Misogynoir Transformed
A study guide of Moya Bailey’s 2021 book ‘Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women's Digital Resistance.’
Summary, part 1
Introduction
The introduction of Mysogynior Transformed gives background information and insight to what misogynoir really is and highlights old and new stereotypes of Black women, particularly the Mammy and Sapphire caricatures. Bailey introduces the audience to misogynoir as it is a “portmanteau” — or, a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others. In this case, misogynoir is formed of the words “misogyny,” (the hatred of women) and “noir” (French for “black”). The sole focus of Bailey’s book is to examine how misogynoir is perpetrated through popular media outlets and social media apps like cartoons, minstrel shows, television, movies, YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr.
This examination of misogynoir brings the audience to the beginning of the most popular tropes of Black women that have developed throughout the years. These tropes include the Mammy and Sapphire caricatures. The Mammy caricature is a caring, fat, asexual, sweet, yet sassy servant who reared white children—a white majority view of Black women during Post Civil War Jim Crow era. Think Aunt Jemima. Sapphire, on the other hand, developed later and was the antithesis to Mammy. She was rude, emasculating, and made Black men do her bidding. She was sexualized but was only meant to be used as a controlling ‘image’ of Black women.
Misogynoir in Policy
Bailey also points to the implications that misogynoir has in policy, focusing specifically on Black women’s health. She mentions Fannie Lou Hamer, a famous civil rights activist who was a victim of sterilization in the 1940s. She also cites the crack epidemic of the 1990s as another example of Black women and their bodies being ignored in policy, due to misogynoir. For Bailey, misogynoir permeates all areas of society, including Black women’s own bodily autonomy.
What’s Health Got To Do With It?
Bailey argues that “misogynoir contributes to Black women’s experience with healthcare by making them uniquely susceptible to abuse within the system” (p. 9).
Henrietta Lacks was one of those women. Lack’s biopsied cancer cells, later named HeLa cells, were the first to grow and survive outside of the human body. Lack’s cells were then used for medical investigations regarding vaccines and aided in successfully producing a vaccine for polio. Black bodies, specifically Black womens’ bodies, have been a tool in modern medicine that served in breakthroughs that have helped countless people worldwide.
The incorrect notions held by politicians and medical staff have become a part of the national narrative about the relationship between Black people and receiving or, in most cases, not receiving the proper kinds of healthcare. It affects the actual medical treatment of Black women as well as their taking the initiative to seek out medical help.
In Misogynoir Transformed, Bailey cites that her aim for the book is to be an argument for “Black women’s digital resistance” (p. 11) as a means of self-preservation and harm reduction that challenge the perpetuating negative images of Black women. Black women are using the digital world to counteract these harmful images about them through processes that not only reaffirm their health, but also reaffirm their safety and wellbeing.
The World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health has been accused of leaving out “those who use wheelchairs, take medications, or have mental/physical impairments, chronic illness, or disease fall outside the scope of “complete physical, mental, and social well being”” (p. 12). Bailey uses the WHO definition of “health” to argue that those who are obstructed by their race, gender, and or disability aren’t able to be truly “healthy” because of the difficulties that are attached to race, gender, and disabilities.
Misogynoir Through Media
Another argument made by Bailey is that when Black women are disproportionately murdered at the hands of police, the outrage is unmatched when the same happens to Black men. “The disproportionate attention Black men and boys get when they are violated and the absence of similar demands for justice when a Black woman is killed” (p. 13). The disproportionate attention that Black women get is yet another example of how society fails to see Black women and girls deserving of respect.
Sakia Gunn, 15, refused the street advancements of Richard McCullough, 29, and was met with physical violence and her untimely death. When Gunn refused his advancements, McCollough stabbed Gunn and fled the scene. Gunn died from her injuries sustained from the attack. McCollough’s entitlement to a Black girl’s attention-challenged what he believed about Black women and how they are undeserving of their own autonomy. “When Black women are only rendered visually as in service to men, their autonomy is not believed” (p. 14).
