Category Archives: Class Pages

Sources of preferences for whiter skin

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by Kana Masaki

The main discussions in the chapter by Lynn Thomas are the use of and opposition to skin lighteners in South Africa. Skin lighteners were used by people in America at first to conceal blemishes and whiten their skin tone, and skin lighteners spread to South Africa too. Skin lightener advertisements in magazines spread it even more. South African women bought skin lighteners for higher status. In interwar South Africa, segregationist emphasized white skin supremacy. This led to the racial categories and this historical background is the reason why some women in South Africa bought to get a higher status. On the other hand, some people argue that they use skin lighteners, because they simply want to look beautiful and attractive and tend to prefer lighter skin traditionally. The author says that it’s difficult to discern whether lighter skin preference comes from precolonial conceptions of beauty or they come from racial hierarchies brought during colonialism. There are political opposition and medical opposition. The political opposition was using skin lighteners are a racial betrayal and self – loathing. The medical opposition was a health concern. People knew that these whitening or lightening creams contain toxic ingredients such as ammoniated mercury.

Same as South African women’s case, Japanese women also prefer white skin. Does white skin preference in Japan also come from the country’s historical background, or is just a traditional conception of beauty? Japanese women spend a lot of money on buying so–called bihaku cosmetics. Why do they spend so much money on such cosmetics? I guess having white skin was a traditional conception of beauty. There is a famous proverb, “irojiro wa hichinan kakusu,” meaning having a white skin can make you look attractive even though you have other faults. In other words, white skin can hide your faults and make you attractive. Also, it’s said that geisha has a really white skin as an exaggeration of Japanese beauty. These may prove that a white skin preference is just a traditional conception of beauty. On the other hand, I guess maybe it is not. The introduction of westernization during Meiji period could be a cause of white skin preference in Japan. The government tried to westernize everything in Japan at the time. For example, they made all men cut off chonmage to catch up with the West. They tried to westernize Japan to make a civilized Japan. I guess this made people think that looking like western people are cool, therefore having a white skin is the best.

Tomorrow in class, Karen and I want to have a discussion about whether light skin preference in South Africa comes from precolonial conceptions of beauty, racial hierarchies during colonialism or the mixing of both.

Unquestioned assumptions in skin lighteners

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by Jun Sakakibara

This chapter showed that how the Philippine’s skin color consciousness reminds uniqueness since it is influenced by its historical background and shaped by the media’s effects caused by globalization. It was explained that in the Philippines, “skin lightening” does not always refer to “skin whitening”, and because East Asian or Chinese Asian looks are considered as ideal images of beauty, “being Asian” should be respected. However, I found it contradicting that the fact some people keep complaining that they are not white enough yet. If “being Asian” is fine, shouldn’t we represent our yellow skin color?!

By pointing out the characteristic of skin lightening companies’ strategies on advertisements in Asia, we can see how they have been spreading the market with using and brainwashing people with “unquestioned assumptions”. They emphasize the idea of “Euroasian” as promoting half-European, half-Asian models in advertisements, however, it is actually making concept of beauty so ambiguous. It was mentioned that “Euroasian” would be a new beauty regime. The paradox here is that there is nothing “new” about since its idea is very exclusive and Eurocentric. The models are European-looking women who are just covered with Asian straight black hair and are representing very much of their whiteness. In addition to this repacking of white-is-beautiful concept, skin products companies justify themselves by arguing “lightening” and “bleaching” are different thus there is nothing wrong to consume skin lightening products. Yet it is questionable whether there is an absolute difference between these two words. For the companies, wave of globalization is very great profitable source to spread their market worldwide, though, we have to understand that due to negative effects of globalization, our images are totally controlled so that we are being those who strengthen the racism or discrimination towards skin color and push the whiteness into much higher social status in fact.

