How the latest selfie craze divided feminists
- 7 August 2015
In an echo of the debate over twerking, there's now a big online discussion in the US about the "Arch That Back Challenge" and whether it undermines female empowerment.
The latest controversial selfie trend began sometime on Monday, and quickly gathered speed. The "Arch That Back Challenge" has been taken up by tens of thousands of women using networks such as Instagram and Twitter, mostly in the USA.
The challenge is pretty much what you'd expect from the name - it's about women posting photos and videos displaying their curves, and asks participants to take selfies of themselves with their backs arched as far as possible. The accompanying hashtag has now been used almost half a million times on Twitter and prompted a sprawling debate.
In its early stages, images of young women - many of them provocative and mostly treating the trend as a bit of fun - began to appear.
Soon, however, people began using the hashtag to send abusive messages to those taking part. The abuse seemed to come mainly from men. Some used racial overtones - many of those taking part were black - and many aimed to embarrass the women who'd posted pictures. "The fact y'all are doing this is disgusting honestly, y'all do anything for follows", and "If you participated you a clown", read two comments, both from men - and many took a more aggressive tone. Other messages with distinctive religious overtones appeared too.
Another video, posted by a woman on Twitter, continued the religious theme. "Today I'm going to teach you how to do the Arch Back Challenge. First you wanna start with your back like this," it began, before changing tone, "and then you wanna do nothing, because you are a child of god and god is watching."
A new set of voices also entered the debate, many of them describing themselves as feminists, and offered two very different viewpoints.
Some chastised the women posting pictures of themselves. "Men are out there are objectifying you. You're an object to them OK? You're better than that. Get up off the floor and read a book," said one woman, in an Instagram video. Thousands started sharing a rival hashtag - #ShowYourDiplomaChallenge - encouraging women to show off their academic achievements rather than their bodies. It's now been used more than four thousand times on Twitter.
A second group rallied behind the "Arch That Back Challenge", and were angry with both men and other feminists for "shaming" those who had taken pictures of themselves. "Who are you to decide whether someone has self respect or not? Keep your shaming to yourself," said one, and "stop shaming people for being confident and showing off their bodies," said another.
Indeed, such was the weight of the reaction, that the original photos became harder and harder to find amid the hundreds of thousands of comments. "I haven't seen an #ArchThatBackChallenge photo, just tweets of people shaming women for being sexual in any way, shape, or form...as usual" posted one user.
In an attempt to cut through the noise, many posted a link to this article, which attempts to guide readers through what it sees as the difference between empowerment and objectification.
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