The Skin You're In

A June 2009 article in ABCDlady about Shaadi.com highlighted the importance of skin tone to South Asian ideals of beauty. The article notes that Shaadi.com asks women to rate their complexion as “very fair”, “fair,” “wheatish,” “wheatish medium,” “wheatish brown” or “dark.” Additionally, it mentions that the South Asian beauty industry capitalizes on this obsession among South Asian women. There is a brisk trade in South Asian skin-whitening products that specifically play on beauty ideals that privilege lighter skin.

In fact according to Women’s eNews, a website devoted to substantive news pertaining to women, the “fairness industry” accounts for 60% of skincare sales in India, bringing in $140 million a year. Ads for products such as Fair & Lovely and White Beauty show women’s improved romantic prospects after using these products to change their skin tone. Another ad shows a woman landing a job after using a whitening cream.

Spurred by these biases, some women flock to skin-lightening products to better their marital prospects. Many of these women ignore the fact that some of these products can contain dangerous levels of mercury, hydroquinone or steroids. These ingredients, in some cases, have caused poisoning, cancer, infections, allergic reactions, acne, weight gain, kidney failure, mental disturbances and infertility.

Photo by Rodrigo Torres

The perception that lighter skin is preferred may not just be in women’s imaginations. While traveling through India several years ago in a first class train, I was shocked to see that every Indian man on the train had a much lighter skinned wife. Perhaps a preference for lighter skin is ingrained in the Indian psyche — that white skin is synonymous with beauty and with higher-class status — and is a holdover from colonialism.

Such fixation on skin tone is not unique to South Asians by any means. In fact, throughout the world, hierarchies of skin color still exist, and obsessions with skin tones remain.

In the Philippines, where lighter skinned “mestizos,” or those of mixed race, had more privileged positions in the colonial hierarchy, there is a similar market for skin lightening products admonishing women to “be as white as you can be”.

Additionally, in South Africa, a women’s magazine called “Fairlady,” calls attention to the more subtle ways that skin color preferences affect beauty ideals.

Elaine Flores, an African American woman and a writer for ABCDlady, shared that among African-Americans, "There are still some women who believe they must pass the outdated 'paper bag' test and be no darker in skin tone than a paper bag."

In Japan, the geisha, a feminine ideal of beauty, puts on white face makeup. Even modern Japanese anime characters do not look Japanese at all, but Caucasian.

Lighter-colored skin is not the only European trait that people around the world are trying to emulate. Bollywood actresses often have blue or green eyes or hair dyed in lighter colors than their natural color. Some African American women spend much time and money straightening their hair to fit the European idea of beauty, while some Latina women dye their hair blond.

As plastic surgery grows in popularity around the world, we are seeing people trying to alter their more ethnic features, such as noses or eyelids.

In East Asia, some women try to manipulate their eyelids to make their eyes appear more round. Some use glue to hold their eyelids in place while others have had plastic surgery. In fact, according to the BBC, the trend in South Korea is for women to have plastic surgery, beginning with eyelid surgery.

While the idealization of European ideas of beauty has its roots in colonial hierarchies and histories of racism around the world, these ideals continue to be propagated by contemporary culture. From the beauty industry to the fashion industry to the film industry, the forces that bring us entertainment also serve to reconfirm the preference for European skin tones and facial features under which so many women operate.

These norms can change when we all embrace our natural colors and ethnicities.

Ranu Boppana, MD is a Board Certified Adult and Child Psychiatrist in private practice in New York, New York. She is also a Clinical Instructor at the NYU School of Medicine and was included in the Consumer Research Council of America's "Guide to America's Top Psychiatrists 2009 Edition."