Adina Sash: An Influencer Who Shares Her Message of Equality
Women are leading the world to a better place through social media. Adina Sash, an activist within the Orthodox community, raises awareness for topics ranging from the Payroll Protection Program, to antibody testing, to the rising crisis of anti-semitism. However, she most famously uses her platform to speak up for Jewish women.
Orthodox Jewish women, like women worldwide, have historically been underrepresented in their communities. Sash speaks out against Frum misogyny in order to right the wrongs that are enacted against her fellow women daily. Sash shows that there is a double standard for men and women. She started a hashtag called #FrumWomenHaveFaces, through which she openly advocates for women to post their photos on social media and calls out the chauvinistic elements of society that would block women from doing so. Consistently, Sash goes live on Instagram, boldly updates her feed and story with her positions, and engages with her followers — whether or not they agree with her views.
The Frum community, for example, constantly uses the excuse of protecting women’s “modesty” as it suppresses the ability of its female members to have a voice or status in society. For example, she once forced an organization to change an unfair policy. The organization, which was advertising an upcoming zoom conference with both male and female speakers, chose to only include pictures of the males in its promotional materials. They refused to show the faces of the females claiming that it would be “immodest” to have women’s faces in print! Through their posts, Sash and her followers created such noise in protest that the organization redesigned their promotional materials without any photos of the speakers. Not the perfect outcome — but at least it gave women equal representation.
Sash’s success as an influencer has led to an explosion of Orthodox and Frum women using their voices through social media to create positive change. Over 46,000 people from around the world are following Sash on Instagram. As she, herself, has pointed out, Sash has more followers than any Frum rabbi does. Sash shows the power that one person can have to inspire, unite and bring justice.
Obviously there is a lot more work to be done before women have an equal voice to men in society. Flatbush Girl knows that, and by using Instagram, her main medium, Sash tells her story to spread her message to the younger generations who are the world’s newest change makers.
