A social media campaign to promote women empowerment has filled Instagram feeds recently with black-and-white photos. For the #ChallengeAccepted trend, women nominate their friends to share a black-and-white photo on Instagram with the caption 'Challenge accepted.'
As of Wednesday evening, there have been more than 5.5 million posts with the hashtag #ChallengeAccepted. Most of these posts also used #Womensupportingwomen.
Celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, Kristen Bell, Paris Hilton, Urmila Matondkar, Ananya Panday, Sara Ali Khan have accepted the challenge and posted their black-and-white pictures in support of the trend.
Though it is unclear how the movement began, New York Times journalist Tariro Mzezewa tweeted that it began in Turkey “as a response to them being frustrated over always seeing black and white photos of women who have been killed.” It is said that the campaign was initiated to raise awareness about violence against women in Turkey. Tags like #istanbulanlaşmasıyaşatır and #istanbulsözleşmesiyaşatır were also among the hashtags that promoted the campaign.
Turkey is among the top countries when it comes to femicide. The challenge was raised by women in Turkey to raise awareness of the struggles they face, a meaning that has been entirely lost on social media.
The campaign also aims at celebrating womanhood and to spread positivity during COVID-19 pandemic.
However, many were also of the opinion that this campaign was not the way to celebrate sisterhood and that it was meaningless.
