About
#IfIWereABoy is a hashtagsign holding in which women reveal things they would do if they were of the male gender. Introduced by the pop culture blog Elite Daily in August 2014, what began as a discussion of gender roles was subsequently derailed into a campaign against male circumcision.
Origin
On August 5th, 2014, Elite Daily[1] published an article titled “#IfIWereABoy: 12 Women Share What They’d Do Differently If They Were Treated The Same As Men,” which highlighted photographs of twelve staff members holding signs containing messages describing what they would do if they were men (shown below).
Spread
On August 6th, 2014, the news site News.com.au[11] published an article about the hashtag, which highlighted the Elite Daily photographs. On August 8th, the women’s interest blog Hello Giggles[3] published an article about the hashtag campaign. As of August 14th, there are over 24,400 photos submitted to Instagram under the tag “#ifiwereaboy.”
Anti-Circumcision Campaign
On August 7th, 2014, the Forced Circumcision is a Human Rights Violation Facebook[6] page posted a photoshopped version of an #IfIWereABoy photo with superimposed photos of male babies being circumcised (shown below).
The post subsequently inspired anti-circumcision activist Cynthia Maloney to create a Facebook[7] event page titled “If I were a BOY (intactivist event),” which invited people to share photos of themselves holding signs speaking out against forced circumcision. Facebook users began posting photos to the page of themselves holding #IfIWereABoy signs condemning circumcision as a form of genital mutilation (shown below).
On August 9th, a Facebook[8] page titled “If I Were a Boy – Inactivist Community” was created for users to submit addition photos to the anti-circumcision campaign. On August 13th, an article about the hijacked hashtag was submitted to the /r/mensrights[10] subreddit, where it gained over 780 votes (93% upvoted) in the first 24 hours.
#IfIWereAGirl
On August 11th, the Super Ruchacz Facebook[4] page uploaded a gallery of photographs featuring men holding signs describing what they would do if they “were a girl” (shown below). The same day, The Huffington Post[9] highlighted several of the photos in an article titled “IfIWereABoy Feminist Campaign Gets Ambushed by Stupidity.”
Search Interest
Not available.
External References
[1]Elite Daily – IfIWereABoy
[2]Iconosquare – ifiwereaboy
[3]Hello Giggles – If I Were a Boy
[4]Facebook – If I Were a Boy vs If I Were a Girl
[5]Facebook – Hollie Ann Redinger
[6]Facebook – Forced Circumcision is a Human Rights Violation
[7]Facebook – If I were a boy inactivist event
[8]Facebook – If I were A Boy inactivist community
[9]The Huffington Post – #IfIWereABoy Feminist Campaign Gets Ambushed By Stupidity
[10]Reddit – Hilarious feminists latest hashtag got hijacked
[11]News.com.au – #IfIWereABoy