SOURCE: SCROLL

The coinage of the new word ‘misogynoir’ by Northwestern professor Moya Bailey made inroads into the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Misogynoir records the unique experiences of discrimination faced by black women compounded by racism as well as sexism. At the intersection of racism and sexism, black women explore the roots of such treatment. ‘Misogyny’ plus ‘noir’ combines to form the portmanteau word ‘misogynoir’. What’s interesting to know is that ‘noir’ means black in French. Bailey who teaches communication at Northwestern University first used Misogynoir in the Crunk Feminist Collective in 2010. Since then, it has been picked up by various leading news agencies as well as the singer Katy Perry in extending her support to Black comedian Leslie Jones. Published by New York University Press, Bailey authored ‘Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance’ in 2021 for the first time.

Creating intersecting forms of oppression, racism and sexism have manifested in the works of African-American women writers. Resisting the dual nature of oppression, Zora Neale Hurston in Mules and Men (1935) through a folktale informs us of the unfair hard work that has befallen on black women for posterity. The century-long hard work trickled down on them from God to White Man to slaves and then black women have been recorded. Tackling the load, the writers have recorded the diverse forms of struggle against the backdrop of slavery culture. Frederick Douglass (1817-1895), a famous figure of the abolitionist movement recalled his Aunt Hester getting whipped in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) in one of the agonizing ordeals says, “When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but far more terrible for women.”

Racist stereotypes have marred black women’s educational and employment opportunities. A testimony of their enduring hardships has been the works by Maya Angelou (some of her autobiographies), Lorraine Hansberry (dramatist), Gwendolyn Brooks (poet). Other mentions of the corrosive fusion of anti-Blackness and misogyny are:

i)                    Nella Larsen –                               Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929)

ii)                   Zora Neale Hurston                      Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

iii)                 Ann Petry                                       The Street                                    (1946)

iv)                 Toni Morrison                                The Bluest Eye                            (1970)

v)                   Octavia Butler                                Kindred                                        (1979)

vi)                 Gloria Naylor                                  The Women of Brewster Place (1982)

vii)               Alice Walker                                    The Color Purple: A Novel          (1982)

Erasure at various levels demands emancipation at all levels. Thus, these works have not only been a vocal tribute to their history of silenced struggle but also what bell hooks has pointed out to be white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.