Misogynoir - Blog Posts
a tale as old as time atp...
Going to the Black Fictional Woman's tag, and
seeing ships that don't include her
Post that doesn't have anything to do with her
posts that villainizes her but babies the, also grown and capable man
Seeing all her positive traits get attributed to a man
Essay on how the make love interest never really cared for her and was just using her to hide his feelings for another male that they ship him with.
The anti-blackness that easily slips through
I'm talking about Allura & Mel, but I've been in fandom long enough to basically be taking about damn near every black woman in a show...
Starting to think it's just straight up incorrect analysis to view terfs as even viewing trans women as men, and that they hate trans women for their masculinity (and by extention being characterized by hatred for men and masculinity). Instead, i think you have to view their comments on trans women and their bodies as intentionally and forcefully masculinizing a woman, excluding her from womanhood for not fitting into white women's beauty and body standards. Many people have noted that this is similair to how black women are historically and today masculinized in society, and indeed terfs commonly attack women of color for similair things. If it is about hating men it's noticable that they don't talk about men the same way, "men" are only ever a threat if she's a woman. Any other man is allowed to be an ally to the terf movement if he's "protecting women" (by excluding certain types of woman). It's misogyny, it's transmisogyny, everything about this structurally replicates the ways women are mistreated by society generally, and excluded from femininity, just lazerfocused on targeting trans women.
'We need more darkskin black girl mcs who have strong platonic relathionships with the male protagonist instead of romances and their own likable fleshed out personalities and don't get defanged!!!'You guys couldn't even handle Hazel Levesque
“The most disrespected person in America is the Black Woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black Woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black Woman.”
-Malcolm X (1962)
(Originally made on insta by @michaelabalogun)
[Multiple people have pointed out that the Sojourner Truth speech isn’t accurate. Interesting none of you bother recommending other resources to spread awareness of what it’s like to be a Black Woman while you are pulling attention away from the main point–Black Women need to be recognized. If you have such a problem with how accurate the speech is, just know I looked into it and apparently she approved the second version which also expresses how she’s feeling. Let’s move on or pm me and I can list some alternatives if it’s weighing on your mind.]
I hate the "both sides are bad" narrative about jayviks vs Mel stans people use because only one side has written multiple fanfiction of a black woman being experimented on by their favorite white gay man. The way this isn't the first time jayviks put Mel in their fics just to write weird ass scenes like this
Holy hell people reblog this
Something white women overlook is just how much more often black women are sexually harassed than us. It didn't occur to me until an underclassman in high school asked me to walk her home because a man working construction on the street outside the school always harassed her whenever he saw her. I walked with her for maybe 10 minutes and GROWN ASS MEN yelled at her once a block! She was 14-15 to my 18, yet she got harassed more in one day than I do in a month. It really opened my eyes to how young black girls in particular are incredibly vulnerable in ways white girls usually aren't, because people see them as easier targets. And they are! A lot of people don't stand up for black girls the way they do white girls, even though black men and women were consistently the ones who looked out for me when I got sexually harassed as a child. The school administration did fuck all to help her or to get that creepy construction worker to stop until I got my dad to call in and yell at them about it. This poor girl would cry at the end of class because she was scared to walk home, in front of our teacher, but they did jack shit to keep her safe.
hey guys, I could use your help with something! Sue is a Black disabled mother, migrant, and PhD student at Newcastle University who urgently needs solidarity. Newcastle University is reporting her to the Home Office in retaliation for her complaint about her abusive supervisor, in full awareness of her Stage 5 kidney disease. this is a life-and-death situation.
here's how you can help:
retweet Unis Resist Border Control's tweet about Sue's abusive situation at the University of Newcastle
sign the open letter to Newcastle University by 22 May
pass a motion with your UCU branch (template here)
donate to help Sue find a kidney donor, apply to Leave to Remain, pay solicitor fees, and cover living costs
Sue's story from the #WeAreAllSue toolkit:
In 2022, Sue Agazie, high-achieving in her field, was promised financial support for her tuition fees through scholarships and paid opportunities and enrolled into the PhD programme at Newcastle University Business School with this understanding. When Sue arrived in the UK in 2023, however, she learned that all of this financial promise was a lie; the scholarships that she had been promised never materialised. Instead, she has gone into horrific debt and is having trouble surviving.
For almost a year, Sue sought financial support for herself and her family, including grants and opportunities that would burnish the reputation of her supervisor and university as a whole. However, in that year, her supervisor not only prevented her from applying to scholarships and paid opportunities, but further controlled her research and day-to-day quality of life, with a high-level of surveillance, inappropriate supervisory practices, and escalating harassment of both her and her family.
These practices include this supervisor repeatedly preventing Sue from taking part in important professional development activities, such as research presentations, within the Business School. He also isolated her from her senior colleagues, forbidding her from attending particular activities they were facilitating, or spreading malicious rumours about them. Further, the primary supervisor repeatedly ignored Sue's pleas for support on funding applications and other opportunities that would alleviate the precarious financial situation into which she had been placed, telling her to “stop sending me links to scholarships”.
