Tag Archives: beauty

Changes in the beauty standard for men and women

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by Satona Kato

Jyotsna Vaid’s research shows us that lighter skin is a requirement for marriage. We learned many people think lighter skin is better and is one of the conditions of beauty in various countries.

However, it is also true that the standard of beauty varies by regions or countries. In Japan, it also has changed depend on the generation. There was the time when the skin browned by the sun was seen as more beautiful. For example, in the ‘ganguro’ boom or ‘komugihada’ boom, people preferred dark skin and many people went to tanning salons. When I was 3 or 4 years old, many Japanese high school girls made their skin dark and I longed for their skin and I wanted to be like them. In that time, the models who had sunburned skin were popular and that was the standard of ‘kawaii’ for young girls. But when I became a high school girl, there were no girls who made their skin dark and the standard of “kawaii” was having white skin. Most advertisements of cosmetic products also uses models with white skin.

More and more people come to think we want white skin, not only girls, but also boys. Surprisingly, recently the boys who have white skin are increasing. In the Japanese drug store, there are many sunscreens or whitening lotion for men and many men use that, especially young boys between the ages of 15 and 30. Nippon TV interviewed 55 boys whether use whitening lotions, and 33 boys answered “Yes”.

Then, which do women like better, white skin boys or sunburned boys? The answers about this question were different depending on the women’s age. Young girls (10~30) tend to like boys who have white skin better, but most of women over 30 years old like boys who have sunburned skin. The reason why that difference exist is the influence of media. Today, many young actors and models have white skin. But, it was different 20 to 30 years ago. You can see this difference if you compare the popular actors 5 to 10 ago with actors who are popular now.

As you can see, the trend of skin color has changed. In Japan, both boys and girls become to more and more like the white skin. Last year, we were surprised the publication of the popular young men’s magazine “Men’s Egg” was suspended. When I was a junior high school student, many young boys read this and tried to be “Gyaru-o” by having browned and meshed hair, and tan skin. The reason for suspending the publication was that young people’s trend were changing. Today, most Japanese people like white skin better, and use whitening lotion. But there are possible that standard of beauty “white skin is beautiful’ will change in the future in Japan.

Are such changes in views toward skin color occurring in countries that have a connection between skin color and social status?

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Bigakuseizukan – Who Are the Beautiful Students?

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by Lilia Yamakawa

A friend asked me to go with her to a party sponsored by a website called Bigakuseizukan, Picture Book of Beautiful Students. Both the photographers and the “beautiful” students they photograph are students from Japanese universities. Since have been talking about people’s concepts of “beauty” in our Race & Ethnicity class, I thought this would be a good opportunity to do fieldwork and see what this group considers attractive, what the trends are, why students agree to be posted on the website, and why this website is popular.

In class, we discussed what beauty is and found that a majority considers one type of appearance as beauty. Like the contestants in the Miss Korea contest that we saw in class, I expected most of the students at the party to be similar: skinny chins, double eyelids, small noses. I thought there would be many people with the Japanese kawaii style, with the same brown hair, same length bangs, and wearing the fluffy white and pink cutie skirts.

It turned out not to be what I expected! Most of the people there had different styles: many different hair colors and styles, different facial characteristics, many different body types, with totally different styles of clothes. Kawaii wasn’t especially big. I was both disappointed and relieved by what I actually saw. I was in a way disappointed that I couldn’t see an expected trend with my own eyes, and also relieved to find that there were many kinds of beautiful students there.

I think this has something to do with the popularity of the Picture Book of Beautiful Students website. The models are students who might actually go to your school, and they all look different. When you look at their snapshots, you might feel that they are close to you and possible to reach. This sense of closeness would be hard to have if you are looking at a model of a magazine or on TV. Bigakuseizukan’s uniqueness is that it doesn’t show only one type of beauty considered as perfect. It really shows lots of different types of students.

Another question I had in mind was why do people say yes to being photographed and having pictures posted of them online? And why do they attend such a gathering? I had a chance to ask around yesterday. I got a lot of answers, but basically they fall into three categories. In the first category, there were many students who were running for beauty contests, such as Miss Ritsumeikan, Mr. Japan and Miss Universe. These types of people answered they did it to get their name out and remembered through the Bigakuseizukan. The second group said they tried it for their personal record and their future career. It will look good when applying for a job, which might have a lot to do with your appearance, such as newscasters and announcers. The third group was more vague, and they said there was no reason not to try it or that they just enjoyed modeling for fun. One girl said, “Well, everybody posts their selfies on Twitter and other sites like that, so why not post a better picture of yourself taken by a photographer with a real camera?”

