And westerners go to tanning booths in droves. These women are beautiful.

The one in the background is gorgeous, dude. There's a similar hangup among Italian-Americans. My mother and grandparents are on the fair-skinned side, but my nonno's brother Renzo is kind of swarthy. back in school when he acted up, the teachers would say, 'Don't act like such a negrum [dialect for 'dark one'], people are insane about this stuff.

AV: Is it only that you notice their nice attire or demeanor and want to cheer them up by boosting their confidence and sharing good feelings, or do you want to make an impression and garner their attention?

Well, it's like this, I usually become friends with these girls, and more often than not the topic of skin comes up for discussion, and then they start to gloat over my skin colour saying how lucky I am, and then I tell them that they're the lucky ones to have such a nice earthy tone, which I'd give anything to have, and they think I'm nuts, which makes me feel even more guilty for being the fair one, and so I try to compensate for that by making sure that I compliment them as much as I can for the way they look. It's not that they need my seal of approval or anything, I guess it's just my way of not feeling like I may be contributing to the problem in some way, that's all.

It's odd, but while I am attracted to dark skinned women I am put off but light skinned people with dark tans.

It really saddens me to hear of people that want to change their coloring. What the hell are they supposed to do? Bleach themselves into a Michael Jackson freak? For what? Vanity? When they are already beautiful? It's like when a gorgeous brunette bleaches their hair blond. NO! I cry for that beautiful dark hair. Like arsehat said, yearning to be something you are not is unattractive to me. And men looking for light-skinned only brides? Puke.

Don't feel guilty for being fair. It's beyond your control. Their color is not unfortunate, as you are aware, hadjiboy.

Jon, I think the Italian hangup may be just in the older generations. My mom was a suntan queen for YEARS (like, until she got skin cancer), as were a few of my aunts and uncles on that side.
No one on the other side, but, well, the Irish do not tan. They crisp. I got that skin. My sister tans. I was never happy with my skin... I'm pale enough that I burn all year, I always look tired since the skin under my eyes is basically translucent, and any minor imperfection like zits and teeny scars is really obvious. Not to mention you can see me blush from space.

I think it's one of those things where you're never happy with what you have, at least in the US.

Although I believe there is more bias about skin coloring among minority groups than people of European heritage, just going by things friends have said or my own observations of the media. It seems like a lot of the African American women you see in the mainstream media- actresses, musicians, etc, are very fair skinned when compared to the percentage of women with that skin tone I see every day. Too skewed to really be coincidental. If that makes any sense.

I don't know where I'm really going with this... I just wish people were happy with themselves. It makes me sad to think of people using those creams (which, from what I've read when I was looking into them for some sun damage I have, are rather dangerous), to change their appearance so dramatically.

They're both beautiful women. The gal right next to you looks a lot like my sister, in a way. I think it's the half-grin sort of scheming look on her face. That was my first impression. Well, that and the burning jealousy over seeing people outside in short sleeves, since it's still below freezing here. ;)

It is widespread here in Japan too - there's even a special phrase for being beautifully white "bihaku".

Lots of "whitening" creams and so on available. Many women carry black parasols to keep the sun off of them.

Many women rave about my pale skin - but then they don't burn to a crisp in 5 minutes like I do. The grass is always greener etc etc

Most of the girls here want to be like this (that's Ashwariya Rai, who won the Miss World competition back in '95, and put India on the map so to speak as far as the cosmetic industry is concerned, and it's all been downhill from there I feel).

But there are so many other beautiful women who get overlooked just because they are of darker skin.

The gal right next to you looks a lot like my sister, in a way. I think it's the half-grin sort of scheming look on her face. That was my first impression.

You're dead on kellydamnit.:)
She was always fighting with the administration for our rights, and you can bet she wouldn't let them off of the hook without a good knock!

