Student Submission CUNY Hunter College Spring 2025 Joviann Seepersad  Black Women in Digital Spaces   May, 2025  Through the process of creating a video essay on the effects of misogynoir in online spaces, I have gained a much deeper and more personal understanding of how systems of oppression operate digitally. While I had previously encountered the term “misogynoir,” this project required me to go beyond surface level definitions and examine the emotional, psychological, and social toll that Black women, especially dark-skinned, queer, or trans women endure while navigating the internet. Misogynoir is not just a matter of harmful words or rude comments. It is a structural problem coded into the algorithms,…

Student Submission CUNY Hunter College Spring 2025 Throughout the creation of my project, I was drawn to images that resonated with my own experiences and feelings when thinking back to the themes discussed in this course. These moments of personal connection were not coincidental but rather illustrative of a larger, systemic issue: the persistent and insidious nature of misogynoir in digital spaces. Misogynoir captures the specific intersection of racism and misogyny that we, as Black women face. As we examined digital media through a feminist lens, I became increasingly aware of how deeply embedded these harmful narratives are across platforms What began as a project rooted in visual representation evolved…

Presentation Student Submission CUNY Hunter College Spring 2025 As a Black, multicultural woman who has lived a history of trauma and abuse, this course has represented an academic journey as well as an emotional and spiritual reckoning. I have experienced the reality of misogynoir throughout my life, far before I learned that it had been solidified into a term and theory. As a teenager, I was consistently sexualized and stereotyped in ways that robbed me of safety and dignity. I identified more with black culture, media, music and peer groups after arriving in NYC in early adolescence, and also began experimenting with alcohol and drugs. This led me down a…

Student Submission CUNY Hunter College Spring 2025 Ever since reading about the final project when I first started this class, I’ve had many ideas that I wanted to explore. It was interesting to me that over the stretch of many classes, I slowly learned that I was indeed present during the time that Digital Misogynoir started becoming invasive alongside the growing presence of the Internet and online media, but wasn’t aware that it was a concept. Honestly, I didn’t even know it was a concept / term until I chose this class as an elective. I was in my preteens and teens around this early era of emergence, and always…

Student Submission CUNY Hunter College Spring 2025

Student Submission CUNY Hunter College Spring 2025 The portrayal of Black women in digital spaces reveals persistent and often overlooked patterns of bias. While the internet is often assumed to be an open platform for expression, it frequently reflects the same racial and gendered hierarchies found offline. Black women are not only underrepresented in positive narratives but are also disproportionately targeted by harassment, mischaracterized by stereotypes, and restricted by algorithmic systems. Their voices are often minimized or silenced through platform design choices that claim neutrality but reproduce structural inequality. One of the key challenges in exploring this issue was sourcing material that accurately reflected these experiences without reinforcing harmful tropes.…

Student Submission CUNY Hunter College Spring 2025 Moya Bailey explains that Misogynoir is not just the racism experienced by Black women, nor is it the misogyny they face. Rather, Misogynoir refers to the specific and intertwined racial and sexist violence directed at Black women due to their interconnected and overlapping oppression at the crossroads of racial and gender marginalization. In the scene from Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1995) exemplifies the concept of misogynoir, the specific intersection of racism and misogyny directed toward Black women. Celie, a dark-skinned, non-ambiguous Black woman, endures particularly harsh treatment at the hands of her abusive husband. The dinner table scene underscores the way he…