One more thing I expected to find was that everyone would be outgoing. Instead, there seemed to be all sorts of types of personalities at the gathering, and some people seemed very quiet and reserved. I think you could probably say that they all had some sense of confidence in the way they look, though.

This fieldwork only lasted three hours, but if you were interested in finding out why people in a certain group are judged to be attractive, I think studying a group such as the Bigakuseizukan would be a good method. It would be necessary to find more things that the models have in common and to question both the beauties and the photographers in more detail.

Skin Color and Beauty in Japan

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by Miyu Fujino

Compared to other countries, there is less racial diversity in Japan. Non-Japanese people who live in Japan for a long time will notice that there are many implicit customs which follow an old Japanese tradition. One of the traditions is to try to be same as people around us and not out stand too much from them. Many Japanese people believe that if they follow the custom, they can live peacefully in the society. This is an element of Japanese culture, and there are many sayings which are related to this idea.

  • 和して同ぜず (washite dou zezu)　－coordinate with other people but not do immorality thing or loose independence.
  • 出る杭は打たれる (deru kui ha utareru)　－if you stand out too much, people will accuse you.
  • 付和雷同 (fuwaraidou) －do same thing as others

Therefore, for a long time, Japanese people have tended to follow and be normal and try not to stand out. I think that is one of a reason why Japanese people do not prefer dark skin because dark skin is unusual in Japan.

In Japanese society, for a long time, having white skin is one of the features of beauty and regarded as a good thing for women. There is an old proverb (色の白いは七難隠す iro no shiroi wa shichinan kakusu) which translates to “white skin covers the seven flaws,” meaning a fair-skinned woman is beautiful even if her features are not attractive.

However, there was a period when this idea didn’t fit. Ganguro: An opposition to the idea of fair skin beauty grew. This subculture appeared in the 1990s but died out in the early 2000s. Young girls preferred to be tanned and wore unique makeup and clothes. This Ganguro was started as an anti-tradition movement among young people. Young people challenged to Japanese traditional society and the stereotype that women have light skin, black hair and stay calm and not stand out.

Recently, white skin has been strongly supported by women again. I’m sure you have seen women who wear sunscreen, umbrella, gloves, sunglasses, big hats, spray, and powder. They are trying hard to protect their skin from the sun. But the reason why they are doing is because everybody is doing. Now, the word ‘bihaku’ is getting attention from women. Bihaku is a Japanese marketing term and often used for representing skin whitening products and cosmetics. Bihaku products are highly popular among women. They are also popular with teenage girls and those in their twenties who strongly affected by the information from the internet and media.

Japanese media and cosmetic industries install in women the idea that only small amount of sunshine can damage their skin. Therefore, Japanese women try to avoid to be exposed to sunshine even a few seconds. Many beautiful actress and models who have white and clean skin appear on the TV and that’s also a reason why people use bihaku cosmetics which is advertised by those beautiful famous people. Japanese TV often broadcast many programs to introduce UV care goods and suggest people to avoid sunshine. Media is helping to plant the thought in people’s minds that they should avoid sunshine and should use bihaku products.

Media often make people believe lighter skin is more beautiful by using white skin beautiful actresses or models. And use them to advertise bihaku cosmetic products as if by using the products, people can be like them. As media has a power to affect people (especially young people) strongly, they have to have an awareness and responsibility for their influence and try hard to give correct information to people.

Face lotions and creams from 8brand from kanebo have caused accidents. (September 2013) People who used these got white spots in their skin. All of the products contain skin lightning component called Rhododenol which is treated as a medicine and effective to control melanin in skin. Kanebo is the 3rd highest earning company in Japanese cosmetic industry and most people know the name. Many TV commercials were broadcasted and the company had a pretty high reputation among women. Therefore, people who trusted the brand got damaged both physically and mentally. More than 10,000 people got the white spots.