Hadjiboy - about the personals, you forgot the bit where the personals want not only fair-skinned but also green-eyed, tall, thin, and with some sort of degree (who is ready to chuck that career on the back burner indefinitely to have kids and stay at home)*. heh. My ex-gf, who is Indian (short, brown-eyed, very tanned) would always roll her eyes at this. Her Mom would give her flak about going outside and getting tanned, and she'd reply, "Yeah, yeah, we're brown! It's what happens." She likes being darker-skinned than most of the others who are trying to fit that whacked-out ideal and never paid much attention to the rest of it. Still, different cultures have different ideals of beauty as well, and few (maybe none?) are rooted in any sort of reality.

*well, that's what it's like in vancouver, canada, anyways...

Culture can be a very good thing and a very bad thing, my friend, and it is near impossible for your to undo it for them. They need to undo it for themselves.

I worked with a fellow for a while who had this name: Eswar Priyadarshan. I love this name and tried very hard to learn how to pronounce it correctly. At one point he let me know that his father, a linguist, had given him a unique name that didn't fit in the caste system - both a blessing and a curse.

On skin color - the US pushes tan so hard. It took me many years to come to accept that it's never going to happen with me. At this point, I'm quite happy with my skin tone and content to put on sun screen before I spent more than an hour in the bright sun. Had I not come to this balance, I would be looking forward to skin cancer for sure.

I think it all comes down to economic and political dominance. We're somehow hardwired to use whatever is the social/economic dominant as a role model.

So, if pale people have been in power for as long as we can remember, then a part of us is always going to want to be pale.

If this weren't the case -- if this drive weren't hardwired -- there'd be no way to explain why people subordinate themselves to ideals that are not only unattainable but wholly inappropriate.

Oh, and add to this that women (in most world cultures) are brought up in environment in which they're implicitly told "you are here primarily to make others (mostly men) happy. Who you are outside of this is largely irrelevant."

I agree with plinth, you can't undo culture for people. They have to fight that fight with themselves. I'm very fair-skinned and I know what you mean about the frustration of being praised or complimented for something you didn't have any control over. What does it say about the value of a human if humans are valued so arbitrarily? And so many people are content to keep going with the flow.

You know, we have that mentality in Ghana too...i think it's a result of being colonized. Everyone fairer/paler/lighter is somehow perceived to be better because the whites were somehow 'better'...i mean look at me, i'm not light skinned in any way, and yet comparatively in Ghana i'm considered an 'obroni' (a white person!!). It's sad really, in Ghana the reverse one drop rule applies. Even if one of your grandparents is white, you're automatically considered better than if you are of pure African descent.

i always see it as harkening back to ancient Egyptian fashion and the paleness as signifying economic favor and lack of day labor.

In my experience, telling someone that they're attractive despite or because of a physical quality they don't like about themselves doesn't really work. While the remark might be perfectly true and meant in good faith, it's trivially easy to dismiss these compliments because evaluating such things is so subjective.

I guess I'm just seconding what others have said - fighting a cultural standard has to come from within. You can combat the concept of "fair and lovely" on a larger, more social justice-y scale, but helping someone to overcome this sort of internalized self-image issue on a personal level is really difficult unless they are open to change.

The concept of fairness always shocks me on a visceral level when I go to India because it's so different from the North American standard. The activist in me isn't surprised, though, since the legacy of imperialism is so pervasive on the subcontinent.

I do that long sleeve, scarf/hat and even gloves thing too but for another reason - I don't handle the sun very well at all. And my 50+ sunscreen makes me break out. Ugh. Forget tanning salons.

Also, I thought the fair thing had something to do with the old caste system but I may have misunderstood.

I guess I'm just seconding what others have said - fighting a cultural standard has to come from within. You can combat the concept of "fair and lovely" on a larger, more social justice-y scale, but helping someone to overcome this sort of internalized self-image issue on a personal level is really difficult unless they are open to change.

Yeah, I guess I understand what you're talking about, but the negative image associated with being dark skinned is so prevalent here, you feel like doing anything you can to counter it.