When we discuss about whether this worldwide skin lightening phenomena is needed to be stopped or whether we are even able to stop that, I always think since such “unquestioned assumptions” remind “unquestioned” or are tend to be ignored to discuss, the situation itself would never be changed. I guess people are now realizing the paradox or problems behind the assumptions little by little, however, because usage of skin lightening products somehow lead us to happiness, we cannot get rid of them. Although it is a very complicated issue, the first thing we have to do is to accept the existence of “unquestioned assumptions” and to bring them into the discussion. We do not need to go straight for the discussion of the necessity of skin lightening products. We need to understand what we are exactly doing by investigating our money on those products and to learn how they can be problematic at the same time. I assume that this process holds very important key for the discussion of not only the skin lightening products but also of skin color consciousness in general as well.

Lighter skin or Photoshop?

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by Isarin Furutani

Evelyn Nakano Glenn covers the previously discussed concept of how people seek whiteness in terms of cosmetics and creams more from the corporations’ perspectives. According to the basic economic rule of demand and supply, there are extremely high demand for skin whitening creams (many reasons we have discussed before), if high demand exists, capitalists will then seek to fill up the space by creating the supply and make profit through this. In this, people, especially women, demanded the product even if it was made illegal. Therefore we see the smuggling being done. The market is also huge and segmented at the same time, meaning that despite the existence of the same demand for skin whiteners, people in different categories demand for something a bit different. This category can be done through age, race, ethnicity, or location. This concept is pretty standard as different cultures have different perspectives on whiteness but more do share a trait of seeking for “whiteness”.

Global whitening is currently a huge market especially in Japan. According to one of the sources, Japan has the largest market in skin lightening ($2bn) and this market has been estimated to grow more in the future to $10bn. This might not as surprising from seeing how men are also starting to buy cosmetics or facial creams looking at the ads in Japan.

In my presentation I will talk about the market in Africa, America and India. I have found one interesting article on the Fair & Lovely company that originated from India.

This picture has been criticized by consumers and specialists in providing the wrong message through the use of “photoshopping”. Dermatologists have analyzed the product and the product actually contained no chemical that could bleach or whiten the skin. The product is safe because there are no bleaching chemicals but without those chemicals the whiteness created in the picture was very questionable. The picture was not taken from the women who used the product throughout time but a mere fake illusion of the product image the company wants to make. Is this type of advertising really ok is very questionable.

Sources

http://www.whiterskin.info/global-skin-lightening-market-predicted-to-reach-10-billion-by-2015/

http://www.whiterskin.info/images-in-fair-lovely-ads-are-allegedly-photoshopped-or-retouched/

Consuming lightness

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by Ayano Tsukada

It seems like more people are eager to become “whiter”. First, it looked very weird to me that more people are wanting to be whiter in today’s world where “we are perfect in our own way” type of idea become more wide spread than ever. However, where the yearning for lightness comes from is far more complicated than I thought. People have different reasons and different ways to be whiter.

Evelyn Nakano Glenn shows what drives people’s desire for lightness in different regions and how that is influenced and used by the cosmetic and pharmaceutical firms.

In African and Indian diasporas, the legacy of colonialism seems like to be the biggest cause of people’s desire to become whiter. Skin tone is a major marker of status and a form of symbolic capital. In Latin America, too, skin color and tone are closely related to one’s social status and capital despite the national ideology of “mix is beautiful”. The majority of elites has light skin and European appearing whereas rural poor are predominantly dark skinned and indigenous appearing. In these countries, lightening one’s family line by marring with a lighter-skinned partner is also a common way to become whiter. Migration from rural areas to cities or has been another way to be socially whiter. And, of course, many use skin lighteners to change the appearance of one’s skin. In Asian countries, light skin is also a symbol of modernity and beauty. In Southeast Asian countries, the notion that Japanese and Korean women represent ideal Asian beauty has created the huge market in skin lighteners that are dominated by Japanese and Korean companies Whereas in East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and China, people are wanting to have European appearing, therefore, whiter skin is necessary as well as having bigger eyes and shape noses.

Multinational biotechnology, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical corporations play an important role in the skin-lightening game. They approach to different targets by using different strategies and it seems like they are accelerating people’s desire for light skin. Connecting lighter skin to other social factors, we internalize the idea of white is right and have become more attracted to those products even more.

