You may have picked up on a new wave flooding your Insta: black-and-white selfies accompanied by the hashtag #challengeaccepted.
You may even have been tagged by a friend with an accompanying message like “Women are always being criticized — by men, by the media, and even by one another. Let’s take a moment to celebrate our beauty, bravery and strength. I nominate you to post a B&W photo of your beautiful face, and tag 10 other women to do the same ❤”.
There are currently 5.8 million posts trending under the hashtag #challengeaccepted, most of which are accompanied by messages of self-love and female empowerment.
But what does this have to do with Turkish women?
According to a group of Turkish women, the trend started as an outpouring of grief and condemnation of the abhorrent number of women being murdered in Turkey.
Tariro Mzezewa, a travel reporter for the New York Times, tweeted about her conversation with these women, who said: “it started there as a response to [feeling] frustrated over always seeing black-and-white photos of women who have been killed.”
The black-and-white selfies were uploaded to symbolize the fact that any woman might end up on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. The original accompanying hashtags were #kadınaşiddetehayır and #istanbulsözleşmesiyaşatır — in English, #SayNoToViolenceAgainstWomen and #EnforceTheIstanbulConvention.
Turkey was the first country to adopt The Instanbul Convention, or ‘The Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence’, back in 2011. It is a legal framework created to address gender-based violence issues, including femicide, domestic abuse, sexual assault, honor-based violence, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation (FGM). The treaty establishes standards that any ratifying government must meet to adequately tackle violence against women.
And yet, the number of femicides in Turkey is “shockingly high” and steadily increasing each year. In 2019, France announced nation-wide anti-femicide measures after 100 women were murdered. In Turkey, 474 women were murdered that same year.
Most women are killed by someone they know — partners, ex-partners or relatives. So-called “honor-killings” are prevalent: the murder of a family member due to the belief that the victim has brought shame or dishonor to the family.
Furthermore, these figures may be underrepresentative; government statistics on gender-based violence are unreliable and have even been found to vary between different government departments.
Turkish campaign group Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız, or in English, We Will Stop Femicide, says:
“Women, from all regions and social segments of Turkey, want to work, have access to education, get a divorce or break up with their partners if they are not happy, not to be forced to do things they do not want to, and make their own decisions about their lives.”
“Rather than acknowledging this social reality and understanding women, men are responding [to] women’s quest for rights with violence and putting obstacles in their way. The lack of efficient policies that secure equal existence and rights of women is also encouraging men who are prone to violence.”
So how did this critical message get so lost in translation with the #challengeaccepted trend?
According to Taylor Lorenz, internet culture journalist at NYT, Instagram has revealed that the #challengeaccepted trend actually started in 2016. Back then, black-and-white photos were shared alongside the hashtag to promote cancer awareness. Since then, the hashtag has been co-opted by a variety of cause-based initiatives — including female empowerment, and, most recently, Turkish femicide.
“Black-and-white selfies have been leveraged in support of various vague causes over the years, ultimately having no measurable impact on any of them.” Taylor wrote on Twitter.
So-called “performance activism”, or “slacktivism” has been at the forefront of conversation since the murder of George Floyd and international social media support for the BLM movement from previously disengaged individuals and organizations.
During an interview with TMZ, Taylor warned against this iteration of the hashtag becoming as ineffectual as those that came before it.
“Ultimately what I think we’re realizing…is that visibility isn’t enough, you know. Just posting a beautiful picture of yourself doesn’t do anything to move [people] forward. It has the gleam of activism without having to actually take any action….My critique is more about this type of activism as a whole”.
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Want to act now to prevent more of our Turkish sisters from being murdered?
- Donate to a women’s shelter in Istanbul to keep women alive — like Mor Çatı.
- Support social enterprises by Turkish women, like dropearringsnotbombs.
- Share links to any petitions or other verified ways to act in the comments below.
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Previously published on “Equality Includes You”, a Medium publication.
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Photo credit: Author