Tag Archives: india

Skin Colour, Gender and Marriage in India

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by Isabel Cabaña Rojas

 

When the moment comes to look for reasons of why Indians conceive beauty as they do, it seems that nobody can come up with a clear explanation. Many argue that the ideal of fairness has existed since ancient times, manifested in the stories and myths from Indian gods and spirits, where darkness and light were in battle for the primacy of the world. Whereas some others state that, more than that, the presence on history of British colonizers, and the socio-economic structure they established in India, pervaded all the cultural spheres, including the ideals of beauty. But, regardless of the origins of this particular and powerful feature of Indian culture, is interesting to notice how deeply rooted is in the daily life of Indian, especially women, who define their life according to this value, the value of being ‘fair’. As Philips (2004) points out, fairness has become a ‘symbolic capital’ that is ‘disempowering’ women, particularly in their freedom and election to marry someone. The fact that in India marriages are arranged emphasises more the power of skin colour on their lives, because both are things, at the end, women cannot choose.

For men the things are not much different either. For them, white skin is also a value and an attribute worth to fight for, but the responsibility of achieve this colour is less strong than in women. A dark-skinned man can still have chances to marry a fair-skinned woman… the other way around, no way! So when thinking on the relevance of race in the contemporary Indian culture, and its linkage with marriage (and all the industry surrounding it) one should necessarily connect it with gender. And somehow with social class. Inasmuch as I wonder how strong this really is in the general culture in India: is this situation in all the regions of this country? Are people living in rural areas really concerned about their skin colour? Is it a middle/high class issue? As, supposedly, a post-colonial heritage, fairness is at some point linked with belonging to a certain social level, that of the ruling class in opposition to the darker working class of Indians.

But, what seems very important here is the role that new generations, especially those of Indian descent abroad (as Indian Americans, for example) will have in the perpetuation of this custom. There are people already criticizing what this perception of colour is doing to the culture, especially to women (and not only in the social sense, but also in health, considering the massive use of bleaching creams). According to Vaid (2009), in the Indian Diaspora, at least in the United States, there are no signs that this is something to be left behind.

References

Gosai, A. (2010, July 19th). India’s myth of fair-skinned beauty. The Guardian online.

Guha, S. (2010, March 23th). India’s unbearable lightness of being. BBC News.

Philips, A. (2004). Gendering Colour: Identity, Feminity and Marriage in Kerala. Anthropologica, 46(2), 253-272.

Vaid, J. (2009). Fair Enough? Color and the Commodification of Self in Indian Matrimonials. In E. Nakano Glenn (Ed.), Shades of Difference. Why Skin Color Matters (pp. 148-165). Stanford University Press.

Vaidyanathan, R. (2012, June 5th). Has skin whitening in India gone too far? BBC News-Magazine.

The world trend

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by Mayu Shibata

In the last class we watched TV commercials of cosmetics for lighter skin, which are mostly on air in darker skin nations. We simply enjoyed watching it but it meant a lot. It’s not only about western culture coming into a nation. Well, I read a book about Indian economic growth before and it tells that in India many women seek cosmetics to get lighter skin. According to the book, Indian women pay more attention than ever with the influence of TV shows and magazines and its beauty market has been expanding. Among beauty goods, cosmetics for lighter skin are selling best. As for Indian women, they have cultural and historical backgrounds that they want to get lighter skin. In early days they had the caste system and the higher caste people had lighter skin than lower castes. Their castes were decided partly on their color of skin and therefore they had dreamt of lighter skin for long. And what boosted their adoration is an influence of western TV shows and magazines.

Here’s another story in India. With the rapid economic growth more women are taking part in society. There are more career women and women students and motor scooters are popular with those women now. Honda and local company cooperated and produced motor scooters for women ‘Just for Her’, which hit the market. In India women still struggle with local custom which requires women to stay home and do all the house work. Many men even marry a woman to look after their family and home.

These two stories represent a variety of culture coming into India.

I visited Malaysia last summer to study its culture. In stores there are many cosmetics for lighter skin, American instant noodles, foreign daily products and other countries’ TV shows are on air like Chinese, Japanese and American (with Malaysian/English subtitles). I felt that they live in a much more multi-national country and so that they know about those countries and its culture very well.

It’s pretty much the same in Japan, I think. People like American music, fashion, gossips and TV shows. They know about those stuffs through media and moreover they are mostly available here in Japan, too.