From above, people’s, especially women’s, desire for lightness is pretty obvious as is evident from the wide spread and growing use of skin whitening around the world. The author says the desire for lighter skin and the use of skin whitening products is accelerating in places where modernization and the influence of Western capitalism and culture are most prominent. This desire can be seen as the result of colonialism, a manifestation of false consciousness, and the internalization of “white is right” values. The fetters of self-hatred were created centuries ago, and therefore, freeing ourselves from them would not happen easily. The author also says only educating people about the diversity of types of beauty does not change the whole picture. But it can be changed. It has to.

Reproductive technology and historical power relations

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by Isarin Furutani

First, I would summarize briefly my section that I was responsible for my presentation and I would talk further about egg donation itself and what I found interesting.

The second half of this chapter (the part I am responsible for) describes the concept of egg donation and how race and ethnicity played a role for infertile couples to choose their donors. The author discussed the existence of partial neglect on pallor skin from white women who believes that a mixed child is considered more attractive than a pure pallor person. Therefore, the white couples in the chapter chose a more tan donor, or donors who are from a minority group to create a mixed baby. The author did not talk much but showed that the clinics are cautious in representing that the donor’s phenotype is not everything and that even if you choose a light black African women as a donor, you are still possible to get a darker child. This was seen in the showing of the pictures of the children of the donor who were darker and who were lighter.

Ancestral heritage also played a huge role in some cases of Japanese recipients, in which the recipient denied the donation from a Korean ancestral person even if the person liked the person’s phenotype. Lastly was the concept of a personal preference by couples. The example was a German couple who wanted an Indian donor to satisfy their own interest in Buddhism. The clinic denied it as it was not an “honorable reproductive motive”. The author concludes the chapter with the idea that each characteristics such as skin tone are linked to the power itself (social hierarchy from historical events) and this has effects the donors and recipients ways of interpreting each characteristics and affecting the choice in choosing donors.

The concept of skin tone and preferences, as we have read in many other chapters, is manifested everywhere. We have read about Mexico’s preference of lighter partners, women in Africa buying whitening creams that can actually be dangerous and now we are attacking the concept of egg recipients valuing their donors through their own preferential indicators which can be race, ethnicity or maybe even characteristics. The chapter provided some examples which showed the existence of said preferential choosing of donors and how it is linked to the historical power relations being expressed by each race or ethnicity. What was interesting was the change in the white couples aiming for tanning their children through mixing rather than maintaining the white/pallor skin, where white women thought it was unattractive because of the wrinkles when you get old. This probably contributed to the sense of further encouraging more mixing between people in the globalized world, believing that mixed-children are attractive. I do not know much about this boom but I believe even in Japan half people (half-asian half-west) are considered to look different and better.

I researched a bit about Japan on this issue and have learned that Japan actually bans egg donation and surrogate motherhood. (However it was interesting that they allow artificial reproduction using donated sperms.) It is actually this year when Noda Seiko, the lawmaker and parliament member of Japan, gave birth through egg donation from an American person, that pushed for a law to allow egg donation and surrogate motherhood. It is also an interesting perspective to encourage more reproduction in Japan (although I am not sure whether how much can it really affect). Aki Mukai a Japanese actress had her twin baby through surrogate motherhood because of her cancer problems which destroyed her ability to reproduce. She tried to legally attain her children Japanese resident rights but the supreme court actually ruled against her and in the end she had to “adopt” her own biological child.

The concept of “biological” child is a significant differentiation to “genetic” factors. The youtube video on Dr Georgia explains the beauty of egg donation, stating that even if the egg is not “genetically” yours, because the baby grows in your own body with your own resources, what is actually creating your baby is the minerals in your body and not others. Even if the ears may not be designed by your genes (chance that it can still be from your partner’s too), what is actually creating those ears are you and not the donor. This creates the difference between genetic mother and biological mother which itself and that the mother (recipient) can still feel the process of reproduction and feel more like her real baby than compared to adoption.

