S2, E12 Villain Origin Story

Zora's Daughters

Is rejection and trauma the Black Manosphere and Toxic Femininity villain origin story?! In today's episode we're joined by soon-to-be PhD Candidate Anuli Akanegbu to discuss patriarchy, the know-your-place aggression towards Black women online, and what draws people to these spaces on the internet.

What's The Word? Patriarchy. This term is used to describe a society that organizes itself around the idea that cis men are superior to and should dominate over... everybody else. This structure imposes the gender binary and influences the way we're socialized. We also discuss the spiritual side of the divine feminine, which looks nothing like what we see on YouTube.

What We're Reading. Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman by Michele Wallace. The chapter we discuss asserts that the men in the Black Power movements were relying on Norman Mailer's "The White Negro" and the Moynihan Report to shape what Black manhood and a revolutionary should look like.

What in the World?! We speak with Anuli Akanegbu about the outgrowth of the Black Manosphere from Hotep Twitter, the "applesauce" that helps some folks swallow the red pill, Steve Harvey, capitalizing on tearing down Black women, the aesthetics of these spaces, being "high-value" as an afterlife of slavery, the way all of this is tied to capitalism, and what it means to feel welcome in your own body.

Check out Anuli's podcast BLK IRL and follow her on Twitter and Instagram!

Discussed in this episode:

The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (bell hooks, 2004)
Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (Michele Wallace, 1979)
My Brush With The Black Manosphere (Nicole Young, 2022)

ZD merch available here and the syllabus for ZD 202 is here!

Let us know what you thought of the episode @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter!

Transcript will be available on our website here.