It is a normal thing for women to try hard to be more beautiful and that means to have lighter skin in Japan. People’s willingness to have lighter skin is one of a reason why this company to cause this accident. In Japan, skin color does not affect social status or salary. People want white skin just because they believe lighter skin is more beautiful and that is what other people say. However, I think Japanese people have to rethink what beauty is for each of them but not only following other people.

Women’s Consciousness of Skin Lighteners in Japan

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by Mai Kusakabe 

In South Africa, there are a lot of women who want to make their skin color lighter because they try to get better status and become more attractive. Then, how about Japanese women? What are they thinking about their skin color? Actually, we can see a lot of cosmetics and drugs to make their skin lighter in pharmacy. So in order to reveal what they are thinking, I did questionnaire about skin color, and ask ten Japanese girls answer it.

girls

 

The first question of my questionnaire was which girl do you prefer, and which is more attractive for you? And why do you feel the girl is more attractive?

Nine out of ten girls answered that they like or want to be a girl on the left, who looks Caucasian. Another girl said she liked the middle one, who looks more Japanese. She said middle one seems the healthiest of the girls. Most girls have the same answer, and the reason why they choose left girl is almost the same, because she has white skin! She looks Caucasian! So she looks beautiful!

The second question was have you ever used skin lighteners? And do you do any efforts to make your skin lighter?

To this question, every one answered Yes. This result is kind of interesting. Every girl seeks to get lighter skin somehow, for example, using face lotion and take a supplement including a component to make skin white and using sunscreen to prevent their skin from ultraviolet rays. Thus usually Japanese girls do something to keep or improve their skin color.

The third one is do you use a sunscreen? Yes or No. And for the person who answered Yes, is it for which reason, for health or for keeping lighter skin? Two girls answer No, and the rest answer Yes. Five of them said it is for keeping lighter skin, two of them said for both and one said for health.

The fourth one is why do you do such efforts? Why do you want to be lighter skin? There are two types of answer of this question. First type is that they think or believe white skin is beautiful. Second type is that they said everyone insist white skin is beautiful, so I think so too. The biggest differences between two are their opinion influenced by others or not.

So what kind of factors influence Japanese girls’ opinions of skin color? The options are TV, advertisements of cosmetics, magazines, the Internet, status, public opinion and other. The choice which attracted most votes is TV (six points), following public opinion, magazines (four points), advertisements (three points), the Internet (one point). And there is no vote to status. From this result, we can understand that most people don’t realize that there is connection between skin color and status in Japan, for example trying to get lighter skin is to become more attractive, this is kind of trying to get better status. In addition their idea that white skin is beautiful is mostly influenced by media. One girl said my favorite model has white skin, so I want to get white skin like her. Indeed popular models and actress have lighter skin, and many girls long to be like them. Lighter skin has come to one of major factors to be like admired woman.

Thus, as we can see from this questionnaire, Japanese girl prefer lighter skin. And most of them do some efforts to make their skin lighter, for example, about 70% of girls use sunscreen for keeping their skin color lither. They don’t think it’s for their health, just for their own beauty. They regard white skin as beautiful. The biggest factor of their preference of skin color in Japan is media which give us images of popular models and actress who have lighter skin that makes us long to be like them, and give us impression that lighter skin can get more popularity and attractiveness. The important thing is that it is not always right. Sometimes it makes us wrong decision. So we need to judge whether it is right or not.

Manipulation by Cosmetic Companies Changing Habits towards Skin Lightening

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yes, men need whitening lotion, too.

(Photo credit: Sophiakristina)

by Naresh Kumar

People around the world are constant consumers of skin whiteners and different cosmetic products. Even if the products have harmful effects, the consumption of these products is rising day by day. Large cosmetics companies around the world make billions of profits and it is not hard to see how they are using different sources to promote their products and make people use them. The media plays a vital role. The interesting thing is that whatever comes up in mass media, most of it is in favor of these companies. They are profit-motive companies and are strongly engaged into making more profits. It is interesting to see different beliefs in different communities around the world. People relate light skin with social status, money, education, pleasure, wealth, winner, etc. We talk a lot about western ideologies that “white is right”, but the fact is that its us who want to have a peace of that lightness. People like to consume more western culture and products, ignoring their own. More and more emphasis is given to light skin.

