‘Hood Feminism’ Focuses On The Needs Of The Many, Not The Few

It’s been a hundred years since the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. 

But racist policies still kept most women of color from being able to vote. Author Mikki Kendall says racism today is still keeping women of color out of America’s mainstream feminist movement.

From an interview with Chicago Magazine:

If we’re going to say that feminism is for all women, then that means we have to talk about all women, specifically the women who are in need of the most and getting the least. We have all of these things about leaning in and how to build your career and how to get ahead at work, and very little about what it means to struggle, to make sure that you can send your kid to school, that you can afford basic housing, basic health care. When the pink pussy hat thing happened, they were marching for women’s right to choose, not so much for black women’s rights to stay alive.

In her book, “Hood Feminism,” she discusses how meeting the basic needs of women who need help the most is a feminist issue. She argues that the focus of today’s feminist movement is increasingly centered on increasing the privilege of a few and not about lifting women up as a whole.

How did feminism get this way? And how can it change?

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