The concept of egg donation can really be discussed in many ways that I probably can write a long report on it. But it is an emerging new medical field that provides reproductive opportunities to infertile individuals where social historical power relations affecting personal preferences seems to play a role in the decisions of the recipients.

Two youtube videos are attached that I believe is worth watching – One is a debate on whether egg donation is moral, and the other is the explanation of egg donation by Dr Georgia, a clinical psychologist.

The two articles are on the egg donation issue in Japan. However, I believe the article on Noda Seiko has been locked and you have to subscribe to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu8eBdZzTls

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576065253692270070.html

http://www.eggdonor.com/blog/2012/06/11/japan-bill-legalize-surrogacy-egg-donation

How should Japan deal with egg donations?

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by Mari Ryoha

I think egg donation represents the variety ways of life in these days. Women have the right to give birth to children. However there are women who can’t be pregnant for some reasons. Egg donation, sperm donation, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) work important role of infertility treatment. These treatments give couples who suffer from infertility hope that they can have children. I agree with egg donation in this aspect.

Japan doesn’t have laws about reproductive technology or treatment for infertility. In 2003, Japanese government decided to preparation of laws about reproduction. However it hasn’t progressed since then. Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (日本産婦人科学会) published individual statement that they admitted using reproduction technology or treatment for infertility in 2009. Also other organizations, such as the Ministry of Health (厚生労働省), Japan Society for Reproductive Medicine (日本生殖医学会), Japan Federation of Bar Associations (日本弁護士連合会), published each opinion about reproduction technology, and these organizations had different opinions about reproduction technology. Of course Japanese people have various opinions about reproduction technology. However I think Japan has to make laws about reproduction technology and treatment for infertility. We Japanese have to make environment for treatment for infertility. For example, we have to manage the quality of treatment for infertility, take statistic of the number of children by egg donation or something reproduction technology. Also we have to support women and their family after birth of children, and educate other people in order to make discrimination toward children by birth of egg donation. Also we have to prevent the illegal business of egg donation for moneymaking. I’m worried that egg donation may lead to new discrimination. In Korea, there were incidents about illegal egg donations. The brokers who were arrested graded eggs by the donors’ face, figure and school career. In Japan, if egg donation becomes common, such incident may happen. Then we have to think how we prevent such illegal incidents, and new discrimination. If we make laws about egg donation, there are a lot of problems.

We have to discuss these problems. The state of family is changing all over the world. Of course Japan is not expected. Each Japanese people have each opinion. In these days we can’t help avoiding make laws about reproductive technology and treatment for infertility.

References

Adumi,T. Retrieved December 12, 2012 from Nikkei BP net : http://www.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/column/20090526/155420/?ST=business&P=1

Asahi Newspaper Retrieved December 12, 2012 from: http://www.asahi.com/special/hug/TKY201011060166.html

Seoul Kyodo Retrieved December 12, 2012 from 47NEWS: http://www.47news.jp/CN/201106/CN2011061501001398.html

Globalization and social movements: a revolt for globalization.

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by Wataru Yukita

Globalization gives us many interests in many aspects, financial system, investment, free trade, communicate with people around the world and so on. Therefore, we can get news in the world and culture in our house. Products of TOYOTA or SONY influence wasting life in the world. However, globalization has negative aspects and they raise some social movements.

For instance, in 1980’s, IMF(International Monetary Fund) support developing countries in order to introduce open markets, easing of regulation and cutting government spending. They promoted globalization. By these political measures of IMF, investments for these counties had increased, not only traditional direct investments but also investments to stock and bond certificate for free and international financial markets. They had firm effect on economy in developing countries.

However, after economic crisis in Asia in 1997, IMF forced East Asia counties to pursue fiscal austerity. By this tight budget, these counties must take measure of cutting social welfare, unemployment, inflation of basic goods. What is worse, downturn of economy causes social disorder and political confusion. In Indonesia, Rebellions popped out by reason of cutting subvention for food and fuel. In Thailand, jobless workers in urban area pour to rural area. By these unsteadiness and confusion, the measures of IMF to East Asia introduce social movements for anti-globalization to oppose globalization.

