Moya Bailey

thumb|It's such a specific denigration of Black women, not other women of color, not Black men. So I started to think about that and landed on misogynoir as a way to talk about anti-Blackness and misogyny that that Black women experience simultaneously. Moya Bailey is an African-American feminist scholar, writer, and activist. She is noted for coining the term misogynoir, which denotes what Bailey describes as the unique combination of misogyny and anti-Black racism experienced by Black women. Quotes Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance (2021) Can a person achieve the WHO definition of health if they encounter racism, sexism, ableism, and other oppressions as a part of their daily life in the world? The stress and material consequences of system oppression make it nearly impossible to have physical, mental, and social well-being in a white supremacist patriarchal country. The poem “Brother” by Pat Parker addresses the violence Black women face in their own communities while trying to address systemic oppression: Brother I don’t want to hear about how my real enemy is the system. i’m no genius, but i do know that system you hit me with is called a fist. Misogynoir It's such a specific denigration of Black women, not other women of color, not Black men. So I started to think about that and landed on misogynoir as a way to talk about anti-Blackness and misogyny that that Black women experience simultaneously. "Why You Need to Know what 'Misogynoir' Means Right Now", Rebecca Ruiz, Mashable, April 7, 2020 If you can't replace the person being targeted with a woman of another race of someone of another gender, you know misogynoir is in play. "Why You Need to Know what 'Misogynoir' Means Right Now", Rebecca Ruiz, Mashable, April 7, 2020 In 2008, while I was writing my dissertation at Emory University, I wanted to talk about the way Black women were represented in these dated medical school yearbooks I was studying. Unfortunately, those negative representations from as far back as the 1910s matched what I was seeing in modern media. And I thought, ‘What was it about this representation of Black women that had remained unchanged for nearly 100 years?’ "Chatting with... Moya Bailey", Northwestern Magazine, Fall 2023 On coining the term misogynoir When you’re able to describe exactly what people are experiencing, it makes it that much easier to address it. It’s hard to address something that you don’t have context for. Giving the experience of misogynoir a name gives us a place to build and organize from. I’ve seen so many people find the language helpful in their own activism. "Chatting with... Moya Bailey", Northwestern Magazine, Fall 2023 Work, academia, and organizing I've always been interested in those of us at the margins. Writing about people who are not at the center of the story of history, though they should be, has been a part of my own organizing since I've been conscious of it. "Black Queer Lives: A Conversation with Moya Bailey and Laura Lovett", AAIHS interview, 2021 The ethic of pace I want moving forward in my life and in my academic work is a slow and sustainable pace, one that moves at the speed of trust and is not driven by capitalistic imperatives. The Ethics of Pace (2021) The academy is designed to distract us from doing the work of local movement building that would make a more ethical pace of life, a more equitable world, possible. Black Agenda Report, 2023 Discussing The Ethics of Pace We must radically reconsider our insistence on "jobs with dignity" and begin to question the meaning and need for jobs themselves. The Ethics of Pace (2021) When I think of my own research on misogynoir, for example, I am working to put myself out of a job. I don't want there to be a need for a word to describe the synergy of anti-Black racist misogyny. Black Agenda Report, 2023 Hashtag activism is a tool that helps organizing what's already happening on the ground. "Creator of term 'misogynoir' sees power in #hashtag activism", Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters, June 5, 2020 Interview about her book #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice (2020) Politics I think because Kamala Harris is part of a party that at least publicly tries to present itself as a party that is concerned about people and society and community, she’s had to waffle because it’s really hard to make a compelling argument about wanting to or being concerned about human suffering when you’re funding and arming, making possible, a genocide—amongst multiple other atrocities. "Moya Bailey on Kamala Harris, Misogynoir and the Future of the Left", Center for Media @Risk, October 21, 2024 I am clear, I don’t want another president in general. You know, there’s this famous poem, “I Want a Dyke for President,” and I don’t. I want an end to nation-states. I want people to be in communities where they get their needs met, and I want a redistribution of wealth. And whoever is in that seat [the presidency] is not interested or invested in those types of realities. And so I want the Left to use this as an opportunity to maybe think through what we could imagine. "Moya Bailey on Kamala Harris, Misogynoir and the Future of the Left", Center for Media @Risk, October 21, 2024 External links Official website Category:Living people Category:African-American feminists Category:Women academics from the United States Category:Women philosophers Category:21st-century African-American women Category:Women philosophers Category:Philosophers from the United States Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Social critics