This was such an important book for me to read. Because I’ve always been down for intersectional feminism—without really knowing what it meant.

And I can’t imagine a better book to make me realize that “intersectional” doesn’t mean a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B—aka just simply misogyny plus racism.

Instead, this book explained (so clearly!) how the history of both racism and patriarchy in the US has made the black female experience just… an entirely different beast.

She discussed so. many. details (and it was kind of overwhelming but that was also the point) but, for example, take these three—
✨ The way that economic greed lead to black women playing a ‘masculine role’ as field labourers under slavery—doing labour that was considered taboo for white women.
✨ The way that pervasive sexual assault against female slaves was rationalized by the idea that black women were ‘naturally licentious’—and how this created an equal and opposite idea that American white women were particularly un-sexual/pure (even compared to their European counterparts).
✨ The way that 20th century black activists had internalized the patriarchal elements of white supremacy (to the point where they were arguably more misogynistic than their white counterparts, interested in the most misogynistic strains of Islam, etc).

She used this history to explain how black women have been excluded from both feminist and anti-racist movements. And how they carry an almost incomprehensible mélange of oppressive stereotypes today—from inhumanly strong matriarch, to angry, to sex object, to dominated by patriarchs, to devalued domestically, etc. etc.

There was also an intentional approachable-ness to the text that I appreciated.

Highly recommend.