Currently the world market is dominated by skin lightening products with billions of dollars of transactions happening each year. Multinational companies are manipulating the market by using media. More and more ads are shown according to different  locations and cultures. The interesting thing is that very less is shown in media about the bad effects and negative side of skin whiteners. If we look at India, it is not hard to see that youths specially women are being obsessed by light skin. In cities like Mumbai and New Delhi, people are trying to accept their natural color tone. They are promoting things such as “dark is beautiful” and “beauty beyond colors”. This is a very slow action but definitely, people are starting to realize that “white is right” ideology is a complete myth.

It seems that people are not just making their face and arms light, but they are going beyond. The intimate skin lightening creams and other cosmetic things are becoming popular. People are going for their intimate areas and are being extreme. Bleaching one’s skin is becoming a common practice.  I wonder how will be the skin lightening trade after 5 or 10 years. Those who are more concerned about racism and discrimination are acting to solve the problems but that is not enough. We need to embrace and appreciate who we are, rather than trying to be who we are not. We need to see the problem from a different side. With the increase in intimate skin whitening, I wonder what will be the next, would it be lightening of your eyeballs or feet or something else.

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Skin Colour and the Beauty Queen

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Anonymous student post

Nowadays there are various types of beauty pageants being held in different regions in the world. Each region chooses the person who they think is the “prettiest” to represent their areas. Different countries has their own judgment on “beauty” and in most countries, people with lighter skin tone get picked as the beauty queen. In the past beauty contests held in different places of the world, there have been various controversial issues raised regardless to the skin colour problems.

Torika Watters, who is of mixed European and Fijian heritage was the winner of 2012 Miss Fiji, but she has been stripped of her Miss Fiji title by the organizers after she won the contest. The organizers told her that she could not win the contest because she is too young, but the actual fact was that because she does not look Fijian enough. She has white skin and blonde hair, which is not the features of a Fijian, therefore her Miss Fiji title was taken off and runner-up went on to the Miss World 2012 pageant.

Also, Nina Davuluri, the winner of Miss America 2014, is an Indian American, and she is the first Indian American who won the Miss America pageant. She has brown skin and dark hair, and not the American features everyone else thinks of. On the day she won the contest, there were many issues talking about whether she is suitable to be Miss America or not.

“If you’re #Miss America you should have to be American,”

“WHEN WILL A WHITE WOMAN WIN #MISSAMERICA? Ever??!!”

These were just few comments attacking Nina Davuluri on the Internet and the public were not satisfy with the fact that an Indian-American won the Miss America title.

These are just two of the examples on skin tone and beauty contest. For me, I do not think that skin tine should be a factor when judging whether a person call as a beauty queen or not. Skin tone should not be a matter as different people see beauty differently. Some people may think that having light-skinned is better but there are also people who think that dark-skinned is beautiful as well. We should not limit the standards of being a beauty queen just by judging people’s skin colour. Everyone should have the same rights and chance on titling as the beauty queen in all beauty contests and should not kick them out of the contest just because their skin colour or other physical appearance is different from others.

References

Shears, R. (2012, May 13). White Miss Fiji winner who was caught up in race row stripped of her title because she is too young: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2143735/torika-watters-white-miss-fiji-winner-stripped-title-shes-young.html

The Guardian. (2013, Sept 17). Miss America Nina Davuluri brushes off racist criticism after victory. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/16/miss-america-winner-racist-criticism

CNN. (2013, Sept 17). Miss America crowns 1st winner of Indian descent. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/16/showbiz/miss-america-racist-reactions/

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Skin Color and Beauty: Historical Bias and Social Change

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by Cindy Seo

For a long time there have been dolls with white skin but there were no dolls with black skin. The princesses in a fairy tale or Disney animation always have had white skin color or blue eyes. How did white skin and blue eyes come to be the factors that decide the beauty of human beings? Everyone knows that the beauty standard changes by the transition of cultural value, but how come it became so hard to jump over the wall of beauty standard for white people?

Every standard is determined by that era’s powerful nation or advanced country. The standard of beauty is not an exception, so I have to explain how the white people became to gain supremacy. Considering that Africa or Asia were all cradles of civilization in the past, we can imagine that they had rich soil, abundant resources, and calm weather unlike today. In contrast, the European countries were disadvantaged in these things, so they felt the ‘necessity’ to pioneer and find new country. This ‘necessity’ became the driving force so helped them to accumulate experience and capital, leading the Europe to the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution triggered the developed use of steel, and this eventually increased the productivity of food. This caused dense population and system maintenance, and led to superiority of power. The white people who became superior by this set of process became to assert the racial ideology which justifies their superiority and domination. This wrong ideology which made through long term colonized era is now still dominating the black people, even though they are virtually liberated.

