Tag Archives: beauty

Myth of Beauty: Facial Features and Skin

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by Sheena Sasaki

In her book Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, Nancy Etcoff (1999) wrote that in many parts of the world, big eyes, high cheekbones, small chins, and full lips are features of beautiful woman, and each of these features combined represented youngness. I believe this is partly true. Cosmetics invented today helps women to have these facial characteristics to raise their self-esteems that they are beautiful. However, the trend of beautiful facial characteristics changes from place to place and time to time. For example, in old time Japan, ‘otafuku-gao’ was considered to be women’s beautiful face which consisted of the followings: round face, thin eyes, low nose, wide forehead, small lips, and very plump cheeks. Nonetheless, less people consider the face with such features to be beautiful in Japan today. There always exists certain trend of beautiful face.

Then, what about skin colors?

Whenever I step into a drugstore in Japan, my eyes always catch the word ‘美白 (bi-haku),’ which directly means ‘beautiful white,’ in cosmetic section for skin.  However, I do not find any word which represents ‘beautiful black.’ This means to me that the concept of beauty, at least in Japan, is naturally tied to whiteness of the skin. Referring back to old literature of Japan such as The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu from the 11th century, women with white skin are considered to be beautiful. Moreover, there exists a proverb in Japan which says, “White skin hides seven flaws.” Thus, beauty of white skin has been practiced for long period of time. This is not only limited to Japan. The world’s famous beautiful fairytale princess Snow White has skin which is as white as snow. Nancy Etcoff (1999) also writes that the beauty of white skin is commonly believed throughout the world and overcomes the beauty of facial features. This brings me to another question. Why is white skin considered to be beauty in the first place?

If it was the period when most of both men and women from the lower and middle class worked outside under the sun, white skin represented wealth.  Hence, it is not hard to predict that men were more attracted to white-skinned women who could spend their money and time on their physical appearance.  Yet, this prediction does not fully fall into the society today where increasing number of people work inside of the office buildings. Many people do not clearly know why they prefer to have whiter skin, or why white skin is beautiful. In this case, I believe “I don’t really know” is the best answer as people say. In this technologized society, media controls one’s sense of beauty and values. As a result, the cycle is created. Women follow similar conception of beauty because someone on the media said it is beautiful, more people follow after because everyone talks of the same beauty, and the media reflects upon and introduces the beauty concept believed by the audiences. The word ‘美白 (bi-haku),’ became too common in Japan to extent that almost no one bother to question the beauty of whiteness.

Reference

Etcoff, N. (1999), Survival of the prettiest: The science of beauty. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Mestizaje and the social gap

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by Yuan Mingyang

Villarreal (2010) conducted research on social stratification by skin color in Mexico, and found that people with lighter skin usually have higher education than people with darker skin. Villarreal also found that people with lighter skin usually have occupations with better social status and higher salary. Navarrette (2012) also noticed that the jobs with higher salary are usually for people with lighter skin. The author suggested that people can see people with lighter skin “on television, in politics, and in academia”, while people with darker skin are often found “on construction sites, in police forces and in restaurant kitchens” (para. 11).

What’s more, the ideology of mestizaje in Veracruz, which makes people try their best to “clean the race” and lighten their skin color (Sue, 2009), may further enlarge the gap of education, financial power and social status between people with lighter skin and people with darker skin in Mexico. According to Sue, many people in Veracruz prefer lighter skin and European body features, even for those who are dating people with darker skin. Therefore, a large proportion of people in Veracruz would choose people with lighter skin as their partners. The author also mentioned that it is not acceptable for everyone to marry someone with lighter skin. The author claimed that many partners of men with darker skin who are rich or have high social status usually have lighter skin.

Since Villarreal (2010) argued that there is a stratification of skin color in Mexico, it is a reasonable conclusion that the number of poor people with darker skin is larger than the number of wealthy people with darker skin. Therefore, the descendants of this relatively small proportion will leave other people with darker skin behind, who are expected to be poor, and become people with lighter skin. As a result, the financial gap between those who have lighter skin and those who have darker skin will be enlarged. The situation in Mexico is not like that in the US where White people tend to get better jobs.

In Mexico, two trends of force enlarge the gap. People with lighter skin can get better jobs in Mexico, which means that they are wealthier. In the same time, the skin color of wealthy people is getting lighter and lighter. The ideology of mestizaje gives no chance to most of people with dark skin color in Veracruz, who are treated unequally while still believing there is only one Mexican, since there is race blindness in Mexico, according to Sue.

