Episode 8: Misogynoir History with Dr. Moya Bailey

Join Bridget, James, and Thanasis as we are joined by Dr. Moya Bailey. Dr. Moya Bailey is an assistant professor in the Department of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies and the program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Northeastern University. Her work focuses on Black women’s use of digital media to promote social justice as acts of self-affirmation and health promotion. She is interested in how race, gender, and sexuality are represented in media and medicine. She currently curates the#transformDH Tumblr initiative in Digital Humanities (DH). She is a monthly sustainer of the Allied Media Conference, through which she is able to bridge her passion for social justice and her work in DH.

Dr. Bailey is a graduate of the Emory University Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department. She is the founder and co-conspirator of Quirky Black Girls, a network for strange and different black girls and now serves at the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network.

She attended Spelman College where she initially endeavored to become a physician. She fell in love with Women’s Studies and activism, ultimately driving her to graduate school in lieu of medicine. As an undergrad she received national attention for her involvement in the “Nelly Protest” at Spelman, a moment that solidified her deep commitment to examining representations of Black women in popular culture.

We talk about the role of the academic in social change, DH and intersectional social change, the Allied Media Conference, the story of Quirky Black Girls, the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, the concept of “Misogynoir”. We touch on Dr. Bailey’s dissertation on how representations in medical school curriculums shape how doctors see different marginalized groups and how the Nelly protest shaped her research and activism, how problematic portrayals become international, and dismantling binaries. Dr. Bailey talks about the possibilities of linking activists, academics, and scifi writers at the Black To The Future conference.