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A potent and electrifying critique of today's feminist movement announcing a fresh new voice in black feminismToday'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? In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed.
About the Author
Mikki Kendall lives and works in Chicago where she wields words and raises a family. She has a couple of degrees, a couple of kids, and one patient husbeast. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and DePaul, Mikki Kendall has been blogging since 2003 under the pen name Karnythia. She has discussed topics ranging from Chicago violence to police brutality, from parenting to racial representation in media, from reproductive health to food insecurity. She has also covered abortion, education, and politics. In August of 2013, Mikki started the hashtag #solidarityisforwhitewomen. It sparked a global conversation about racism, solidarity, representation, and access to resources in feminist circles. Her other hashtags (including #fasttailedgirls, #NotJustHello, #AbuserDynamics, #MillenialMammy, #NotYourMandingo, and others designed to make room for hard conversations about feminist issues) have also gone viral. She has written for NBC Think, Washington Post, The Guardian, Ebony, Essence, Publishers Weekly, Global Comment, Salon, xoJane, The Toast, and other online and print markets. She has also been published in several anthologies, both fiction and nonfiction. Her professional comics work includes Swords of Sorrow with Dynamite Comics, and Action Lab's Princeless Charity Series.