West- skinny and tanned = successful and healthy
East- skinny and light skinned = successful and healthy

The same kind of message is sent by the tanned/light skinned person, that is 'I have enough time to holiday/stay out of the sun because I am successful. Also, I think the 'optimum' shade is very similar for both cultures. I don't know if this tells us anything.

If you want to compete in a society an easy short cut to acceptibility is to conform to the norm. There are always exceptions to the rule, someone has to set the trends in the first place! John F Kennedy changed his haircut to run for president, which seemed to work in getting people to trust him. However, he also wouldn't wear a hat, which was very outrageous at the time, and was inaugurated hat-less.

Dabitch, this blog post, by a woman of color I know and very much admire discusses the origins of "fair and lovely." It's a complicated issue. Some people believe that colonialism had nothing to do with developing such a perspective, saying that fair skin was valued in India before the British. Others believe that, although this might be true, colonial rule perpetuated and reinforced the privileging of white skin.

Yeah, I guess I understand what you're talking about, but the negative image associated with being dark skinned is so prevalent here, you feel like doing anything you can to counter it.

I totally understand and respect that. I don't mean to dissuade you from supporting and encouraging your friends to feel good about their bodies (I can't think of a less cheesy way to word that). It's hard to watch negative body image talk being thrown around by someone you care about.

Some people believe that colonialism had nothing to do with developing such a perspective, saying that fair skin was valued in India before the British.

Yes, re: Aryan and Dravidian. I was born here, in the south of India, but my ancestors are not from here, so I'm fair skinned. I've had people ask me point blank--are you an Aryan... and have not known how to reply to it... wasn't Hitler into the whole Aryan thing?

I think that should be a good tip-off to people who think that being fair-skinned is more desirable than dark.

I remember Filipino society being somewhat similar in that upper-class women avoided any tanning action, and were much more likely to have a good share of Spanish or American blood. I don't remember any fairness creams being sold, however.

At least in my experience in America, skin color is far less important in stereotypical female beauty than facial structure and hair presentation. Fairly dark-skinned women like Iman can be thought of as extremely beautiful, as long as they have good cheekbones and Caucasian-like lips, and straighten (and maybe color) their hair. (Halle Berry is another example.) Latin women are definitely not discriminated against by hetero white males looking for hot women. Skin color is not that important, as long as the woman looks like she might have had one or more Caucasian ancestors in the tree.

(The sentiments expressed in the previous paragraph are not endorsed by deadcowdan; they are observations only.)

Off on a tangent for a moment. The setup of that photograph is a little odd. It almost looks like the couple in the background weren't intended to be in the picture, but snuck into the frame at the last moment. A drive-by posing, maybe.

As prevelent as it may be in some cultures to admire or prefer light skin, the ironic thing is that in America, really pale skin is made fun of. I have Casper-pale skin (funny, considering I'm half Italian) and I get told that I should "get a tan" all the time, by family and aquaintances. I'm really sick of logging on to gossip and fashion sites and seeing half of the comments about people like Kelly Osbourne have to do with the color of their skin and how repulsive it is. The words 'pasty' and 'glow in the dark' are often used. My husband and my daughter hold their arms out next to each other and compare tans every summer, and then look pityingly at me. I could tan if I wanted to, I just find it really unattractive.

It's really infuriating. No one would walk up to a person of color and tell them to change the color of their skin, but I get it all the time. No thanks, no tan for me. I happen to think my skin is just as nice as everyone else's. Plus I won't look like a shriveled prune by the time I'm 60.

I'm going to have skin like Peggy Lipton. Julie from The Mod Squad!

My take on this is a lot like asok -- and there's a great, historical economics book I got my inspiration from. If you read Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class, he stated that "desirable" equates with "what the leisure class can afford to do and the working class can only try to emulate." In countries where manual labor is more common, looking like you've never been a day out in the sun will be more "desirable". In the US, looking like you can spend the day on a beach tanning will be "desirable".

