Did I mention I wrote a book?
An important grad school hack that I learned after grad school is that you can and should listen to authors talk about their books via book talks! I’m still angling for a Misogynoir Transformed C-SPAN appearance but in the interim, please enjoy this conversation I had with Lee Pierce of the New Books Network!
Also, while you listen, sign up for one of my forthcoming book talks! Would love to hear your questions during any Q&A.
In case you missed it, I tweeted,
So #misogynoir almost cost Meghan Markle her life. She thought of dying by suicide because of the misogynoir she was experiencing. She has all the class and color privilege and still felt this way. Think about the reality for other Black women.
moyazb
The tweet went viral but sparked some questions about whether Meghan was actually a Black woman if she identified as mixed race. 280 characters was not enough so I was grateful that my quick pitch to the ever effervescent Evette Dionne, THE EIC at BITCH, was successful.
Identifying as mixed race, or biracial, or as a “woman of color” didn’t protect Meghan from the British press or the living legacy of hypodescent. Additionally, these terms aren’t mutually exclusive from Black identity. Separating people who have historically and currently been read as Black into a distinct racial group because they also have a white parent does not end racism, nor does it mitigate misogynoir. My tweet was a call to consider how much worse the experience of negotiating misogynoir is for Black women with different facial features, darker skin, and less wealth than Meghan Markle.
Moya Bailey, Misogynoir Nearly Killed Meghan Markle
You can read all about my thoughts on the situation and what it means for Black women like Meghan (just in case you weren’t sure where I landed).
Additionally I had the privilege to meet the brilliant Blair Imani who, in addition to mentoring me on the finer points of that new (new) social media, invited me on her series, #SmarterInSeconds.
I also had the opportunity to talk about this topic more on The Special Report with Areva Martin and other fabulous panelists. You can watch the video here.
My book will be out May 25! Please pick it up at your favorite independent bookstore or mine.
This conversation gave me so much life!
Two in-person events were transformed into Zoom panels and they were wonderful! We also got to do one talk, our first book talk for #HashtagActivism.
The first was with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. I talked about Caster Semenya and the undue burden placed on Black women athletes when it comes to gender, sex, and sexuality.
Human beings have long called on science to define concepts of sex and gender and used them to characterize, classify, and divide. On Friday, March 13, the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a Women’s History Month event on Science, Sex, and Gender. Moderated by Harper Jean Tobin (National Center for Transgender Equality), a panel of experts explored the role of science in evolving and expanding notions of sex and gender in a discussion that centered the lived experiences of transgender and intersex women.
Panelists:
– Harper Jean Tobin, National Center for Transgender Equality (Moderator)
– Moya Bailey, Northeastern University
– Katie Dalke, Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute
– Tori Cooper, Human Rights Campaign
– Katrina Karkazis, Brooklyn College/Yale University
Science Sex and Gender: Women's History Month 2020 from The National Academies on Vimeo.
The second panel was part of the launch of the Center on Digital Culture and Society. I talked about the need for creating a digital culture that honors pace and the humans hidden in the digital supply chain.
Center on Digital Culture and Society Digital Launch Symposium
FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2020
TECHNOLOGY, RACE, + GENDER
Moderator: Sarah J. Jackson, University of Pennsylvania
Moya Bailey, Northeastern University
Kishonna Gray, University of Illinois at Chicago
Carrie A. Rentschler, McGill University
CDCS Digital Launch Symposium: Technology, Race, and Gender Panel from CDCS on Vimeo.
I really can’t express my delight in my first (co-authored) book, #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice, being out in the world! My amazing co-authors Sarah J. Jackson and Brooke Foucault Welles and I had a wonderful crowd at The Strand Bookstore in New York City, the first stop on our book tour. Folks asked us great questions and my cousin Jonathan came!
We have been very lucky to have excerpts appear in our favorite feminist publications including Ms. Magazine and Bitch Media. We also made it on the Ms. March 2020 Reads for the Rest of Us as well as Autostraddle’s Also Also Also. Our chapter on allyship and the hashtag #CrimingWhileWhite was featured on Engadget. I got to speak with Gracie Staples at the Atlanta Journal Constitution about the book who interviewed me 16+ years earlier about my involvement in the Nelly Protest. I wonder what our actions could have sparked if we had had hashtags to support our organizing?!
The book is just $20 so do take a look to learn more about how folks are using hashtag activism to change the world! Also, come see us in a city near you!
I was on Seattle’s NPR Station talking about what has and hasn’t changed since Anita Hill’s testimony 27 years ago. You can listen here.
When I first moved to Boston, I was invited to be a part of a PBS web series that questioned assumptions about sexuality and gender, among other topics. “What I Hear When You Say… When did you become gay?” troubles the heteronormative and trans-antagonistic assumptions that sex, gender, and sexuality are binary. Because it’s been a while, I would probably change my use of “spectrum” to “universe” but on the whole, I think the conversation is useful. Ohh and this episode was also a Webby Honoree!
The best thing about these lists is the other people on them! So geeked to be named alongside all of these amazing Black women.
“Frankly, many of these men could be better served if there were a licensed therapist among the Fab Five,” she said, referring to the nickname for hosts Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Jonathan Van Ness, and Tan France, who are food, design, lifestyle, grooming, and wardrobe coaches, respectively.
Some of my thoughts on the Queer Eye Reboot.
This piece has been years in the making! So grateful for you @thetrudz!
We, Moya Bailey and Trudy aka @thetrudz, had significant roles in the creation and proliferation of the term misogynoir. Misogynoir describes the anti-Black racist misogyny that Black women experience. Despite coining the term in 2008 and writing about the term online since 2010, we experience, to varying degrees, our contributions being erased, our writing not cited, or our words plagiarized by people who find the word compelling. It
is not surprising that misogynoir would be enacted against the Black women who brought the word to public acclaim but it is nonetheless troubling. This is not to say that every time the word is used, our names need to be mentioned, but it does matter that our intellectual interventions are understood in proper context. In
this article, we interview each other and discuss the ramifications of the naming of misogynoir in digital media and its impact on our own lives.
Read the full piece here.