The culture hegemony which uses media as its method is now even fixing the beauty standard of whole world. Since the characteristics of white people which emerge in movies or advertisements are directly connected to the beauty standard of white people, the non-white people who consistently keep in touch with mass media come to internalize that as their beauty standard. Then the non-white people who lost their own standard of beauty should always feel sense of inferiority and take discrimination for granted?

In the book World hunger explained to my son, Jean Ziegler says that hope exists in public awareness that slowly changes. Therefore, the long-term fixed beauty standard is hard to change but is not an unchangeable thing. As the ‘Black is beautiful’ movement once spread in the United States and endeavored to remove the wrong ideology of thinking the black people’s feature as essentially ugly, people who are living in current days should also self-examine from cramming themselves into biased beauty standard which is made by white people.

In order to change deeply fixed and rooted standard, influential stimulation is needed. The Miss Bronze competition was one of the endeavors and stimulations to change people’s perception on widespread beauty concept. In this case, the Civil Rights Movement was the driving force of the stimulation. As the black people’s right became an issue due to the Civil Rights Movement, people increased their thought to the discrimination that black people receive, and eventually became to challenge on beauty consciousness which has been the most discriminated part. Through this endeavor, people’s beauty consciousness on black people, which seemed immutable, wriggled, and positive outcomes began to appear.

As an example of these positive results and transitions, there are Barbie dolls and Disney animation. The Barbie doll has been controversial due to the problem of racial discrimination. The first black Barbie was made in 1967, but this was criticized since it excluded the black people’s indigenous characteristics. The early black Barbie was just colored in black, maintaining the features of white people. Until 1980s, the Barbie doll company adhered to its method of production regardless of the criticism of being called as white supremacy. However starting from 2009, the company finally began to produce black Barbie which realistically describes black people’s features. In addition, in the Disney animation ‘The Princess and the Frog (2009)’, people could see the first black princess coming on. Also in 2008, the United States chose a black man as their president. These series of events show how the world became more generous toward black people. This, in a manner of speaking, shows the miracle of hope that has been built through gradual change in public awareness.

What has decided the superiority and inferiority of civilization in the first place was geography. White people could be the white people of today since there was ‘necessity’ which came from poor geographic condition. If they did not have to worry about climate and foods, did they have to go out into the world enduring danger? It is hard to say so. Maybe non-white peoples’ features would have been the beauty standard if they had been able to grab hegemony. Therefore, there is no superiority and inferiority from the first time. It was just the results of historical coincidence and inevitability.

In the context of beauty concept as well, it is not important to think which color is superior and inferior. It is useless and meaningless since these things do not exist from the first time. The beauty standard should be rather established above the acceptance of the phenotypical differences among people. What makes this possible is an endless endeavor of awakening unbiased consciousness on race and beauty.

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Opportunist Beauty in Japan

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Miss Universe Japan 2007 wins Miss Universe 20...

Miss Universe Japan 2007 wins Miss Universe 2007 crown. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Mitsumi Yamamoto

Every year a number of Japanese students in my university decide to participate in a study abroad program (mainly to the US, Canada, and Australia). They usually start to prepare for the coming life in foreign countries by packing stuff or setting up their goals during spring semester in Japan. It was such a time when I often saw the female students dying their hair black again, although they used to have their hair dyed bright colors such as blonde and brown. I asked some of my friends how come they would do so and they answered, “Obviously that is because black hair represents Asian beauty.” Meanwhile within Japan, there is a huge boom about biracial people referred to as “hafu”, especially referring to people of half-Caucasian and half-Japanese (one parent being Japanese and one parent being of Caucasian heritage) (Okamura, 2009). Recently you can see hafu models and celebrities a lot on TV and in magazines, and many Japanese women try to achieve a western-looking face due to their adoration for hafu’s appearance.

Those two standards of beauty that Japanese women have, “Asian beauty” and “Western beauty,” seem to be the opposites of each other. However both standards exist simultaneously as the dominant viewpoints when thinking about what is beauty for Japanese women. Why?

