Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

Kendall identifies the Chicago neighborhood where she grew up as “the hood,” a place that has a strong sense of community but that also suffers from a lack of resources. Kendall’s hood stands in for the many places that Black women, Indigenous women, and other women of color call home. Her representation of these hoods highlights the strength and resilience found in people who survive despite the toll of structural oppression.

The hood is by no means exempt from criticism, however. Kendall points out that the hood includes certain damaging cultural forces, including homophobia, transphobia, and patriarchal beliefs about women. The hood is where women like Kendall encounter their first taste of gun violence and intimate partner violence as well. The hood in these instances reflects Kendall’s complicated relationship with aspects of Black, urban culture that she finds problematic in light of her identification as a feminist.

Even when critiquing the hood, Kendall does so in a way that shows she sees it as home, a place that needs protection and renovation. The hood as cultural home appears, for example, in Chapter 15, “Housing,” as a place that shelters older Black women and is under assault from gentrifiers who bring an increase in police presence that threatens the long-term residents.