Facebook Motherhood Challenge Offends Women

The Facebook Motherhood Challenge, which is intended to empower mothers, has ended up offending several women. Some considered the latest social media craze as smug and insensitive.

The challenge that has been going viral on Facebook for almost a week, asks women to show how good they are at parenting. They are encouraged to post three photographs that depict the joy of motherhood and then nominate other women to do the same.

Writing in The Guardian, Flic Everett called the challenge as a "smug club" that "fetishises motherhood" despite the fact that it was intended for fun. "It's unclear whether the challenge in question is to prove what a great mother you are, or merely to challenge your friends to prove that they are too," Everett opined.

"The most offensive aspect of this is the idea that it's a 'challenge' at all," she wrote. She added that the social media craze "is simply another way to measure women and find them wanting."

In a report of the Mirror, Rosey Wren, a mother-of-three who suffered ante- and post-natal depression, said that the challenge is not helpful especially to struggling women.

"For those suffering with mental illness, these things can be really tough to see," Wren said.

Speaking to BBC News, Berenice Smith, a designer who describes herself as "childless through circumstances rather than choice," said that the challenge is dividing women. She added that one in five women "came close to a breakdown when a group of her friends with children were tagging one and other, but not her."

While other women are offended by the challenge, Beth Watts, a mother who will have her third child in three weeks, considered the craze as "just a laugh".

"I always think it's nice when mums tell each other they are doing a good job," Watts told BBC News. She added that she is annoyed that some women are reacting negatively to the challenge.