Royal Holloway University’s feminism society started a viral Twitter trend on Wednesday after an overheard comment led them to post ‘anti-selfie selfies’ looking unattractive. Some girls associated with the London Uni society heard someone call them ‘the ugly girls club.’ Instead of feeling hurt or angry, they changed their facebook page name to Ugly Girls Club and empowered themselves.
After posting photos like these, the hashtag #uglygirlsclub blew up:
The University society’s president, Natalie Barrett sums up the social media movement by saying: “Our aim is to make a stand against people being judged on appearance rather than their achievements and strong traits. We also wish to make a point against conventional beauty standards and help people find confidence by coming together in solidarity against these very relevant issues.
But some people are hysterical about the campaign, and one search of #uglygirlsclub on Twitter (so far, over 1,000 people have joined in the campaign) shows how cruel some people can be!
A very different hashtag was popular last summer, with women posting traditional (attractive) selfies to show that not all feminists are ugly.
But the campaign was criticized for portraying exactly the same objectification of women as that which they claim to be fighting against. What are your views on the selfie phenomenon? Can you be a feminist and still post pictures like this one above? Did the #uglygirlsclub make a good point about the strange world of selfies or did they just play into the hands of those who think feminists are unattractive? Let us know (or share your ugly selfies!) in the comments.