In 1999, NGO of development and environment and labor association worked large social movements for anti-globalization in a conference by WTO at Seattle. The crowd became about 50 thousand people. These movements argued that liberalization by WTO result in much damage in many aspect, people health, environmental pollution and labor condition in many societies. Thanks to these social movements, WTO could not set up new round and create new agenda to support developing countries. In 2001, through these amendments for some policies, WTO was able to establish new round. Today, WTO is biggest regime by join 153 countries and region. WTO address to equity of trade rule and deal in development by reflecting developing countries opinion. It shows that recognition that developing countries should get benefit by free trade is shared around the world in spreading globalization rapidly.

I think that globalization give people many opportunities to progress civilization. In addition, it needs governance that control negative aspects of globalization. So, globalization requires making rule and policies that take care of wealth gap and environmental pollution in international, region and nation level. Social movements take a important role to frame these rules.

Reference

Koji Murata, “Catch International Politics”(Japanese), YUHIKAKU,2009.

Social Movements by the Government

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by Naoko Yoshida

As we learned in the class, social movements are the effective methods to change the society. And almost always, those social movements are started by people in lower position against the authority such as the government. For example, people in Fukushima have been taking action in order to stop the use of nuclear power plants in Japan against Japanese government, and in the US, many labor movements are launched by workers against people in high positions. However, there are another kind of social movements which are intended by the government to make people start. I have two examples here. One of them is China, and the other is Korea. Chinese government and Korean government intended to have social movements inside their country for the same reason. That reason is to distract their citizens’ attention from the problems inside the country.

Firstly, Chinese people had a huge social movement against Japan. And that movement is still remaining a little bit. This social movement is started by Chinese people in order to be against the Japanese possession of Senkaku-islets. But this movement is not simply because Japan claimed their ownership of those islets but because of many complex causes. One of those causes is Chinese government’s anxiety of antigovernment movement. We can say there are many problems inside China such as a huge gap between social classes, and slowdown economy. In addition, they were facing a once-a-decade transition of political leader on that time. Therefore, Chinese government made people act against foreign enemy by using mass media in order that Chinese people do not notice the problems inside China, and enhance nationalism for upcoming election. In short, Chinese government made people start social movement against foreign enemy in order to discard people’s attention from problems inside the country and to enhance the nationalization.

Secondly, in Korea, there has been a movement about Take-shima/Dokdo against Japan. Korean government also made people act against Japan in order to enhance nationalism, and distract their presidents corruption because they also have an election.

In conclusion, although many social movements are started by people in lower class against people in higher class or authority in order to make their living better, there are also social movements which are planned by the government in order to discard their citizens’ attention from the problems inside the country and to enhance the nationalism. We should not be deceived by that movement by the government.

References

Beech, H.(2012/10).The madding crowd: Beijing inflames popular sentiment against Japan, but it could get burned.Time, 50.

Yokota, T. (2012/9). You say Dokdo, I say Takeshima… let’s call the whole thing off. Newsweek, 16-17.

To be familiar country with women

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by Sungryoung Yoon

Women’s social progress has been wider since the government decided the Equal Employment opportunity law in 1980. Until then, I guess there was a stereotyped against women that work in society as same as the men. After the Equal Employment opportunity law, the society is getting familiar with the women because some laws were introduced like the law for child-care leave. I can say 1980’s was a big factor of starting the new society for the women. From the reference that I write below page, the number of the household that is made by only men’s employee has been clearly decreased since 1980. I can guess there was effect of the Equal employment opportunity law as I stated upward. The number of the household that is made by only men’s employee decreased around half number from 1980 to 2006 but the number of the household that is made by both men and women’s employee has been increasing since 1980’s. We can see the situation from the reference that the number of the household that is made by both men and women’s employee is more than he household that is made by only men’s employee.

