ChallengeAccepted

Earlier this year, #ChallengeAccepted appeared on social media to ask women to post a flattering black-and-white selfie. At least 3 million posts accumulated under the hashtag, but what is #WomenSupportingWomen? What does it mean?

Celebrities began posting well-lit B&W photos of themselves in July, usually with a caption espousing the virtues of women in general and maybe two to three women in particular. The hashtag was ‘meant to celebrate strength, spread love, and remind all women that supporting each other is everything.’ But where did it begin?

There are conflicting theories about how the challenge started. The New York Times pointed out there have been previous iterations of social-media users posting B&W pictures with #ChallengeAccepted, including a 2016 campaign meant to raise awareness for cancer.

It was speculated that the latest round of B&W selfies could have been inspired by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s electric speech in the US Congress in which she addressed being called a ‘fucking bitch’ by a male

colleague, and which apparently resulted in a spike in social-media posts about feminism and women’s empowerment.

However, women in Turkey began posting B&W photos on social media in July to protest femicide and domestic violence and to grieve the violent death of Pinar Gültekin, a university student who was reportedly killed by her ex-boyfriend. The writer Mina Tümay explained in a post:

‘People in Turkey regularly see black and white images of women on the news, but they are pictures of women who have been violently murdered; the country has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world. The photo challenge circulating right now was in response to Pinar’s death. A way for Turkish women to stand in solidarity with those lost and shine a light on what is happening.

This is much more than an opportunity to post a nice pic of you. It’s much more than supporting other women by asking them to do the same. Social media can do so much good, but so often the intended impactful message is quickly lost - it’s kinda like playing that game where you whisper something in someone’s ear and then they pass it on to someone else and so on, and the original message comes out the other end completely different. So post your photo, but do if for Pinar and all the other women, especially women of colour, who have been lost to violence.’

The original accompanying hashtags were #kadınaşiddetehayır #istanbulsözleşmesiyaşatır which translate to say ‘no to violence against women’ and ‘enforce the Istanbul Treaty/Doctrine’ (where rights to protect women are signed.)