Book review: "Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women That A Movement Forgot" by Mikki Kendall

 We selected this book for our department's Feminist Book Club at work, and I'm so glad that we did!

The rub is (as my friend Maggie and I have discussed a few times) the more you learn about all of the injustices in the world the more that it feels like there's just an endless pile of societal shit and all we have to make a difference is a shovel the size of a toothpick. If anyone has any good tips on how to try to make a difference when you feel like you are drowning in the shit pile I will gladly take them!

In this book, Mikki says that the feminist movement has left behind poor women and women of color.

When white women are striving for CEO positions and that corner office, women of color are trying to not be discriminated against because of their hair or having a "weird" name, two things that could prevent them from getting jobs or even callbacks for interviews. 

Black children and teens are more than 4 times more likely to be killed with guns than white children. There are efforts to reduce gun violence, but they are oddly leaving out women. You might be thinking, how is gun violence a feminist issue? Well, black women experience the highest rate of gun homicide than any other group of women. Black women are also far more likely than black men to be killed by a spouse, family member, or an intimate acquaintance than by a stranger. The book also led me to the story of Rekia Boyd, a woman who was shot, doing nothing, by a police officer who was off duty and fired his gun over his shoulder as he was driving away. Don't worry he went to prison for a long time OH WAIT NO HE DIDN'T.

There's a whole section about childhood obesity and how there's lots of of pushes against that (which, like great) but if we dig a little deeper to the roots of the problem we might be able to make more change. (Some people don't have access to clean drinking water, but a bottle of Sprite doesn't need to be refrigerated - good if you don't have a kitchen, takes a long time to expire - which is good if you are trying to stretch your dollar, and costs....probably less than a dollar). Speaking of food - 40% of SNAP recipients are already working. 

Between 40 and 60 percent of black girls are sexually abused before the age of 18. I don't know the statistics on white women but I bet it's considerably less.One in three Indigenous women will be victims of sexual assault. Trans women are also much more likely to be victims of sexual crimes. 40% have trans folks have attempted suicide.

This was a quote that I thought was beautifully written: "Poverty is an apocalypse in slow motion, inexorable and generational". 

This was not always and easy book to read, but I learned a lot and am excited to discuss it with the women in my book club!