Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
Synopsis
"Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?"
Book Links: Goodreads, Bookshop.org
My Thoughts
This book took me a while to get through, but that isn't a slight against its quality. Kendall wrote a very honest book about how Feminism has largely failed the Black and BIPOC community. It was hard to read at times, and I want to acknowledge my privilege in being able to set the book aside and digest the information on my own schedule. A privilege that most Black and BIPOC people don't have. But I also wanted to let each chapter sink in. The numbers and anecdotes that Kendall shares in this book are staggering and overwhelming at times. And I wanted to make sure I fully understood the impact of this one.
Kendall does not sugar coat things to make it easier for white feelings, and she shouldn't. This book wasn't a total revelation to me. However, there were certainly numbers and perspectives that I had not heard of yet and it just reinforced how much more work we have yet to do. I also really appreciated Kendall specifically calling out challenges that face Black LGBTQIA+ community, and the ways they are left out and are disproportionally impacted by certain movements and policies.
“No woman has to be respectable to be valuable.”
― Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
I really appreciated this honest work of feminism from Kendall. Further proving that if your feminism isn't intersectional, then it's not really feminism at all. This is an important work that I urge everyone to read!
Genre: non-fiction, feminism
Representation: BIPOC
Content Warnings: racism, discrimination, domestic abuse