The number of women’s social progress has been increased and the system of society is getting g familiar with women than before. However can we say is the Japanese society really familiar with the women? After the globalization, depression, women would go out of house to work in the society but if they do, who care their children? I think that child care is the biggest problem in women’s social progress because lack of the child care makes declining birth rate and actually the declining birth rate is deeply getting decreased today. Today preschool is one of the big factors for the women’s social progress. A lot of family/ household need preschool to leave their children to work in the society however lack of the preschool is getting serious. Today, the reference says that number of the children who have to wait for entrance to preschool is around twenty thousand every year. If parents cannot leave their children to the preschool, how do they care their children doing work?

One solution to care children is expansion of the preschool but it is not easy because of the lack of nurse also. I think that our society have to start to do new project for women and their children. Second solution I guess is focus on the elders who retires from their work. As I stated below, Japanese society has a problem of the declining birth rate, and we are having increasing elders. I guess there are so many elder people who want to work after their retirement of their work. If we can do this project, it would be good for the women who want to work and the elders who want to work more. However I guess that this project still has problem. Actually preschool needs a license to take care of the children but if we focus on the elders, how should we care them? We cannot let elders do full-dress style of preschool. Also we have to find the elders who have enough strength to take care of children. We still have a lot of problems to care the children and that connects to the women’s social progress. To be more familiar country with everyone, I think we have to try to find the solution.

References

“男女雇用機会均等法”http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S47/S47HO113.html  (accessed 2nd on December )

“平成20年度版　厚生労働白書”

http://wwwhakusyo.mhlw.go.jp/wpdocs/hpax200801/b0055.html (accessed 2nd on December)

“平成21年　人口動態統計月報年計（概数）の概況　厚生労働省”

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/jinkou/geppo/nengai09/kekka2.html (accessed 2nd on December)

“「保育園不足」を見て見ぬふりの文科省” http://facta.co.jp/article/201003008.html (accessed 2nd on December)

Social Movement and Power in Media

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by Chika Yamamoto

The video we watched in the class shows that a woman confessed the frustration towards authority and media. I watched the demonstration for the nuclear power plants in Japan on media several times on TV; however, it was not as detailed as the video we watched. Media just shows what the demonstration was like and tells the fact that there was a demonstration in media’s point of view. I think what makes it really difficult to deliver the purpose of the demonstration and feeling of people joining is the power of authority and media. Historically social movements experienced those difficulties. But, I guess we in 21st century have to change this and beat the power inequality to make social movements more meaningful and powerful. So, how should media be and other people who rely on the news be?

One of the historical examples of social movements is civil right movement in United States of America. This movement caught huge attention both in United States and foreign countries. Around late 1950, some of the people in the north part of America, who watched news about the civil right movement and noticed what was happening in the south part of America, realized they have to do something to solve this problem. So, people in the north part of America especially students came to the south and took part in the sit in movements and so on. Also, during that time America concerns a lot about how other countries look at America because of cold war. If this cruel reality of racism were spread all over the world by media, it would have strong influence on the situation of cold war. So, the federal government was really afraid of spreading terrible image of America having racism and tried to solve the problem as soon as possible by protecting activists and participants of demonstration from the violent oppression form states government in the south. I think foreign media and other media telling about the situation played really important role in this case. It increases the awareness about the racism in America and brought people to solve this problem. But, the framing of that situation in the south was really different. They felt that the federal government was occupying their places and robbed the right of their self-government. The way media in the south explained about this situation would have been really different from the way other media did.

From this example, I think media plays really different role about social movements depend on the framings. And I believe the media always tell news in how the media wants to deliver considering the benefits. In the case of nuclear power plants, media may have huge pressure from the government and electric power companies. If that tie is really strong, the media cannot say positively about the demonstration. Of course I think media should fairly tell the truth without being based on their benefits, but it has its own framing either negative or positive. So, I think we should not rely on news delivered by one particular media. It sometimes is better to look at the issues in Japan from foreign media that probably has different framing. Probably there are some organizations trying to tell the truth based on the real voice like the video we watched. Framing from authority which has power still has huge influence on media, so we should change the way we look at the information and develop our critical view and analyzing skill of framing.