Real meaning behind the viral trend of women sharing B&W photos
The challenge began in Turkey, where a women’s rights campaign began as a way of rebelling against the huge violence women many Turkish face
The biggest trend of the recent time has been the Black and White Photo Challenge on Instagram. Many women are sharing their beautiful photos captioning #ChallengeAccepted.
But it seems like people were more interested in sharing their good looking attractive photos without knowing the actual cause behind it. This is not a fun activity like other previous challenges of "no rush" or makeup or shopping haul video trend. Rather, this has a very painfull background and it's time that people recognise this agony.
The challenge is all about female empowerment and women supporting women on social media. As the #ChallengeAccepted trend has got bigger on social media, the original meaning has actually been completely lost. It's become a celebration of women in America and the western world, yet this is not where it began.
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The challenge began in Turkey, where a women's rights campaign began as a way of rebelling against the huge violence women many Turkish face.
Protests in Turkey broke out after a 27-year-old woman named Pınar Gültekin was strangled, burned and murdered by her ex-boyfriend in the Mugla province last week.
Femicide is a huge issue in Turkey, with 474 women murdered in 2019 – the highest figures in a whole decade. And due to the coronavirus, 2020 figures are expected to be even worse.
Therefore, women in Turkey are said to have began the Black And White Photo Challenge in order to raise awareness of the struggles Turkish women face.
They are keeping a record of their faces on social media stating, "they might be next" - a meaning that has been entirely lost on social media.
Many people on social media are fighting for people to remember the original meaning of the challenge when posting their black and white photos onto social media.
One Twitter user said: "Absolutely love all your posts, just wanted to draw your attention to the origins of the "challenge accepted" posts. It began to spread awareness in Turkey as they grieve the deaths of several women who are victims of Femicide. #istanbulsözleşmesiyaşatır."
The hashtags #kadınaşiddetehayır and #istanbulsözleşmesiyaşatır were used by Turkish women as part of the challenge, but as it became more Americanised, the original hashtags were dropped.
They are said to roughly translate as #SayNoToViolenceAgainstWomen and #EnforceTheIstanbulConvention, and people are being urged to use these hashtags as part of the challenge.
