Mikki Kendall is a New York Times bestselling writer, speaker, and blogger whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Time, Salon, Ebony, Essence, and elsewhere. An accomplished public speaker, she has discussed race, feminism, violence in Chicago, tech, pop culture, and social media on Good Morning America, The Daily Show, MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeera's The Listening Post, BBC's Woman's Hour, and Huff Post Live, as well as at universities across the country. In 2017, she was awarded Best Food Essay from the Association of Food Journalists for her essay on hot sauce, Jim Crow, and Beyoncé. She is also the author of Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women's Fight for Their Rights and a co-editor of the Locus-nominated anthology Hidden Youth, as well as a part of the Hugo-nominated team of editors at Fireside Magazine. A veteran, she lives in Chicago with her family.
Named a Best Book of 2020 by Bustle, BBC, and Time
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020
“In prose that is clean, crisp, and cutting, Kendall reveals how
feminism has both failed to take into account populations too often
excluded from the banner of feminism and failed to consider the
breadth of issues affecting the daily lives of millions of women. .
. . Throughout, Kendall thoughtfully and deliberately takes
mainstream feminism to task . . . [but] if Hood
Feminism is a searing indictment of mainstream feminism, it is
also an invitation. For every case in which Kendall highlights
problematic practices, she offers guidance for how we can all do
better.”
—NPR
“With poise and clarity, Kendall lays out the case for why
feminists need to fight not just for career advancement but also
for basic needs and issues that often plague women of color,
including food security, educational access, a living wage and
safety from gun violence. In expertly tying the racial justice and
feminist movements together, Kendall’s is one of the most important
books of the current moment.”
—Time, “100 Must-Read Books of 2020”
“Hood Feminism paints a brutally candid and unobstructed portrait
of mainstream white feminism: a narrow movement that disregards the
needs of the overwhelming majority of women. In the storied
tradition of Black feminism stretching back to Maria Stewart,
Kendall persuasively contends that women’s basic needs are feminist
issues. The fights against hunger, homelessness, poverty, health
disparities, poor schools, homophobia, transphobia, and domestic
violence are feminist fights. Kendall offers a feminism rooted in
the livelihood of everyday women.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author
of How to Be an Antiracist, in The Atlantic
“Beautifully centers on the experience of women who face an actual
battle on the front lines while mainstream feminists clamor for
access to the officers’ club.”
—The Washington Post
“A searing indictment of . . . the modern feminist movement’s
failure to support marginalized women and to integrate issues of
race, class and sexual orientation.”
—USA Today
“This book is an act of fierce love and advocacy, and it is
urgently necessary.”
—Samantha Irby, author of Meaty and We Are Never
Meeting in Real Life
“Mikki’s book is a rousing call to action for today’s
feminists. It should be required reading for
everyone.”
—Gabrielle Union, author of We’re Going to Need More Wine
“Cutting, critical, and consequential, Hood Feminism is
required reading for anyone who calls himself or herself a
feminist, an urgent piece of feminist discourse. It's a tough
read—especially if you've been giving yourself woke feminist gold
stars—but that makes it all the more necessary.”
—Marie Claire
“My wish is that every white woman who calls herself a feminist (as
I do) will read this book in a state of hushed and humble respect.
Mikki Kendall is calling out white feminists here—and it’s long
overdue that we drop our defenses, listen to her arguments
carefully, and then change our entire way of thinking and behaving.
As Kendall explains in eloquent and searing simplicity, any
feminism that focuses on inequality between men and women without
addressing the inequalities BETWEEN women is not only useless, but
actually harmful. In the growing public conversation about race,
class, status, privilege, and power, this text is essential
reading.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert
“Elicits action by effectively calling out privilege . . . This can
be a tough read, even for the most woke and intersectional
feminist, and that’s exactly how it should be.”
—Bust
“Hood Feminism is a critical feminist text that interrogates
the failings of the mainstream feminist movement and gives us the
necessary expertise of Black women. Kendall skillfully illuminates
the many intersections of identity and shows us the beauty and
power of anger.”
—Erika L. Sánchez, author of Lessons on
Expulsion and I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
“Kendall is a highly knowledgeable and inspiring guide, and she
effectively builds on the work of black women who have, for ages,
been working to better the lives of themselves and their
communities. . . . A much-needed addition to feminist
discourse.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“In this forceful and eloquent series of essays, [Kendall] takes on
the feminist myopia that ignores the daily existential struggles of
women of color and encourages a broader support of society’s most
vulnerable citizens. If such support is forthcoming and awareness
expanded, then not only will those outside the feminist
establishment be empowered, those within the current movement will
also be enlightened as to their cause’s true universal
potential.”
—Booklist
“A frank account of who and what is still missing from
mainstream feminism that will appeal to readers of women’s and
African American studies, and readers seeking a better grasp on
history.”
—Library Journal
“An energizing critique of the feminist movement’s preference for
white women.”
—BookPage
“Mikki Kendall tells it like it is, and this is why she has
long been a must-read writer for me: incisive, clear-eyed, and
rightly willing to challenge readers when necessary. Her
exploration of how feminists’ fight for liberation has too often
left poor people, Black people, Indigenous people, and other people
of color behind is critical reading for anyone who is or wants
to be involved in work addressing complex and longstanding
inequalities.”
—Nicole Chung, author of All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir
“Mikki has been writing for years about protection, ‘problem
children,’ the limits and the usefulness of different kinds of
anger, and the way sisterhood can be wielded as a demand. She’s
here for her community, and this book has everything to do with
expanding access to it.”
—Daniel Mallory Ortberg, author of The Merry Spinster and Texts
from Jane Eyre
“Mikki Kendall has established herself as an important
voice in current feminist discourse, and Hood Feminism cements
that place. With a compelling, forceful piece, Kendall has written
the missive that feminists—especially white feminists—need to
remember the racist history of who we are as a movement and to move
forward with an intersectional and deliberately anti-racist
focus.”
—Dianna Anderson, author of Problematic
“Every white lady should have this book assigned to them before
they can talk about feminism in the same way that every human
should have to work in the service industry for a year before they
can talk about the economy. Ain’t nothing but truth in these
words.”
—Linda Tirado, author of Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America
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