References

Navarrette, R. (2012, November 20th). In Mexico, racism hides in plain view. CNN. Retrievd from http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/20/opinion/navarrette-mexico-racism/

Sue, C. A. (2009). The dynamics of color: Mestizaje, racism, and blackness in Veracruz, Mexico. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of difference: Why skin color matters (pp. 114-128). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Villarreal, A. (2010). Stratification by skin color in contemporary Mexico. American Sociology Review, 75(5), 652-678.

Colourism in the Philippines: Behind the Veil of Whiteness

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by Adelle Tamblyn

A few days ago, my mother, who is of Filipino and Spanish origin, told me some events that happened to her not too long ago. At church, my mother had met another Filipino woman, but much older. This woman was half Filipino and half Spanish. This woman, on hearing that my mother was also Filipino, started asking about my mother’s background: “Are you 100% Filipino?”. “No”, my mother replied “I’m half Spanish”. The older woman apparently looked at her in a disbelieving manner: “Then why are you so dark?”, she questioned.

Why are you so dark?  What a silly, churlish question, I thought. It seems so odd, I thought. You don’t just ask someone that. But the more I thought about this woman’s question, the more I thought about why she asked it, and what significance does skin colour hold amongst Filipinos?

I began to rack my brains for signs of fair-skin preference amongst the Filipinos I know, whether it was something they said or did. There is one saying in Tagalog: “She could be beautiful; it’s just a pity she’s dark”. I have heard harsher comments on other Filipinos: “Look at her skin colour, and her NOSE! She looks like a maid”. I know one woman who uses a concoction of bleaching creams and soaps religiously. Are these all signs of colourism amongst Filipinos?

Colourism is evident not only in India, but also in the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Nigeria, Pakistan and in South American countries, to name a few. In the Philippines, Television programs are saturated with light-skinned people, a great majority of whom are half-Filipino, typically of the highly-sought-after mestizo/mestiza variety (“mestizo/mestiza” meaning a half-Filipino with fair skin and Spanish-like features). Furthermore, there are shopping malls filled to the brim with skin whitening products in the Philippines. However, this does not necessarily reflect the look of the average Filipino. Nonetheless, the saturation of white-skin ideology in a society whose natural skin colour is typically brown are marginalising Filipinos into thinking that there is only one type of beauty: white.

In the Philippines, skin colour and nose shape are of high importance. In a country where the majority of the people are naturally dark, why are people equating white to beauty?

Whilst some would argue that having mestizas in the media and selling and producing skin whitening products is simply a reflection of what Filipinos want, others would argue that the root of this issue goes much deeper than that. In an interview by Al Jazeera’s ‘The Stream’, Yaba Blay, the Co-Director of Africana Studies at Drexel University, suggests that the desire for whiteness in many countries is due to colonialism. The colonialism argument is not a new one: the idea is that during the time of colonialisation, manual labourers would get dark as they worked all day in the sun; the wealthy and powerful lived a life of leisure indoors, therefore staying fair. The Philippines is no stranger to colonialism: the country has been colonised by the Spanish, the Americans and the Japanese. In line with Blay’s argument, fair skin ideology is linked to power, civility, social mobility and beauty.

The white ideology from colonial times has been passed on from one generation to the next: today, it is perpetuated in the selling of skin-whitening products and constant media exposure to the equation that white equals beautiful. But does it really matter so much that countries like the Philippines see white, fair skin as beautiful? On the surface, fair as beautiful may not seem like such a big issue; however, in a country where the skin colour of its people are naturally of a darker skin tone, sending messages of “white is better” only seeks to suppress its people, simply for being dark.

Link to video referred to: http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201308212347-0022992

No Way To Run From The Influence Of The Media

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by Emilie Hui Ting Soh

Reading Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s “Consuming Lightness: Segmented Markets and Global Capital in the Skin-Whitening Trade” brought back my memories on the first time I went to the drug store looking for a suitable skin care product to use. I was a young girl, at thirteen years old, with no prior experience or knowledge, was instantly bombarded with the wide range of brands, functions, benefits. I had no idea where to begin. A sales lady then came up to me and asked if I needed any help. I replied yes, and she began introducing the range of products that she was selling. Words such as moisturizing, radiating, whitening, and beauty were used as she explained in detail about the products and how they are used. I, on the other hand, had no idea and did not understand any of what she was talking about. I was just looking for a product to wash my face with, and did not know that I have to consider so many other problems that I possibly have. That made me felt very troubled and I left. Now looking back, I look at this incident as part of a vicious cycle that is hard to get out of once you get sucked into the industry.