This phenomenon can be explained with a case of African American women competing in the Miss Bronze or black beauty contests during the 1960s and 1970s, when the Civil Rights Movement flourished against discrimination towards black people. Maxine Leeds Craig, a professor of Women’s Studies at the University of California-Davis, pointed out that  at that time black women in the Miss Bronze pageant would realize views of themselves depending on how whites saw blacks, but at the same time this helped them to see the structure of racism (Glenn, 2009). Therefore in order to accept and reject this hierarchy, contestants who had dark skin tone were crowned as winners of Miss Bronze since the 1960s, rather than those with light skin tone, who were considered as the closest color to whiteness. The black beauty came to be used as a demonstration of the value of black people.

Related to this case, what about the pageant of Miss Universe Japan? In spite of the domestic hafu boom, almost all participants of this contest attempt to show their beauty as Asian with typical images of Asian women (e.g., long black hair, slit eyes) (Miss Universe Japan). The same thing can be said of women who stay in foreign countries outside of Japan. Even if the women used to prefer western-looking (e.g., bright colored hair and round eyes) inside of Japan, they somehow start to focus on “Asian beauty,” showing their Asian features to foreigners.

Hence this coexistence of the seemingly opposite standards of beauty and switch between them depending on the situation look similar to the case of African American women. It seems that Japanese women, as representatives of Asian women, would think of themselves as inferior to whites in racial hierarchy and this consciousness would help accepting and rejecting this hierarchy. Therefore Japanese women who have chances to live in an environment filled with Westerners try to behave as one a representative of Asian beauty, although once they are in Japan, they still tend to have the feeling of inferiority toward white people with an ideal to Western-beauty.

References

Okamura, H. (2009). ハーフブームと『ハーフ顔』? [hafu boom and hafu face?]. Retrieved from http://www.kreuzungsstelle.com/column5_10.html

Miss Universe Japan. Miss Universe Japan Official site. Retrieved from http://www.missuniversejapan.com/

Glenn, E. N. (Ed.). (2009). Shades of Difference: why skin color matters. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Look Good, and Get a Job?

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by Kyungyeon Chung

One thing I have personally noticed recently while attempting to write curriculum vitae both in English and Japanese is the requirement of attaching a photo on Japanese CV. It was actually a refreshing shock for me that photos – like the type you would attach for passport application – were not a requirement at all when writing a CV in English. I think this may have originated from differences in cultural practice whereby in Japan, more emphasis is put on how ‘appropriate’ and ‘decent’ you should appear. This idea that appearance is quite a big matter in such formal processes as recruitment procedure, however, can result in much more pervasive outcome than simply putting a little more effort in ironing your suits. In South Korea, the ultra-competitive job market has encouraged so many young college graduates, females in particular, to go under knife of cosmetic surgeons.

How has the competitive job race related to the increasing popularity of, and almost-blindsided trend following cosmetic surgery? With much vulnerable and unpredictable economy conditions, it has been more and more widely believed that good looks give you an edge in securing jobs or marriage. According to an article in one mainstream English-language newspaper in Korea, over a quarter of college students are said to consider cosmetic surgery for this reason, according to a recent survey by an online career portal site (Kwaak, 2013). In one survey of over 600 job-seekers, conducted by one clinic reported that around half of the job seekers are getting surgery exclusively to get a job, including non-operational procedures such as Botox or filler injection (The Chosun Ilbo, 2009).

Unfortunately for recent graduates, it is increasingly becoming a very common conception that such procedures are now being perceived as “investment” before entering a competitive race to market yourself better, for your own sake. Amongst the tide of young women receiving the procedure, those unable to afford, those with physical disabilities or with a darker skin are excluded further (Kwaak, 2013). Many of cosmetic surgeries’ ultimate aim is to give the patients certain types of features that are distinctively considered ‘beautiful’ by the set ideal of beauty as perceived in South Korean society today. The definition of ‘beauty’ here is closer to a Caucasian face. One Korean cosmetic surgeon, in a comment on what has been the most demanded facial ‘type’ by patients, said that “(t)hey are seeking to have westernized face, high profile nose, slender nice cheekbone, and mandible bone” (Lah, 2011).

