I’m a fan of the acclaimed young writer known as ‘the Slumflower’. But her sexual creed of exploitation appals me
A couple of years ago, the feminist society of Deptford Green secondary school convened a conference. It was there that I met Chidera Eggerue: aka the Slumflower, author of What a Time to be Alone, hashtagger of the #saggyboobsmatter movement. She was a remarkable woman. I don’t want to call her a “remarkable young woman,” even though she was 23 at the time: “young” is such a modifier and she would have been remarkable at any age.
Her broad message was one of body positivity: if you love yourself and your shape, nobody can shame you. She built what I thought was a brisk, convincing and quite dispiriting picture of the various problems her generation faces: late capitalist consumerism combined with intense pressure to conform physically – you must be this shape, to fit into this item, to look this good on Instagram – while the new misogyny of the “alt-right” built an army of enforcers, angry men happy to roam the internet looking for any woman who might look happy with herself, to tell her about the state of her upper arms. And perhaps some men took that corrosive body-pedantry into their relationships and made women feel rubbish about themselves in real life, but the Slumflower’s message – love yourself, and that is your suit of armour – was much more important and universal than relationship advice, and spoke powerfully to girls who were ages away from their first shitty boyfriend, as well as enlighteningly to women who were ages from being able to remember him.
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