At that time, I did not think that being fair or white was beautiful. I was considered to have dark skin and did not have any issues with my own skin until I began having influenced by consumerism thinking that dark skin is a problem that I need to fix with the use of a skincare product. The media, through advertisements and posters, act as constant reminders to the consumers that we have to do something about the ‘problem’ we have. If not for media portrayal and influence made by businesses and the society, I believe the majority of us would definitely not think that dark skin is anything negative or inferior. It is in fact, through our life we have been constantly ‘programmed’ to think this way, thus it creates such an issue in this present day.

In addition, as I was reading this chapter, I could not help but feel very annoyed and was seriously questioning the reason why are women always the one being objectified by the media and the society? It is ridiculous to compare how much women and men spend per month on their own cosmetic skincare products respectively for themselves. Why should women be made to comply with the beauty standards set by the people trying to sell us the products that they claim can make us beautiful? If we look at some of the tribes in the mountainous regions, who have limited exposure to the media, their standard of beauty is very different from the standard of beauty that we have.

Beauty, I believe, is when you learn to appreciate what you have and not to remake or alter the way you look to try and become someone else whom you are not.

What is beauty?

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by Satomi Tanaka

Now many beauty contests are held in the world but I always guess it is too difficult to choose a most beautiful woman in the world. To begin with, that idea is wrong. We don’t have to decide which woman is most beautiful. It is because we have different faces and characteristics. In my opinion, beauty cannot be compared because it is an abstract idea for three reasons.

First of all, “beauty” is made by people’s common patterns and preferences. Woman in the big contest such kind of Miss Universe are very slender, small face and big eyes. Many people might have these stuffs as the definition of beauty but it is a just an image. There are no specific rules or dates that we can major woman to recognize as a beautiful woman. In the world the same face doesn’t exist. Our own faces are only one. That’s why we cannot categorize or draw a line between a beauty and a bungler.

Second, the definition of beauty is completely different depend on countries. It is deeply related with their culture. For example, in some African countries local people have a beauty definition that women who have black lips is beautiful. This is a traditional common sense. So women tattooed their lips. Many people might think that the idea seems weird or unique. However, our idea of beauty will be thought the same way. In these countries have a one way to decide a beautiful woman but this is one way to measure how the woman is beautiful.

Finally, I often feel that women’s definition of beauty and men’s definition of beauty tend to be different. Especially in Japan, generally most of all women think that “I’m fat.” Then they try to lose weight, because many people in Japan have a pattern of beauty that slender woman is beautiful. On the other hand, many men don’t think so. I think I can say each person has a different preference. Some people think the woman is a beautiful but some people don’t think so. Like that beauty’s definition is different depend on people’s preferences.

In conclusion, world-wide common beauty’s definition doesn’t exist. It is because each country has a different idea of beauty. So we cannot decide the specific woman as a most beautiful woman in the world. And beauty is affected by culture, traditional idea, common sense and preferences. I think I can say that they are very abstract elements of beauty.

A Colorstruck World? –not for all, only for a particular group of people

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by Sakiko Yasumi

Who has been struck in this world? Moreover, why have they been struck? When we attempt to answer these questions, we might think of people struggling in certain situations; people undergoing natural disaster or discrimination, suffering from hunger, extreme poverty, or conflicts, etc. These predictions are undecided and imprecise yet. However, definitely, you can come up with the significant answer without any difficulties if you get a hint: “colorstruck”. It might be reluctantly factual that everyone can respond to the questions with a concrete explanation why they think so. As I mentioned above, in this colorstruck world implied in the book ‘Shades of Difference’, people, especially who live in a diverse country like the United States, have been having trouble with the ‘colorstruck society’.

For the first question; “who has been struck in a ‘colorstruck’ world?” In the United States, people who have dark skin get many difficulties to live in the society compared to people who have lighter skin, even within the African American communities in the United States. Because of the long and bottomless history of discrimination, African Americans have experienced educational, occupational and income gaps between them and lighter skinned supremacy. What I thought through reading the chapter was that its perspective becomes globally understood and darker skinned people unconsciously tend to attempt to look like a white-skinned person by using skin whitener, straightening their hair, thinning their lips, etc. I am aware of that we, Japanese people also have a tendency to apply sunscreen to our skin, and sometimes to have a plastic surgery to get a white-person’s looks. In addition, two of us have something in common; girls/ ladies heavily care about our appearance compared to men.

