3.5 Stars

Privilege not only blinds you to oppression, it blinds you to your own ignorance even when you notice the oppression.

Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall is an exploration of feminism focusing on the areas that are often overlooked: poverty, hunger, gun violence, murder, education to name a few. Hood Feminism focuses on the concept that mainstream feminism often overlooks the essential necessities in life that women need in order to live. She calls out how often we focus on feminism being about equal pay, women in CEO positions, women in the media when we often forget about women needing food, women needing homes, women needing safety from gun violence, sexual violence and police brutality to name a few. She writes a series of essays that all focus on different topics and call out how these topics largely affect black and minority women (particular efforts were taken to consider trans and disabled women too), and that it is white feminists who often overlook these areas.

I would not say that this is the most accessible of feminists texts I have read, as at times I felt the language was a little convoluted and alienating. This comes from an individual that has studied history academically for five years at University and spent a lot of time reading academic texts. I felt like this book had a tendency to stray into academia when actually, the book's messages were much more basic in places. I also found that Kendall lacked appropriate references in her text which is something I personally prefer when reading a non-fiction book. She had a collection of sources at the back of the book, but I find it more beneficial and supportive of your arguments when writing non-fiction to have direct references as footnotes. It enables readers to immediately see where the statistics you are drawing are leveraged from and support the strength of your arguments. In addition to this, the book is focused almost entirely on American divisions and American problems. Some of those problems are definitely more universal, however, others were a little more difficult to understand as they relate specifically to the social/political systems of America. It would be interesting, I think to have seen reference to studies/works (if there are any) on how these topics affect women of colour in other communities around the world.

Despite these issues with the book, I did think that Kendall presented some interesting and important arguments. She spoke heavily about the role of women as oppressors of women and how feminism has enabled us as women to take power. However, it has also enabled women to limit each other.

"You can argue that conservative values are at odds with feminist ideology, but ultimately the question has to be not only "what women are we empowering?" but also "what are we empowering them to do?" White women aren't just passive beneficiaries of racist oppression, they are active participants."

This focus on how white women have harmed black women was particularly powerful. Kendall highlighted how 53% of American women voted for Trump. These were women who have been empowered by feminism to have this power. She spoke about the restrictive anti-abortion legislation in Alabama that was both written by and passed by the signature of women. She forces us to come to terms with the fact that women do not necessarily do good in the world with the power they have been given. However, she highlights how the most harm comes to women of colour. I think this was one of the biggest themes that ran throughout the book.

However, the most important points for me were when she touched on the violence that black women and ethnic minority women face. Her focus on gun violence as a feminist issue was interesting, whilst I have always been for the banning of guns and restricting gun access I have never initially thought of it as a feminist issue. However, when you look at the fact black women are more likely to be killed by their spouse/partner/relative, that 60% of American children/teens who are victims of homicide each year is as a result of gun crime. These simple facts play into how gun violence is intimately connected with feminism, with the right to safety for yourself, for your children and for an end to domestic violence.

The second most interesting aspect was her discussions about reproductive justice and reproductive health. Kendall drew out some rather horrifying facts about the rates of black mothers dying in the US, of the treatment inequalities and the struggles that even wealthy black women had to get the treatment they needed. She also touched on the fact that Indigenous American women were forcible
sterilized in the 1970s and 1980s when they were being told they were having appendectomies. This was a fact I wasn't aware of and will certainly be something I look into further. The essay really served to pinpoint how racial inequality manifests itself in many parts of women's lives and how it can be of considerable detriment to their lives.

Persistent racial beliefs in medicine and otherwise are at the root of ongoing racial disparities in treatment and patient outcomes.

Overall, I think Hood Feminism raises questions about a lot of important issues and I'm glad I read it. I think the execution was a little problematic in places, and would not recommend as the first feminist text to all. However, I would definitely read more books by Mikki Kendall.