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Current Event – Too Hot to Handle
Student Submission – Current Event SPR2025 https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT26qLccD This week’s current event comes from TikTok, specifically from the beauty community. In the video, Melinda Berry, a former Too Hot to Handle contestant turned beauty influencer, is trying on blushes gifted to her by a beauty brand. She begins with one shade of blush that complements her skin tone, already on her face, as she showcases a lighter shade that would not suit her skin tone. Melinda tried the lighter product, but it didn’t work as expected. She continues to make the point of the video that one suits her and the other doesn’t. She remarks, “That one is for fair skin…
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Current Event – 2025 Grammys
Student Submission – Current Event VCU SPR25 https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Y2bJt9 https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Yj1uEy
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Current Event – Soft Life
Student Submission – Current Event VCU SPR25 These findings are a lot more obvious about the subject of misogynoir, but I wanted to discuss them anyway. As they both mentioned, they have presented a more reserved persona which has been mistranslated as them being inherently aggressive. As we have discussed, there is this notion that black people, especially black women, are a lot tougher than their white “counterparts.” Society just cannot see a black woman as “soft” and “delicate.” Which is why we have the “angry black woman” stereotype. I find it especially interesting with the original tweet as it comes across like she did not see the underlying misogynoir.…
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Silenced Screens
Student Submission – Final Project VCU FA24 Silenced Screens In the glow of screens where voices rise, Lies a shadowed truth, a web of lies. Where Blackness blooms with radiant grace, And womanhood carves its sacred space. But here, the storm begins to brew, An endless torrent, cruel and untrue. Trolls sharpen words into jagged spears, Algorithms blind to her hopes and tears. Memes like masks, they laugh, they jeer, Turning joy to whispers laced with fear. Microaggressions slip through the seams, Invisible threads unravel her dreams. The hashtags pile, a digital pyre, Fueling the flames of unholy fire. Her name, her story, her every thought, Reduced to rubble, discarded,…
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Pop the Ballon or Find Love ?
Student Submission – Current Event VCU FA24 My current event is a tweet sharing a clip from a YouTube ‘dating show’, in which a woman enters a room with 20, or so, men with balloons, which they pop if they would not date her. These videos have recently become popular with many creators making their own versions. The premise of these videos is problematic, upholding transactional views of, particularly romantic, relationships. The specific clip, posted to Twitter (X) by user Raye (@sweetbabyrayes), shows a Black man explaining why he popped his balloon, stating that he isn’t a fan of weave and implying that her application reveals her natural hair braids…
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Digital Art
Student Submission – Final Project VCU FA24 In this project, I seem to have learned how deep and widespread misogynoir is in digital platforms. Misogynoir, which has been coined by scholar Moya Bailey, is a term derived from racism of Black women. At first, I treated misogynoir as a phenomenon where Black women are discriminated against. When I was trying to know more about it, I did not know how it affects black women mentally, emotionally and on a personal level and how even some black men perpetrate this. Through participating in this project I learnt how social media, a network that links people together and a platform for the…
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Misogynoir in Female Sports
Sanaa Banks – Final Project VCU FA24
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Misogynoir and Cultural Appropiation: A Double Standard in Society
Student submission – Final Project VCU FA24
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Artwork
Naomi Cordova – Final Project VCU FA24 As an artist, I wanted to use this medium to powerfully illustrate the deep-rooted and multifaceted nature of misogynoir that I and so many other Black women face, both in digital spaces and in society at large. Constructing the conceptual structure map was crucial in highlighting the complex web of issues that contribute to and perpetuate misogynoir – from online harassment and hate speech to systemic biases and oppressive ideologies. Seeing those terms like “racism,” “sexism,” “feminism,” and “queer theory” clustered together underscores how these forms of marginalization intersect and amplify one another, creating a suffocating reality for us. Incorporating the image of…
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Halle Bailey and Misogynoir
Khaalis Smithers – Current Event VCU FA24 IG: @himcess and @inyouyasha This week we’re focusing on a post from Halle Bailey she responded with in defense of her motherhood and family optics. Since the announcement of her pregnancy Halle has been subjected to massive scrutiny regarding her child’s appearance and the credibility of DDG’s potential for fatherhood. Millions of Twitter users, especially Black women who make up the majority of her fanbase, harass her daily for her supposed indignant choice in choosing DDG as the father of her child. They insinuate that despite her supposed hyper-intelligence and emotional complexity, she is predisposed to maltreatment in romantic relationships because she is…