In the chapter “A Colorstruck World” in Shades of Differences, Verna M. Kieth argues that complexion operates as a form of social capital that can be converted to human capital assets (p. 29). Just as light-colored skin is more preferred than darker skin in many aspects in the American society, in case of South Korea, the most-frequent judging standard by which preferences are given is the Westernized standard of beauty. Having phenotypes and skin tone that fit this standard, even by going under knife, are ‘rewarded’ with more stable job opportunities. Whether this hypothesis is true or not will be very difficult to attest – yet it will act like a self-fulfilling prophecy, an ‘assumed truth’ as long as people believe in it.

References

Kieth, V. M. (2009). A Colorstruck World. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of Difference (pp. 25–39). California: Stanford University Press.

Kwaak, J. S. (2013, June 5). Making a case for cosmetic surgery. Korea Real Time. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/06/05/making-a-case-for-cosmetic-surgery/

Lah, K. (2011, May 24). Plastic surgery boom as Asians seek ‘western’ look. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/19/korea.beauty/

The Chosun Ilbo. (2009, November 30). More Koreans pin job hopes on plastic surgery. The Chosun Ilbo. Retrived from http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/11/30/2009113000646.html

Skin Tone and Achievement in Education

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by Sten Alvarsson

There is a clear relationship between skin tone and levels of achievement in education. Lighter skin tones achieve higher levels of education and employment on both a personal and family basis (Keith, 2009). Advantages and disadvantages of skin tone relative to a particular group or individual within a society are based on perceived ideas of beauty and status and their associated connotations. The advantages of having lighter skin can be passed down through family networks, as children receive the privileges of the structure they are born into.

Educational advantages of a lighter skin tone relative to others in their environment can be present from an early stage. Teachers can judge students with greater attractiveness to also have greater levels of intelligence (Keith, 2009). Since skin tone often plays an important role in perceived attractiveness, teachers may have higher expectations, give out more encouragement and give higher marks, amongst other preferential treatment, to lighter skinned students resulting in superior academic performance.

Children are highly perceptive to these socialised messages regarding skin tones. When darker skin tones are devalued the affect can be equally as damaging as the extolment of lighter skin tones are advantageous (Elmore, 2009). Adolescents in particular have a heightened sense of self-consciousness in relation to their physical appearance and the socialised messages they receive in the classroom can have a great impact on their academic performance and opportunities for socio-economic mobility later in life.

Research shows that lighter skin tones are often linked to higher socio-economic status to the extent that, “Complexion operates as a form of social capital that can be converted to human capital assets” (Keith, 2009, p. 29). This is supported in research by Joni Hersch which shows that, “On average, being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education” in relation to employment earnings (as cited in Nair, 2010, p. 25). In fact, Keith (2009) highlights a direct relationship between lighter skin tones and increased levels of education. Such research has been questioned by academics like Gullickson (2004) who state that, “Colorism itself might still remain, but structural changes in larger race relations have reduced the advantage it previously gave to lighter skinned individuals” (p. 22). However, Keith (2009) argues that both media images and academic research do not show a decrease in the importance of skin complexion as a marker for achievement.

As has been demonstrated, skin tone is an important marker for achievement in education. Skin tone based social messages, behavioral norms and patterns of thought within the classroom are a powerful force in children’s development. Subsequently, skin tones also play a prominent role in later outcomes in areas such as mate selection, economic opportunities, occupational status and health conditions (Keith, 2009). Therefore, there needs to be a focus on education at a young age working towards combatting skin tone bias in order to lessen its prevalence with each new generation. Ultimately, we are all embodiments of living experiences and an end to skin tone bias would be an important step forward toward an existence without discrimination.

References

Elmore, T. G. (2009). Colorism in the classroom: An exploration of adolescents’ skin tone, skin tone preferences, perceptions of skin tone stigma and identity. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from UMI Dissertation Publishing. (3395695)

Gullickson, A. (2004). The significance of color declines: A re-analysis of skin tone differentials in post civil rights America. Retrieved from http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/~aarong/PAPERS/gullick_asa2003_skintone.pdf

Keith, V. M. (2009). A colorstruck world: Skin tone, achievement, and self-esteem among African American women. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters (pp. 25-39). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Nair, M. (2010). Social awareness in selected films. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Aveiro, Portugal.