Deconstructing our obsession with fairness

Fairness creams devalue natural South Asian beauty

We have all witnessed the fairness complex at some point in our lives, be it taunts about our complexion from our aging grandmothers, comparisons of skin color in front of the mirror, or, the media’s glorification of fair skin (Snow White, anyone?). While a lot Caucasian women spend their summer holidays on a beach chair getting their tans on, most Pakistani women are desperately trying to evade the sun, from putting up protective screens in their cars to bleaching their bodies to get rid of their ‘awful’ tans. Television enthusiasts have given up local shows in favour of Turkish soaps dubbed in Urdu, for their foreign, fair-skinned casts. New treatments promising fairer skin surface everyday—there are surgeries and injections, creams and bleaches, ‘desi’ remedies and avant-garde products, suggesting that we might not share all of our ancestor’s Victorian sensibilities but our cultural obsession with light skin has remained intact over time. What is it about ‘whiteness’ that we find intrinsically beautiful? Paradoxically, our preoccupation with fairness is not skin deep, rather it stems from the institutions of colonialism, enslavement, and global White supremacy.

Skin whitening is a popular practice, dating back to the Elizabethan Era, when women used powder and paint to ‘improve’ their complexions. Yet, in its current manifestation, skin bleaching is practiced disproportionately in communities of colour, primarily the Indo-Pak region. According to an article in the 2006 edition of Harper’s Bazaar titled “Events about Race”, the number of new skin whitening products that have been introduced to Asian and Pacific markets exceeds one-hundred and eighty-nine since 2002. In the local context, colourism constructs a spectrum upon which individuals attempt to circumnavigate the white/non-white binary, by assigning and assuming colour-based privilege on their proximity to ‘whiteness’ instead. As an immigrant to the United Kingdom put it, “In Pakistan, it is about the degree of fairness; in England, you’re either white or you’re brown, Caucasian or other.” Yaba Ambrogale Bay suggests that “the White Ideal – pale skin, long straight hair, aquiline features—exacts prevailing and enduring influences on societal assessments of human value” in communities of colour. Skin lightening practices and the quest for fairness, represent an attempt to approximate the White ideal and consequently gain access to the social status historically reserved for Whites.

The concept of white supremacy is understood globally as the channelling and control of wealth, power and privilege by predominantly Caucasian, Western nations. Although, the answer to “who is white?” has evolved over a period of time to include previously ambiguous identities into the elite White club, the connotations of whiteness have remained as certain as the Brown Sahib’s preoccupation with white skin. Given the evolution of racial categories, it can be concluded that White supremacy has more to with ideological whiteness and the privileges, rights and assumptions that come with it—than racial whiteness. To understand the fairness complex in the Indo-Pak context, we need to revisit the historical trajectory of ‘white’ foreign rule in India. To say that our aversion to dark skin stems from the British Raj is a misappropriation. What is more likely is that the British reinforced and redefined the Indian predisposition towards fair skin that draws back to the Aryan infiltration into Northern India. Like the Mughals and British after them, the Aryans’ dominance and influence was equated with the colour of their skin. Physicality became an important marker in determining who could access positions of power which can explain why people of colour struggle to erase their racial identifiers whereas white people seek to affirm their whiteness. Psychiatrist Frantz Fanon explains, “In the man of colour, there is a constant effort to run away from his own individuality, to annihilate his own presence,” and it is this very sentiment that underpins the skin bleaching/fairness cream industry which devalues the natural beauty of South Asians.

While the “gora craze” plagues our people in general, it is evident that women are affected by it more than men. The overarching emphasis on a woman’s physical appearance and the cosmetic industry’s tendency to breed insecurity certainly has a lot to with it; however the victimization and objectification of women under colonial rule might provide a historical lens for understanding why women are the prime victims of the fairness complex. Institutions of colonization relied on mobilization, political power and subjugation of indigenous women, which are all historically male-dominated structures. Shailushi Baxi-Richie, a non-profit writing consultant and activist, notes that “women have been seen as a commodity that has been traded by men. Wives and daughters have been a currency traded between men. If you are a light-skinned woman, you are more likely to attract more power or money in a man.” To be a woman and to be dark is to be doubly disadvantaged—ever heard the phrase ‘kali nokrani’ (black maid) — through a sex-race power structure that holds the White Male Patriarch as the ultimate power icon. The politics of color and gender overlap in determining the identity of the South Asian women, which explains why so many of us seek to be fair and subsequently overcome one of our points of disadvantage. Kimberle Crenshaw’s Theory of Intersectionality comes into play here as South Asian women’s “intersectional identity as both women and of color within discourses that are shaped to respond to one or the other” leads them to be “marginalized within both.” Advertisements for fairness creams effectively communicate the element of intersectionality and the associations of whiteness with class/privilege. Television ads for the popular cream “Fair and Lovely” frequently show women bagging a desirable partner or more recently portray women acquiring employment in professions held by men— all by virtue of their lighter skin. Ironically, Unilever promotes messages about women’s empowerment in the Global North through their “real beauty” campaign featuring women of all colors, shapes and sizes, while selling the idea that women with lighter skin are more desirable in the Global South. The proclivity of large corporations to exercise power discreetly over individuals and take advantage of cultural biases is not a new phenomenon; what is strange is that educated, so-called liberal minded people keep falling for such tactics. It is one thing to indulge in a harmless beauty regimen, it is quite another to promote a corporation that sells the supremacy of one culture over another, of one skin over another. As opposed to other beauty practices, the struggle for fairer skin emphasizes a deeper dilemma in one’s perception of beauty – it exemplifies an intrinsic belief that we are better only when we are similar to our white counterparts.

“The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.” -Audre Lorde

The writer is a staff member of Pakistan Today and holds a degree from Mount Holyoke College.