Sarah Petri

RCL 137

Civic Artifact Speech

For every time a young girl passes the mirror and thinks Im not good enough, every

time she is told she isnt tall enough or thin enough, every time she looks at girls on the cover of

a magazine and wonders if she is pretty enough, is there a time where she is told she is beautiful?

A time when believes she is unique, or feels confident in whatever she is wearing for the day?

Does it all even out in the end? The answer is no. Today, 1 in 4 girls will develop depression,

eating disorders, or self-harm due to societal beauty standards. Beginning in 2012, the hashtag 20

beautiful women began to take social media by storm, promoting young women to post a selfie

and within the post tag 20 friends to do the same, the goal being to promote body positivity and

self-confidence. Despite starting 4 years ago, the tag rises and declines as various profiles use the

tag. Just as an internet fad, the hashtag plays a part in everyday life with the daily usage of social

media accounts, along with the idea that a struggling self-confidence does not vanish; it is a part

of a young girls life from the moment she gets ready in the morning to the moment she goes to

bed. Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr are also forms of shared enterprise, for anyone can open an

account and create a post. However, the hashtag calls to ignore the self-esteems of men. Even

though 10 million men suffer from anorexia nervosa nationwide, the hashtag ignores the growing

dilemma in males. While societal pressures on females is statistically significant, millions of men

experience self-hatred and are not getting the aid nor communal awareness that they need.

Furthermore, the hashtag is structured to highlight the uplifting, inspirational stories of everyday

women and their newfound self-love, subsequently shadowing the grave realities within the
escalating self-loathing. This being said, the ideology behind this hashtag involves the

acceptance of all body types and appearances, yet isnt there additionally a shared belief that

women should fit that flawless, model mold? The 20 beautiful women challenge conflicts these

two ideologies, attempting to abolish the latter by promoting positivity. Happiness, uniqueness,

and diversity are all ideal, but whether we want to admit it or not, there are commonplaces and a

set definition for beautiful, and it is going to take more than a hashtag to uproot. Perhaps if the

movement had a stronger infrastructure, the 20 beautiful women challenge would have been

more successful. With no organization backing the hashtag, there was no place for people to turn

for more information. In fact, the challenge was based off of the novel 20 Beautiful Women by

Saba Tekle, comprised of 20 stories by 20 individual authors detailing their paths to self-

acceptance. Despite the millions of profiles the hashtag reached through Instagram, few are

aware of its connections to the novel. Saba Tekles personal experience with beauty standards

deems her a credible source, but the lack of understood connection to the hashtag dims the

ethical appeal. Nevertheless, ethos is still present in the movement since the family and friends

who tag others in the challenge are the most credible source when it comes to acknowledging

individual beauty. Similarly, the hashtags manipulation of pathos is exactly what keeps the

movement going; that warm, fuzzy feeling when someone tags you as one of 20 beautiful women

inspires women on social media to create a post and let 20 others feel the same. Despite its

pervasiveness and shared enterprise, the 20 beautiful women challenge does not qualify as civic

engagement. A mere hashtag is too weak to oppose two ideologies, specifically a hashtag with no

infrastructure and an inconsistent social media presence. Although the intent of the hashtag was

to promote beauty in everyone, does it count when the woman spends 3 hours on her hair and

makeup for the picture? Or when 3 filters are applied after using 2 editing apps? Instagram and
Twitter are full of photoshopped, inauthentic images that are the initial commonplaces causing so

much doubt and self-hate in young girls, leaving 20 beautiful women challenge sitting between

hashtag hot and hashtag model. Being civically engaged goes beyond following a social media

trend. Hashtags upon hashtags can build, each inspiring individuality, but the civic component

doesnt come in until we truly strive for change and the betterment of womens self-esteems. No

matter how many accounts the 20 beautiful women challenge reaches, no matter how many

selfies we take, there is an underlying, hidden hashtag: self-doubt, which can only be removed

through civic engagement. Then, women will be able to accept their shape and size with hashtag

no filter. Thank you.