Sindy Jimenez
Prof. Brener
Humanities and the Arts
When I was younger, I always had this idea on why I thought different women were so pretty and yet they all looked so different. Different skin color, different eyes, different hair pattern, different everything and yet in their own way they were beautiful. It wasn’t till I started watching movies and tv shows that I started realizing the damage and the expectations beauty standards put on little girls. If you weren’t blond or blue eyed or had a thin waist you weren’t deemed beautiful. Or you weren’t really known as the “IT girl” metaphorically speaking. My way of “bleaching my skin” for years started when I was 12. I would straighten my hair every week. It caused so much damage to my already type 3 hair which is very curly and ruined it. I didn’t know how I put these beauty standards on myself without even realizing it.
The beauty standards in Africa, Tanzania to be more specific have such high expectations that in turn if you’re not meeting them it would not allow you to look for a partner for marriage. Some of the women in Africa even feel that being beautiful is being “white” according to “Investigating Motivations for Women’s Skin Bleaching in Tanzania.” due to a lot of westernization a study was conducted by Dr. Salaam who reported 42 women in practices containing skin bleaching. Salaam’s hypothesis was that the key factor in the multi- billion dollar industry is African American women. He discusses the harmful ingredients in these products and the risk many of these women take in wanting to be “beautiful. It amazes me how an industry can profit off of these beauty standards and this unrealistic expectation. This text talks about motivation in the reasoning why African American women in Tanzania bleach their skin. A Lot of it had to do with westernization and the approval of men and wanting to be white and “beautiful”. Other reasons were skin diseases, rashes, to have soft skin and the look of being european. Skin bleaching is discussed as a potentially harmful body modification practice in which women feel an internalized and externalized beauty standard in society. Policy intervention and research on it is discussed in this text.
In other texts the author discussed self-objectification due to skin surveillance and texture dissatisfaction, the pressure of black women and the issue of beauty standards and pre-eminence of White features. It follows a study of 168 Indian women and 149 african americans in the united states. African American women are in environments where they are deemed less attractive than white women. It also highlights how the media views women of darker complexion and how they are less desirable. Women in India who are of lighter complexion are more associated with higher education and marital status.
The issue in skin bleaching is so bad that governments in nigeria, south africa etc have banned these products and have stopped all sales in them as well. Reason being the ingredients in these products like mercury and hydroquinone. Even though the country has banned these products many still smuggle them in. These unrealistic expectations and standards in beauty are not worth the complications of skin bleaching which are numbness, high blood pressure, fatigue, sensitivity to light, neurologic symptoms, such as tremor, memory loss, irritability and kidney failure.
This concerns all women who feel that they are not worthy enough or beautiful enough, any women who has decided to skin bleach or even thought of it. Skin bleaching metaphorically speaking is not appreciating or hair pattern and its texture, its beautiful and you were chosen to handle it beautifully, not appreciating your curves because you rather look like the supermodel on the front cover, i’m pretty sure that supermodel wishes she had curves and even might have insecurities of their own. Be the role model you wish you had when you were younger. Be your own definition of an IT girl.
