Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

Kendall is a Black feminist who came of age intellectually and chronologically during a moment when the failures of White feminism—that is, feminism that prioritizes the needs and experiences of White women to the detriment of all others—are readily apparent. From the Introduction on, Kendall advances several propositions about the history, current state, and future of feminism to make the case that an intersectional feminism must become the prevailing paradigm for women of all kinds to survive.

Kendall’s feminism is intersectional. The term intersectional feminism was coined by legal theorist by Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American law professor, in 1989. When Kendall uses the term woman, she imagines one who has overlapping social identities, and these forms of identity interact to create multiple, simultaneous forms of oppression at times. This concept of woman is in contrast to the idea of woman as a universal category that reflects common experiences regardless of race, class, gender, ability, or immigration status. While many feminists still believe and operate politically out of the notion that there is such a woman, intersectional feminists note that this supposedly universal woman is really a White, middle-class woman who has enough control over feminist discourse to make her experience stand in for and erase the experiences of other women.