to be decolonised in the UK and supposed colonisation will be frantically called out, including university physics departments, but it is still totally ok to tell African people what to do and how to think. Got it.

@IcakethereforeIam

She's amazing, I'm still smiling from reading the article. My kids tried telling me that sex was a colonial imposition on Africa, actually it could have been gender, I was laughing too much and they weren't very clear. I'm going to remember this artist's name.

That in itself is just so horribly racist. I don't blame your kids, they didn't come up with that by themselves, but imagine saying Africans were unable to understand sex until white people and Arabs came along to educate them?! It's awful.

So everything needs to be decolonised in the UK and supposed colonisation will be frantically called out, including university physics departments, but it is still totally ok to tell African people what to do and how to think. Got it.

Yep, if you're higher in the hierarchy of oppression, like MTF trans people. See also attacks on FGM campaigners Hibo Wardere and Jana Cornell.

So western male born individuals are trying to commandeer an African woman's platform and shame her for not using it to further their agenda.

There are probably many of their dimwitted female allies doing it too, to be fair. I've certainly seen this with regards to FGM where on Twitter you had white American women telling Jana Cornell she should call it "non consensual genital mutilation" to be inclusive of both sexes of trans people.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

So everything needs to be decolonised in the UK and supposed colonisation will be frantically called out, including university physics departments, but it is still totally ok to tell African people what to do and how to think. Got it.

Yep, if you're higher in the hierarchy of oppression, like MTF trans people. See also attacks on FGM campaigners Hibo Wardere and Jana Cornell.

White feminists, both of them. Unlike actually white TWAW ones, obviously.

Do we think the tide is turning? There's a loads of people today on LinkedIn taking the piss out of the "ploughperson" lunch and so far no-one is screaming bigot and #bekind.

I don't blame my kids either, if they were being racist I would not have laughed. It's so batshit, it wasn't something it even occurred to me to talk to them about. Mind you, 5 seconds of actually thinking about it...
The younger one especially is usually so cynical. They each have at least one trans friend though and I'm just their mum.

Wow, she’s incredible. A proper feminist and unapologetic af.

Well there are prominent campaigners against FGM - who have had FGM procedure as children - who are abused for being transphobic as though FGM has nothing to do with biological sex, so it isn't beyond the bounds of possiblity that other women get similar.

if you ever get on the topic @IcakethereforeIam how about asking your kids about that?

I'm a trans ally, but i do call out that kind of bullshit because it is harmful to everyone.

(sorry, i started writing my comment, went away came back finished and posted to see other pp had made the same point)

I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I saw "makes sculptures from her hair," and it turns out I love it. I wasn't expecting the vibe to be so fun and cheeky when she's making such serious points.

I appreciate the Guardian publishing this, too. I don't see how anyone could read this interview and think that the TRAs have got a reasonable point. It is so obviously a nonsensical luxury belief and their antifeminism is coming through loud and clear too.

@Brefugee, I'm not sure how to take your remarks about FGM. The youngest got the concept from the LBGT club at school. I put her right as much as I was able too. They know about FGM, it horrifies them, like I said 5 seconds of thought...
These bloody rabbit holes, soddin' everywhere. I'm going to look at art on Instagram.

Yeah, FGM is one of the more forms of sex based oppression and it's extremely obvious when you spend more than 5 seconds thinking about it, as you say. It's not like five year old girls are getting asked about their gender identity before being cut, after all.

@IcakethereforeIam what i meant was, if i understood what your children said, was that if they think white colonials imposed ideas of sex onto african colonies - how would they explain FGM which was around before white colonials, and is done to girls because of their sex. How can they reconcile a belief that colonials imposed ideas of sex onto Africa when African cultures already knew the differences (and not to concentrate only on FGM but there are coming of age rituals that are only performed on boys/young men too)

I was only interested to hear what young people might think about this.