Author: Norbu Lhendup
Editor: Saamiya Laroia
The Asian obsession with ‘fair and white’ skin has been a long running trend that could potentially have roots in social psychology. This can be seen on the basis of the fundamental laws of human attraction and cultural norms that have been passed down to the current generations. In the past, white and fairer skin has been linked with a higher social status, people who rank higher up in the social hierarchy are not expected to be exposed to the sun because they would have someone else doing their work. Additionally, a whiter and fairer skin also indicated a lack of disease and ailments. Darker skin, however, was associated with working in fields and being involved in manual labour, which indicated a lower socio-economic status. In Asia, family wealth and prestige is a defining factor in marriages. Wealthy families expect to marry into another wealthy family, so as to preserve their family prestige. These ‘wealthy’ people would have fair and white skin.
The obsession with whiter skin is further reinforced through the media. The skin whitening market is very large and keeps growing through their aggressive marketing campaigns. People are encouraged to have role models with flawless white skin due to a lack of darker skinned representation in media and entertainment. People’s obsession with these celebrities further worsens their fixation with having flawless white skin, making it a mandatory feature to be considered attractive in Asia. Almost every shop has a section dedicated to skin whitening products. Today, social media plays an incredibly big role in how people see themselves by comparing themselves to other people. For instance, someone seeing a person with incredibly white and flawless skin would feel that their skin is ‘lacking’ and hence further amplifies their idée fixe with the concept of white skin.
India has proven to be a very big market for these skin whitening cream. This is supported by the fact that women do not get husbands if they are not fair-skinned. A well-known cream named ‘Fair and Lovely’ has had its name changed recently – due to allegations based on the promotion of colorism – to ‘Glow and Lovely’. With this change, the skin colour of the consumer is not associated with beauty, but sets a new standard of beauty equating a ‘glowing’ skin with beauty. Additionally, the skin care obsession is also prevalent in certain countries in Asia where there are situations where members of their own family would insult and use derogatory terms with them. This culture of ridicule for not meeting the standards of skin fairness creates an incredibly unhealthy environment for these people.
Considering how big the market for beauty products are, we must realise that the reason this market is so huge is because there are a lot of people buying these products. People are compelled to buy these because they have been conditioned to think fair skin is better and are also under the delusion that their skin colour is linked to their self worth. This however is the sad reality of the world we live in: People anchor a person’s entire worth ,based on their skin colour.
During such times, it is imperative that we create a safe space for people to feel comfortable in their own skin and remove negative associations that come with having dark skin. We are at a time where people have to fight to be treated equally simply because their skin is a shade darker from the majority. The obsession with skin whitening in Asia harms this cause because it perpetuates the idea that white skin is the norm. The Asian Youth Act stands with Black Lives Matter Movement and we condemn all actions made against this cause.
Salvá, A. “The Diplomat.” Where Does the Asian Obsession With White Skin Come From?, publisher,02/12/2019,https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/where-does-the-asian-obsession-with-white-skin-come-from/
Banerjea, A. “livemint.” HUL’s Fair & Lovely renamed as ‘Glow & Lovely’, publisher, 02/07/2020,https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/hul-s-fair-lovely-renamed-as-glow-lovely-11593690657927.html
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