The second question is “why have they been struck?” It should have been unnecessary for African American women in the United States to evaluate their self-worth by their complexion. Nevertheless, because they are ‘women’, pursuing beauty is one of the best means to heighten their status and self-esteem. Moreover, it was unexpected that African American women have higher self-worth and self-esteem when compared with whites because sadly, they have been competing within their own group to compare and evaluate themselves rather than in the larger society which causes African American women’s too-high self-esteem and self-evaluation.

In conclusion, I did not mean that having a high self-esteem is inappropriate. Despite, this is regrettable that African American women tend to be evaluated by outside of them and comparisons and evaluations are happened with their coethnics for status achievement. An attempt to have a white-skinned person’s appearance resulted from an ordinary social phenomenon. Their self-esteem must be based on and measured by how they love themselves including their original appearance and personality, definitely not by outsiders given the association between skin tone and perceived attractiveness. For this accomplishment, this ‘colorstruck’ society in where American people live ought to be transformed to the one with the environment which all people are livable no matter what their skin colors are.

Globalization and Westernized Japanese Women

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by Anonymous

Today, the world is more globalized, and more and more people, culture, religion, things, and money are spreading over the countries. We can find cell phones, TV, computers, and also McDonald’s in almost every country. So, what is globalization? For me, globalization seems like the westernization of the world because it spreads things that are made by western countries in most cases. Moreover, westernization reaches people, like many people including Japanese want to be like western people. Especially, recent Japanese women are westernized by globalization.

In Japan, many women dye their hair and wear makeup and they envy long legs or arms. I think these features come from image of the Western. Unconsciously, we came to have the idea that western outlook is good and beautiful, bright skin, blond hair, big eyes, blue eyes and nice shape of body. In fact, models in magazines for young women often look like westerners, and it might be one reason for westernizing Japanese women. However, we have to remind ourselves that this phenomenon sometimes brings health damage. For instance, some Japanese women put colored contact lens in their eyes to make them blue or big, but it sometimes hurts their eyes. And there is the way to make eyes bigger that put eye liner as close to mucous membrane as possible, but it also hurt their eyes.

While Japanese women mimic western women, it is a famous story that western men like Japanese women. It is said that they are fascinated by black hair and sharp eyes, but also they are surprised at too much makeup Japanese women do. So there is the gap about pretty Japanese women between themselves and others. However, many of Japanese women have complex with their outlook especially small eyes and flat faces so they cannot stop using makeup, and I think these complexes are come from the adoration of the West.

I cannot say “stop westernizing your face” because I am one of the women who want to make eyes bigger. I think western women who have big eyes, sculptured face and long legs and arms are beautiful. Globalization might change concept of beauty in Japan. It means that women who have small eyes and round face like otafuku were considered as beautiful women in Japan in the past. On the other hand, the image of beautiful women in today’s Japan is like western women, and the concept flowed into Japan with progress in globalization. Although I think the Western is cool, it is sad that if we totally lose Japanese beauty. So I think we should find reconsider about Japanese beauty and figure out Westernized Japanese beauty as a new concept.

All that you can be

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by Hsinmin Wang

As a woman, what do you want? The eternal desire of beauty, to satisfy self-esteem, getting better occupations and a happy marriage? Believe it or not, you can get all of these as long as you have a light skin tone. Just spending several pennies buying a bottle of skin lightener, woman can achieve whatever you want. “Because you’re worth it.”

It is the message we get from our daily life, a image constructed by beauty merchandisers.

In Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters, Evelyn Nakano Glenn discusses three questions: 1) “How is skin lightening interwoven into the world?” 2) “What are the media and messages, cultural themes, and symbols used to create the desire for skin-lightening products among particular groups?” 3) “How do consumers learn about, test and compare these products and what they seek to achieve?”

I’d like to categorize the attitudes toward global trade of lighteness into three discourses: beauty discourse, public health discourse and global marketing discourse. Assuming you have already read this chapter, this article composes of criticism of the book.

Shall we regard there is an invisible manipulation of people’s aesthetic?

