#20beautifulwomen
This hashtag is meant to challenge and empower women to post a picture of themselves in which they feel beautiful, but has the potential to turn into a popularity contest.
Mar 9, 2015
When I open up my Instagram app as of late, my feed is flooded with photos of women; be it selfies, professional photos, or candids. The #20beautifulwomen hashtag has spread rapidly, and encourages women to upload a photo of themselves in which they feel beautiful, and then nominate 20 other women.
I often hear people talk about this trend with annoyance. They don’t like the fact that it has taken over their page, get irritated with the added “tagged photo” notifications that they receive, or think that it promotes vanity.
But shouldn’t we be supporting the improvement of self-confidence among women?
In a study conducted by Florida State University, it was found that women who browsed Facebook for 20 minutes had lower self esteem than those asked to do research online for 20 minutes. Modern social media is incredibly harmful to the way that women, especially younger girls, view themselves.
The 20 beautiful women challenge is a much-needed turn in a positive direction for social media. Women who may typically feel embarrassed or self-centered for posting a selfie are encouraged to take a minute to appreciate their self-worth. The point of this challenge is not to compete for “likes,” but rather to boost one’s self-confidence and to inspire other women to do the same.
Personally, as I scrolled through Instagram and saw photo after photo with the hashtag #20beautifulwomen, I was inspired. I was touched by the female presence in social media, and the acknowledgement of each other’s beauty. There was an obvious community being built among women through likes and positive comments, and it continued to spread through the tagging of female friends and family members.
So ladies, if you have yet to be nominated for the 20 beautiful women challenge, consider it done. I encourage you to post a photo in which you feel beautiful, and keep spreading female female empowerment. Confidence is contagious.
Self-empowerment corrupted by need for validation through likes
Social media is a place to share experiences, gossip, rant, and, recently, to promote some goodness in the world.
As a female, I see where the intentions for #20beautifulwomen came from. All women should feel beautiful and empowered and should have the self-esteem to show their faces without the fear of being judged.
Unfortunately, social media is flawed in that it tends to turn these things into a popularity contest.
After the moment girls posted their #20beautifulwomen on Instagram, they likely visited Instagram much more often than normal – why? Because we cannot help but care about how many likes we get. So girls will put on makeup, pose, or find an already edited photo and put on more filters to try to fulfill society’s standard of beautiful.
That completely defeats the purpose of the challenge.
I must admit, I posted a #20beautifulwomen on Instagram too. I am not perfect. I would like to hope my intentions were pure, but it did no great good to my self esteem to post that photo.
So why are we putting a number on the amount of beautiful women in the world? Why does one person get to decide who is beautiful, when anyone can be beautiful?
As much as I support the empowerment of women, I cannot support their subjectification to judgement on social media. It’s not so easy to fix others’ standards of beautiful, but we can change our own. I hope everyone reading this see themselves as beautiful.
To see examples of this trend, check out the #20BeautifulWomen on Twitter.