I think it’s fine that another culture comes into a country because I think it has externality in an economically good meaning. In my opinion it’s a matter of people whether the other culture invade the country or not so just let it be because that’s what people want. I do concern that the world goes standardized but I’m not sure if we should avoid it even by sacrificing people’s desire, dream and consumption. I mean that’s a lot. In any way I think now we cannot totally avoid other cultures from coming into a nation.

Problems of outsourcing in India

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by Misato Okumura

There are a lot of call centers in India and many Indians are educated to speak in an American accent to talk with their clients in the United States. The call center itself belongs to IT companies in the United States but it is placed in India and Indian workers there are educated to have an American accent and playing a role of customer service as company members. This is because it is cheaper to employ Indians than employ Americans. Indian employees are well educated and they usually have IT and programming skills but they have struggled with getting job though they graduated from good school. So this sounds very nice because this creates a job in developing country.  But this causes a lot of problems. You can find problems both in India and the United States.

First, problems in India are about their identity and career. Customers call the company and expect that they are going to talk with an American worker. So first thing to do for their job is learning American accent, speed of talking and expressions. Also they need to learn American culture to pretend to be American workers. They check local weather and news in the States on the internet and talk with customers there as if they were also there. They are forced to keep themselves surrounded by American culture and to make themselves think they are not Indians but Americans. So they kill their own identities to get money. This is not good but they need to do that because otherwise they can’t get money. IT companies take advantage of it because they know India have a lot of young people who have knowledge of IT are having hard time to find a job and they can hire them for very cheap. If they work for 7 hours a day, they need to be Americans for one-thirds of a day. It might make them confused.

Second, these Indian workers are doing the same thing every day. It’s just pretending and talking and it doesn’t require any professional skills. This keeps them from a professional and good job even though they graduated from good schools. And you must not forget that there are problems in the United States, too. Because they started outsourcing, a lot of Americans have lost their jobs and opportunity to get a job in their country. The last two problems about career in both countries bring inequality to our society. Japan also has this problem. We don’t have enough job spots for Japanese today but Japanese companies build their factory outside of Japan because it is cheaper. Some people say we are creating job in developing countries but we must not forget this also creates inequality.

For an equal society in India

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by Natsumi Ichioka

After reading the article “Arnold Schwarzenegger, ally mcbeal and arranged marriages: globalization on the ground in India,” I wonder why women in India are not equal with men. In India, after independence from England, a new constitution was established in 1947. This constitution succeeded in mentioning that all Indians are equal legally. In Japan, it is said that women and men are equal, but there are some obstacles to saying that all situations are equal. I know the gender problems are so complicated and unsolvable problems. Like Japanese situation, there are also problems in India for a truly equal society. I think India has to change three things for the equal society.

First, India has to divide politics from religion. It is not a simple problem to think like this, but I think the problems which India has are all related to the religion, especially Hindu caste. Caste has caused many problems and prejudice for Indian women in the society. India is developing these days, they try to take in many developed ideas from foreign countries. I think there is a limit to coexistence between the traditional Indian culture and the developed culture, because developed cultures have a trend for the equal gender, for example, the equal employment, equal education system and so on. If India continue to change modernization, it is necessary to separate the thinking from religion.

Secondly, Indians have to solve the problem of employment for women. India is developing and women are going to work in the society. In developing society, the workforce for women is needed. Though the welfare programs are established, for example, securing time for childcare, prohibiting illegal layoffs for women and so on, these systems are not always secured. Government research states that the wages of women are lower than the wages of men. In addition, the rates of women’s layoffs are more than four times compared to men’s rates, in the same research. In this way, there is still discrimination against women laborers. These welfare systems are secured truly for the equal employment. Though they are established legally, it is nonsense that they are not adopted for all women.

Finally, the system of the marriage is too burdensome for women. From the traditional culture in India, the bride needs to give financial aid for the groom. This system is too burdensome for the bride’s family. Because of this system, girls are not welcomed. Sometime, girl babies are killed because of this prejudice. On the other hand, boys are welcomed and treated preciously. These prejudices are caused by the thinking of the religion. If these prejudices are continued, India will run into difficulties. If these prejudices are solved, the thinking of the equal between the men and the women are made. Then, Indian society is going to change for the equal society. There is no discrimination against women.

I think India need to change dramatically in these three points, the thinking of separation of politics and religion, the employment for women, and the system of the marriage. The problems which India has are so complicated. They cannot be solved easily. But for the equal society, especially for Indian women, they need to change dramatically. The women’s rights are secured in many field, India will be more powerful country in the future.

Reference

Kyoto Univ. UNICEF Club (1997, November), Retrieved December 16, 2012, from http://www.jca.apc.org/unicefclub/research/index.html