Scholar Moya Bailey coined the term misogynoir in 2008 to describe the specific mix of racism and sexism directed at Black women. The writer Trudy, of the blog Gradient Lair, helped spread and develop it in the early 2010s. It builds on Kimberlé Crenshaw's idea of intersectionality: Black women's experience is not simply racism plus sexism, but its own form of harm.
Misogynoir draws on stereotypes created during slavery, such as the "Jezebel," "Mammy" and "Sapphire" caricatures, which cast Black women as hypersexual, servile or angry. Those images still shape how Black women are treated. A 2017 Georgetown Law study found that adults viewed Black girls as needing less nurturing and protection than white girls, starting as young as age 5. That bias is called adultification.
The harm is measurable in health care. In 2023, Black women in the US died from maternal causes at more than three times the rate of white women, according to the CDC. Black women's reports of pain and symptoms are more likely to be dismissed. Bailey's 2021 book, Misogynoir Transformed, also documents how Black women have used digital media to resist these patterns.