Nadine Dirks

Nadine Dirks is a writer, public speaker, activist, and communications expert.
Her work, interests, and expertise lie in intersectional feminism, gender, and sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Her passions come from her lived experiences.

Nadine is the author of Hot Water.
The book investigates how endometriosis affects the way young women function and navigate the world, and how this becomes especially complicated for those who are underprivileged and reliant on the public sector’s healthcare system. In Hot Water, Nadine Dirks reveals the unique issues of racism, sexism, classism, fatphobia, and slut-shaming that African women experience within the context of healthcare facilities, and how especially jarring it is when the stigma comes from medical staff whom one expects to have the patient’s care as their primary concern. All of this has enraged Dirks and catapulted her into becoming a sexual reproductive health and rights advocate.

Hot Water tells the story of how people with chronic illness are treated daily, at school, university, and socially for being differently abled; how people are regarded as lazy, aggressive, disappointing, and lacking, among multiple other things for being unwell in comparison to their healthy counterparts.

One cannot look at seeking adequate healthcare as a young, black, underprivileged woman on the Cape Flats without experiencing racism in the most blatant of ways. Even with guidelines in place, the book shows that it is next to impossible to invoke those rights even if you are aware of them for fear of being victimised and excluded from the system.