Mitigating Misogynoir Through Media Making
Just like “intersectionality,” “misogynoir” names a concept that Black feminists have discussed for a long time (i.e., Sojourner Truth, Hortense Spiller). Bailey is not the first person to recognize that Black women are treated differently due to their simultaneous marginalization along the lines of race and gender. The digital age has allowed Black women to challenge stereotypes and images of themselves in a unique way, telling stories of who they are from their own perspectives, such as Living Single (1993) and Daughters of the Dust (1991). While the conglomeration of media companies and Hollywood makes it difficult to challenge the visual stereotypes, Black Hollywood challenges globe-circling archetypes that negatively portray Black communities through independent films such as Pariah (2011). Some more popular films attempt to challenge certain stereotypes of Black women but then reinforce other ones (i.e., reified Black woman vs. weak, unemployed Black man). Media making is an opportunity for misogynoir to be challenged, but it can also merely be transformed or supported through media.
Black Women ≠ Feminists
The author uses this as an opportunity to discuss how much she struggled to reconcile her use of “Black women” as central to the definition of misogynoir, yet “Black women” excludes some of the people most invested in its transformation (i.e., queer, trans, nonbinary, agender and gender-variant Black folks). Bailey discusses several other words she considered using such as non-men, womxn, women and femmes, and Black women adjacent (BWA), and examines each of the terms’ downfalls. She mentions that “Misogynoir is deployed because of social beliefs around Black women, and those of us who are read as Black women—despite our self-identification—get caught in the crosshairs” (p. 20). Bailey also points out how frequently Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks are left out of data collection processes, making their marginalization even greater in Black women’s digital alchemy (see below). Additionally, she reminds readers that not all of the digital alchemy portrayed in the book is inherently feminist, such as the initial use of #GirlsLikeUs. The main challenge the author gives to the reader is to think of Black women first when you see the word ‘woman,’ to think of queer and trans women first when you read the term ‘Black women.’
Digital Alchemy
As shown in Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Noble, the internet is not a democratizing force of good for all. This book showed the disturbing phenomena of early Google search engine results that equated any search for Black women and girls with a search for porn. Ultimately, algorithms reflect the biases of our society. Bailey’s main argument is that the content created by Black women and gender variant folks is digital resistance through content creation. Black women and nonbinary, agender, and gender variant folks are using digital alchemy (“ways that women of color, Black women, and Black nonbinary, agender and gender-variant folks in particular transform everyday digital media into valuable social justice media that recode the failed scripts that negatively impact their lives.” p. 24) to challenge the misogynoir that negatively impact their health. Bailey mentions the way that Black women have mobilized via Twitter hashtags, which is discussed further in the next chapters.
Bailey also stresses that this digital alchemy exists at multiple levels. “Defensive digital alchemy takes the form of responding and recalibrating against misogynoir while generative digital alchemy moves independently, innovated because it speaks to a desire or want for new types of representation” (p. 24).
Misogynoir Without Borders
Bailey highlights that this book is not an accurate depiction of misogynoir in a worldwide context, but rather just through an American lens, because of the “U.S. centrism in Black women’s digital media” (p. 25). The misogynior content already created by Black women and Black nonbinary, agender, and gender variant folks is created by those already in the U.S. and can only speak on their experience with misogynoir within the country. Bailey argues that only those outside the U.S. can speak on the kinds of misogynoir they experience within their own home countries (e.g., Europe, South America, Africa, Australia, France, South Africa). Bailey admits that her work on deciphering misogynoir is “complicated” because it is only being examined through an American lens.
Transformation
Bailey points out that Black women, nonbinary, agender, and gender variant folks work to transform toxicity of these representations and images that cause several types of harm. Even though they are not the perpetrators of said harm, they can use these spaces to practice digital alchemy to change the discourse of misogynoir. To change misogynoir will also require a change in conditions in how Black women, black nonbinary, agender, and gender variant folks are viewed in society and this book is, in many ways, a call to that. Ultimately, the transformation of misogynoir lies within the type of content made by the people whose lives are affected by misogynoir. Bailey recognizes that although it may not be possible to completely eradicate misogynoir, it is possible to transform and reduce its impact. One key way to do that is through digital alchemy, which can be seen as a harm reduction technique. Although it does not stop misogynoir, it mitigates and lessens its harm through the promotion of images and narratives black women want to see.