Moya Bailey has always known that a black woman in America has to navigate a compounded, specific kind of discrimination. There just wasn’t a name for it. So in 2010, while researching her dissertation, she came up with one. Bailey coined the term “misogynoir” to recognize the specific race- and gender-based biases black women face in pop culture—a topic to which she’s dedicated her research ever since.
In recognition of this work, she was named No. 5 on Essence Magazine’s Woke 100 Women for 2018.
“I’m thrilled to be part of this list,” said Bailey, assistant professor of cultures, societies, and global studies and of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Northeastern. “It’s nice to have a magazine like Essence acknowledge work that is specifically about black women and challenging the way we represent them.”
