Written by Sanjana Gudivada and edited by Anvitha Reddy
Blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. A lot of people believe this to be the standard of beauty. Fair skin is looked upon as a superior trait in many Asian countries. Dark skin is shunned and thought to be undesirable.
“Scrub your face a little more. Every boy wants to marry a fair-skinned girl.” This is what I heard from most of the people around me when I was growing up. I grew to hate the shade of my brown skin. I looked at my baby pictures and saw how fair I was as an infant and a toddler. I also noticed how people praised me for being lighter than most South-Indians when I was a child. It was ingrained into me by both the media and the people around me: that I was not pretty enough because my skin color was darker.
Fair and Lovely. This name may strike as very familiar to a lot of people because it is a popularly sold item in India with over $550 million USD sales annually-- in India alone (Buch, 2020). As the name suggests, “Fair and Lovely” is a skin whitening cream sold in India by a company called Hindustan Unilever Limited. Many popular and respected public figures such as Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra, who have a large following of young adults, are influenced by these advertisement campaigns and think that being fair-skinned is the only way they’ll succeed.
Similarly, in South Korea an example of colorism is whitening. In the Korean-pop industry, idols who have fairer skin in a girl group or boy group are favored more and are known as the “visual” of the group, the most attractive person. Kim Jongin (known by his stage name Kai) from EXO was heavily criticized by Korean netizens for having a darker skin complexion than other idols. Oftentimes fans take pictures of their naturally tanned idols and whiten them before posting online. This idea of favoring white skin has been in Korea since the ancient Joseon dynasty (1392-1897). People with darker skin belonged to a lower social class than the people who had lighter skin (Kim, 2020). Light-skinned people were considered as virtuous and desirable and that idea still continues to affect the self-image of Koreans to this day (Kim, 2020).
Colorism is present not only in India and Korea but also many other South, Southeast, and East Asian countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, China, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Malaysia for example, has a bias towards its Chinese population due to their paler skin (Tan & Stephen, 2019). In fact, in a psychological experiment, conducted to reveal skin color bias, the Chinese population of Malaysia chose to increase the yellowness and redness in the skin tones of Chinese, Caucasian, and African American faces when asked what would make these people’s skin “look healthier” (Tan & Stephen, 2019). This deep-rooted hatred for dark skin in Asia comes not only from Western colonization but also from the notion that being dark skinned is associated “with poverty and working in the fields, whereas pale skin reflects a more comfortable life out of the sun and, therefore, a higher socioeconomic status” (Tai & Sukumaran, 2019).
This issue is so prevalent that according to a World Health Organisation survey, 40% of women reported using whitening products on a regular basis in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea (Tai & Sukumaran, 2019). Parents belittle daughters for having dark skin, classmates call you names and tease students for it, and men say they want a porcelain-skinned girl he could marry and proudly show off to the world. This prejudice against dark skin is harmful especially for developing children, who will soon grow to scowl at themselves every time they look into the mirror.
I hated being a brown-skinned Indian for as long as I can remember. I used light face powder and rubbed it all over my face in attempts to fit the Indian standard of “beautiful”. I became self conscious of my appearance at an age where I should’ve been riding bikes with friends and learning fractions. It wasn’t until I moved to the United States that I started to feel comfortable in my own skin. I realized I didn’t have to fit the beauty standard to please others. My skin color doesn’t determine if I will be liked by others and it certainly doesn’t determine my place in society.
Today when I look into the mirror, I can proudly say that I love my brown skin. I love the way it glows in the sun and I love the way it complements my golden highlights. I love the way my jewellery shines on it and I love not buying a foundation shade that is far too light for me. Today, I can boldly look at others who tell me to start buying whitening products and tell them, “White is not the standard.”
Sources
Cover Photo sourced from Photography Mag through Pinterest; https://pin.it/4CFkwy1
1. Tai, C., & Sukumaran, T. (2019, February 3). The backlash against Asia's addiction to whiter skin has begun. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2184747/asias-addiction-whiter-skin-runs-deep-backlash-has-begun.
2. Tan, K. W., & Stephen, I. D. (2019, May 24). Skin Color Preferences in a Malaysian Chinese Population. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01352/full.
3. Buch, H. (2020, June 26). Why HUL might not withdraw Fair & Lovely — nearly Rs 4,100 crore annual revenue from India alone. Money Control. https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/huls-flagship-brand-fair-lovely-derives-550-million-annual-revenue-from-india-alone-5458131.html.
4. Kim, H. A. (2020). (publication). Understanding “Koreanness”: Racial Stratification and Colorism in Korea and Implications for Korean Multicultural Education (1st ed., Vol. 22, pp. 80–84). Buffalo, New York: Yonsei University. https://ijmejournal.org/index.php/ijme/article/download/1834/1309.pdf
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