A reflection on Women Supporting Women
I’ve been trying to sit longer with things before reacting or taking action as a mechanism to practice more self-control. I think the pandemic has made it even more difficult, as one would expect, unable to move about as you please. But I’m not referring to this kind of practice in relation to hitting a beach or crowded bar.
This is actually about social media and the split second that occurs from the moment you see a post to the habitual reaction of your thumb before your brain even has time to process. I’ve done it many times, mindlessly scrolling through my feed, liking post after post. And so it is with the latest #womensupportingwomen Instagram challenge, I’ve chosen to pause and reflect about all of my thoughts at play here. These are my honest reactions over the past few days and series of events that I want to share openly because perhaps others might relate. That’s the whole reason why I write in the first place, to try and find some sort of common ground with humanity. So here goes.
I was first nominated for the challenge by my dear friend on Monday and had no idea what it was about or why it existed. There was only a message with somewhat vague details about “taking care of each other” and “being inclusive and beautiful the way we are” followed by instructions to post a black and white photo with the words “challenge accepted.” My first honest reaction was this seems stupid and as much as I loved my friend and appreciated the sentiment, I wasn’t moved to act. Throughout the remainder of the day numerous black and white selfies of beautiful women flooded my feed so that I began to connect more behind that message. The photos had no real context other than women sharing words of gratitude tagging other women but they all had one thing in common, they all looked like headshots. I was very confused.
The following day I started to see posts of how the challenge originated, the first one being that it was inspired by femicide — violence against women and the brutal murder of a woman named Pinar Gültekin in Turkey. So I began to research more about it and found other articles claiming that Brazil or AOC’s response to Ted Yoho had all led to the resurgence of #challengeaccepted in the U.S. As I continued reading perspectives from women criticizing women for participating without sharing context of what’s happening in Turkey to “sharing hot selfies and calling it a movement” I have to admit that I was immediately turned off by the whole idea.
That evening another dear friend nominated me to which I responded to both her and my other friend that I was grateful but still unsure if and how I wanted to participate. Something just didn’t quite feel right. Even though I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole campaign, I continued to like friends’ posts supporting the challenge and even recognized some voicing their own opinions with differentiated ways of participation. It wasn’t until this morning that I began to reflect on the past few days and thought about why I felt so strongly not to post at first. Then I thought about the two women who nominated me and how much they had genuinely supported me in my life, and it changed my mind.
So I “flipped the script” so to speak and used my own post as an opportunity to share more about KUMFA an organization that helps women, specifically Korean unwed mothers, who in the past and even today have to face social stigma, discrimination and lack of better-funded welfare services from the government which has played a significant role in why so many children end up in the adoption system.
About 120,000 of all officially recorded international adoptees have been children of unwed mothers, and since the 1990s, 90% of children adopted both internationally and domestically each year are the children of unwed mothers.
Sometimes I think it’s so easy to get caught up in your own beliefs and opinions based on your own experience that anyone or anything which goes against them is wrong. Sometimes you just forget that This is Water. I do think one should do the research before participating in a viral social media campaign and perhaps because social media exists, each of us has more responsibility in the information we disseminate. And maybe women just deserve to feel beautiful, empowered and supported and that’s all there is to it. So here’s to creating awareness and your own path in supporting women.
