Kendall opens the essay by noting that she, like many women of color, has been consistently labeled as fierce. She feels ambivalent about that label. It is disproportionately applied to Black women, Indigenous women, and other women of color (BIPOC) as praise, but what it covers over is a lack of support for such women during and after confrontations with forces that victimize them. That label and this dynamic have a history. Feminism in the United States is individualist, so instead of naming and confronting the oppression that forces BIPOC women to be fierce, feminists merely praise assertive responses to oppression as acts of bravery.

The consequences of this dynamic are apparent in many parts of society. Corporate feminism, for example, is all about supporting already privileged women so that they can be successful in industries dominated by men, but when Black women like Serena Williams highlight the oppressive forces undercutting their success, corporate feminists become concerned about tone.

Carceral feminism focuses on holding people legally accountable for victimizing women, but this feminism is rarely attentive to supporting women as they deal with the legal, mental, and personal fallout from pressing charges, nor do carceral feminists ever consider the racism and gender discrimination that makes marginalized women more likely to be prosecuted for defending themselves against victimization.