New Delhi: The latest social media trend seems to have have caught on in the Congress’ first family. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Wednesday posted a black and white photograph with her mother Sonia Gandhi, the party’s interim president, and her daughter Miraya on her official Instagram page with the hashtags #womensupportingwomen and #challengeaccepted.
The post is among the many that women have been posting as part of a women empowerment movement on social media. Typically, a person posts a black and white photo of themselves after being nominated and passes the ‘challenge’ on to other women.
“Nothing can be braver, nothing can be stronger, nothing more fun than #womensupportingwomen,” posted the UP Congress leader.
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Women for women
The challenge has taken social media by storm and has been trending on Instagram since Monday. Women from across the globe have been sharing black-and-white self portraits and have been tagging other women — friends, relatives, co-workers — to do the same a show of sisterhood and solidarity, and to promote women empowerment and feminism.
Many notable personalities and celebrities have joined the social media campaign, including US President Donald Trump’s daughter and advisor Ivanka, American actors Jennifer Garner and Reese Witherspoon and former model Cindy Crawford. In India, actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar and journalist Faye D’Souza posted photos too.
Though it’s unclear how the campaign started, some reports say it might have been inspired by US Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s speech against sexist comments by fellow representative, Ted Yoho.
A video of her speech in the US House of Representatives, in which she called out Yoho and similar sexist behaviour in men, was widely shared on social media.
Another theory on what started the #womensupportingwomen campaign believes that the ‘challenge’ intends to spread awareness on violence against women and femicide in Turkey.
just thought all of you posting these "black and white" challenges should see how tone deaf they actually are xx pic.twitter.com/WdQzQqMlza
— mona lisa (@imaann_patel) July 28, 2020
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Black and white theme
The black and white photographs come about a month after the #BlackoutTuesday movement, where users posted plain black squares on their Instagram accounts. The movement came to be associated with promoting solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protests against racial inequality and police brutality.
Back in 2016 too, black and white photographs with the hashtag #ChallengeAccepted became a trend to spread awareness on cancer.
Challenge Accepted: What is the black and white photo challenge?
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