Beauty discourse

The main idea of aesthetic comes from each country’s culture and ideology. “White is right” is comprised of culture and ideology, though nowadays scholars tend to assert that people’s preference on lighter skin is the outcome of colonial racial ideology, but I want to highlight the importance of culture influence here. In fact, we can also discover the highly valued “white is good” culture in history. White means noble, purity, innocence and intellect whereas black means lazy, evil, and ignorant, isn’t it just like the image of angel and satan? Angel can give anything you want and ask nothing in return but Satan will take away one’s soul.

Public health discourse

Obviously frights over mercury, hydroquinone, corticosteroid and peroxide couldn’t beat up the eagerness on demolishing black pigment and melanin. When authority severely banned the toxic in skin lighteners, it neglect the reason behind the demand on these products—color discrimination.

Yes, I swear I know the importance of healthy skin., but what if I can only get what I want from lighter skin color? I admit that I don’t like when scholars talk about skin lightener always trying to emphasis the toxic chemical ingredients in cosmetics and skin care products. It made me feel that they view woman trying to lightening their skin as a ridiculous behavior. In my personal opinion, toxic skin productions are not only a public health but connoting social hierarchy problems.

Global marketing discourse

It’s impossible not to mention the role of mass media and internet in global markets. Especially with the rising of social media, in one hand it enhances the influence of mass media, on the other it spreads the concept of western aesthetics to the world and changes people’s outlook. Under marketing strategy, audiences believe we can control our own body, the body is changeable. Look at those celebrities, they must have done something to make their skin tone so different. I recognize the beauty industry’s marking strategy is not only to change the aesthetic but to provoke a concept that one’s body is one’s property which can accumulate social capital. In a way encouraging people to chase the “improvement” of body.

To summarize the pursuit of skin lightening, I regard these behaviors more likely to fulfill Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. For safety (employment); belonging (sexual intimacy) and esteem (confidence), and unfortunately the beauty merchandizer penetrates it.

The Color of an Ideal Beauty Queen

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by Cherry Zhou

This chapter discusses how skin color matters in a beauty contest. In the hope of challenging racial exclusion outside of contest and colorism within it, the Miss Bronze contest was held first in 1961. One must not ignore a strong social background during the period, when the American society was in the middle of a transformation in black consciousness that emerged from the Civil Right and Black Power Movements. By crowning dark-skinned beauties, dark-skinned women come to realize that they can be seen as beautiful! Miss Bronze’s attractive face and body shape could refute disparaging representations of black women. Such contest encouraged dark-skinned women to be proud of whom they are and created the climate for media to look at black beauty. However, it is because that the black beauty standards were shaped by social movements, when the movements decline, the meanings that they supported weaken. Mass media could then redefine the concept of beauty as social background changes.

Moreover, I believe a beauty pageant is not only just about appearance (including skin color), but more importantly, it could be seen as a major event that celebrates and honors ethnic values. The winner usually serve as a role model of female and through training and education, the beauty is more like a symbol of a certain group and she has the power to unify the group and thus to strengthen it. For example, in Miss Bronze contest, the assumption seems to be that with a little make-up, a home-sewn gown, and charm school courses, any daughter of the striving African American working class could perfect the performance of middle-class, heterosexual, femininity. The winner usually claims positions of exemplary middle-class femininity for black women.

Another point I would like to make is that the social media has a great influence on promoting the image of beauty. What is beauty? It appears that the definition of beauty changes through time as the social climate changes. As I was googling information for this presentation, I found many examples claiming that mass media somehow communicate false/unrealistic image of beauty especially for women to follow. Does media has the power to define beauty in this information era? Few would argue that media defines beauty, but the reality is all we see on TV, magazines, the internet and etc. are sending messages that what kind of look is considered as attractive. The media assaults us daily with images of “beautiful” people and articles on how to make ourselves look just more like them. In Japan, pick up any women’s magazine and there must be articles on how to have a more balanced diet, how to wear better makeup … Society always has an expectation of what is considered attractive. The Miss Bronze Contest challenged the expectation of beauty at that time, but what about now? At the end of the day, it’s not just about appearance. Everyone is beautiful in their way but no one is perfect. Human bodies come in all shapes and sizes and yet the fact is only a few are just like those who are on TV or on magazine covers. Body image can be a very deceptive realm that we all are susceptible to and if people all strive to look like the “beauty” that media creates, which to a large extent very hard to replicate, it is without doubt that they will end up with low self-esteem. There are so many reasons behind the model “beauty image” that media creates such as advertising and other commercial benefits that they are getting; however, I think it will be helpful to build up people’s self-esteem if more positive images and the portrayal of more realistic and healthy instead of pencil-like skinny body types are presented in the media.