This behaviour would culminate in the primary supervisor verbally abusing Sue a number of times, and maligning Sue’s husband, alleging that he has been too lazy to financially support her. These inappropriate supervisory practices belie Newcastle University’s commitment to gender equality under the Athena SWAN Charter, for which it holds a Silver award, and for which the Business School holds a Bronze award.
An environment of terror and retaliation
This environment of surveillance, harassment, and terror has grossly impacted the health of Sue as well as that of her spouse and children. In particular, her kidney condition escalated to stage 5 kidney disease, a severe and terminal illness that causes disablement and time-sensitive, highly-delicate medical needs, during this ordeal. The National Kidney Foundation in the United States indicates that “stress and uncontrolled reactions to stress” can “lead to kidney damage.” These compounding issues have also understandably affected Sue's studies, although she has bravely persisted in her research, meeting important deadlines.
Sue raised these issues using relevant avenues of informal complaint, including her supervisory teams and student support services; there are multiple complaints that have been raised in this department. However, she did not receive sufficient support. Further, her severe health issues were not treated with the urgency and importance that they deserved. In October and November 2023, Sue's supervisor accused her of allegedly plagiarising his work in what Sue sees as a malicious act of retaliation and victimisation over her informal complaint, and an attempt to sabotage her reputation not just at Newcastle University, but to prestigious global networks. Following all of this mistreatment, Sue filed a formal complaint against her supervisor in February 2024.
Newcastle University is closing ranks
The university came back to Sue on 5 March 2024 with its response, alleging that she had fabricated the complaint against her supervisor in retaliation for his accusations of research misconduct against her, painting this vulnerable, disabled African student as a malicious liar. The supervisor even denies the relevance of her terminal illness and implicates her young child's behaviour in his response, while maintaining that her terminal illness "has nothing to do with her studies or work pressure here". Sue maintains: “During the time that I was supervised by the primary PhD supervisor, he neither kept in regular communication about my disability nor did he signpost me to relevant services within and outside of Newcastle University that could help me. It is dangerous for the primary supervisor to maintain that my disability would not have affected my studies. His comments show a gross level of disability discrimination that does not befit the reputation that Newcastle University seeks to cultivate as an inclusive place.”
Now, the university is claiming that Sue is not "engaging" sufficiently with the programme, and is threatening to report her to the Home Office, despite a written promise in January 2024 that her status would be unaffected due to the ongoing complaint process, and full knowledge of her terminal stage 5 kidney failure. Adding more insult to injury, Newcastle University Accommodation Service has been hounding Sue for rent arrears, even though they know she is critically ill and in a complaint with the university, surviving with the support of Food & Solidarity. Sue has pleaded with the university’s Accommodation Service for a rent freeze, indicating her urgent health complications and her complaint underway with the university. In all correspondences, the Accommodation Service has ignored Sue’s pleas for clemency. There is real fear that the Accommodation Service will evict Sue, her husband and their child. This will, no doubt, cause real precarity to Sue’s already fragile health condition.
We are appalled that the Newcastle University Business School is utilising obvious misogynoirist tropes to close ranks around a disabled Black migrant student who has been treated horribly, and weaponising her precarious migrant status against her as she attempts to seek justice. We are also aware that Sue is not the only student in this situation and that there have been other complaints in this department. It is a stark illustration of the pernicious institutional racism at Russell Group universities that a disabled Black migrant woman with caring responsibilities has been treated this way not only by a supervisor, but by the institution, as well as the abject way these universities instrumentalise migrant students from the Global South as sources of income that they can afterwards dispose of.
Sue maintains that this ordeal has not diminished her resolve to complete her PhD studies at Newcastle University Business School. She says, “I want to finish my PhD research. But for that to happen, Newcastle University must provide the necessary support for a disabled student in a non-abusive environment. I hope that the university listens to me and we can come to a resolution on this matter soon.”
Her name was Samiya and she was brutally stabbed in the neck and chest before she was taken to a New York hospital with her sister Sanyia (who had been stabbed in the arm), where she did not survive her injuries from her neck and chest. These sisters were just at a store, and this predator FOLLOWED them after he was rejected and attacked them. He waited for them -and he's still not caught. This is just absolutely horrifying.
Misogyny fuels violence against women -and this very clear epidemic is killing young girls and women.
I cannot imagine the degree of entitlement you think you have to anyone's time and bodies- that anyone could hold that much disdain for rejection, and is okay with exerting power, control, and violence upon another person because YOUR ego is bruised. Fuck toxic masculinity and dismantle the patriarchy until it burns to the ground because I'm so sick of seeing this.
I wish all the best to the family and loved ones of Samiya. This young teenager should still be here. And I hope the man who did this gets apprehended and faces endless misery and misfortune in his lifetime.
"We cannot live without our lives" || Combahee River Collective members march in a memorial to 11 women of color murdered in the Boston area (1979). Photograph by Tia Cross via Verso
this is a really good video, it discussed the topic of the often brushed over misogynoir, never forget black woman in your feminism
Black Femicide and intimate partner violence
