Challenge Accepted: Why women are posting black-and-white photos of themselves

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, July 28

Women across the world continue to post black-and-white photos of themselves in an internet challenge to support women’s empowerment with the hashtag ‘Challenge Accepted’, drawing both praises and derision.

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Women—known and unknown, Indian and foreign—have joined the cause, posting black-and-white photos of themselves on Instagram and nominating another woman in their wake to take up the challenge. From Jennifer Aniston, Eva Longoria, to Indian celebrities like Sonam Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor and Rashmi Desai, women are posting their photos on Instagram to send a message of solidarity.

Yet, even while the challenge continues to gather tremendous response, what is less known is the real reason behind it—the growing atrocities against women in Turkey.

The New York Times quoted a representative from Instagram as saying that the earliest post the company could find was more than a week ago by the Brazilian journalist Ana Paula Padrão.

Here’s another post on this.

View this post on Instagram

As #challengeaccepted continues to trend, here is some more information on the origin of the post & how it became suddenly popular out of nowhere❕ . It began to spread first in Turkey as millions of us here grieve the deaths of several women, this week alone, who have garnered a lot of media attention as victims of Femicide. . As the Turkish government looks to back out of the Istanbul Convention, which is made to protect the high number of domestic abuse cases against women, people are angry & banded together to show solidarity against this action. . Your beautiful black & white photo is yes, meant to empower other women as your sister, but because so many men disregard & dispose us of our worth. . I urge you to google Femicide and read the horrific accounts some women have faced. Violence against women anywhere is a tragedy! Share with purpose ✨ . #Femicide #womenempoweringwomen #sisterhood #kadınaşiddetehayır #istanbulsözleşmesiyaşatır #Feminism

A post shared by Zeycan Rochelle YILDIRIM (@zeycan_rochelle) on Jul 27, 2020 at 7:10pm PDT

The incident that triggered the latest viral challenge was the killing of Pinar Gutelkin, a 27-year-old woman who was reported missing and was then found dead in the woods in Turkey’s southwestern Mugla province earlier this month. She was allegedly killed by her jealous ex-boyfriend, who first strangled and then tried to burn her. When he couldn’t, he reportedly stuffed her body in a barrel that he then filled with concrete.

The incident is the latest addition to rising atrocities against women in Turkey—which activists have dubbed as ‘femicide’—and has sparked a national outrage.