A similar thing happens with weight. In a day when most people had barely enough food, plump women were "in" (see also Rubenesque nudes). In the US, where overnutrition is more common, people who are thin because they can afford high-quality food, a personal trainer, and two hours a day in the gym are "desirable".

And with age -- when very few people were healthy enough to reach an advanced age, age was revered. Today, looking like a 20-year-old after 40 (i.e. being able to afford the plastic surgery plus having a lifestyle stress-free enough to reduce the aging process in the first place) is "desirable".

I have decided that if I lose weight, it's just for my health (not my looks) and I'm going to have wrinkles eventually and consider myself beautiful anyhow. It's my protest against the leisure class.

I've always thought that Julianne Moore had wonderful skin.

It almost looks like the couple in the background weren't intended to be in the picture

It's that obvious eh? (They had just finished taking a bunch of shots, and then asked me to get in the frame, and I was like, nah, that's okay--I'd rather not, and they wouldn't hear of it, so we quickly got into frame for a shot, with them in the background.)

There was a documentary I'd seen awhile ago that put forth some of the same ideas that you and asok are suggesting lleachie. Fascinating stuff.

One thing to think about with the compliment portion of this discussion: If someone assumes that she should be judged based on the color of her skin, and judges herself poorly for it, then complimenting her skin color, or her appearance in general, doesn't actually counteract the frame she's set up -- that is, it still reinforces the idea that she should be judged on what she looks like -- *and* it implies that she's a bad judge.

I don't think it's particularly helpful (or really, particularly conversationally interesting!) to get into self-esteem debates with people. ("I'm ugly!" "No you're not!" "Yes I am!" "No you're not!") You can certainly refuse to engage in anyone else's self-criticism; I tend to either do a weird little half-smile half-shrug non-committal thing and then change the subject, or just ignore the remark all together (a technique I picked up in high school when I just refused to participate in the "Ohmigod I'm so fat!" discussions, because they bored me to tears, and sitting at a table full of people slagging on themselves just seemed like all sorts of wrong to me), or agree with the person and exaggerate their complaint ("You're right! You do look completely hideous! And I never would have noticed unless you pointed it out! Wow, that's so odd.")

The second technique only works on very close friends who will take the joke in the spirit in which it was intended, or very distant acquaintances who are being annoying enough that it doesn't matter. :-)

All this to say -- you can't undo social conditioning if you stay within the framework that allows that conditioning to thrive (eg, "Women should be judged on their looks"). If you find that your friends are judging themselves harshly based on that conditioning, then I think living by the notion that women are not just decorative but actually also *do* really cool stuff, and complimenting people on their accomplishments, is probably the more helpful -- and subversive -- choice. (And it sounds like you do appreciate those accomplishments, from what you've said before.)

None of the above applies to someone you're in a romantic relationship with, of course. But I think it's the way to go with friends and co-workers.

Lleachie, I've heard that theory before, and it makes a lot of sense. I hesitate to discount the role that race and power play into how we view skin color, though. Being a tan white person in North America can be seen as an easy way to reap the benefits of exoticism without giving up the privileges of whiteness. On the flip side of that, lightening dark skin can be seen as a way to get the privileges which are tied to white skin.

I don't mean to suggest that people who choose to tan are horrible racists. These behaviors and attitudes are no longer consciously racialized, but I believe them to be racialized nonetheless and therefore worth examining.

On preview: Occhiblu, you said what I was trying to say in a previous comment much more eloquently (and with more insight)! I think you have to find a way to reinforce that being "attractive" doesn't depend on physical characteristics, which is a difficult task indeed.

"I'm ugly!" "No you're not!" "Yes I am!" "No you're not!"

Oh nonononono, I hope I didn't give the impression that these women thought they were "ugly". Quite far from it. They knew they were more than capable of getting the attention they deserved, it's just when it came to skin pigmentation, they thought they were short changed.

So, when they would wear a dress or a sari which complimented their tan, I would tell them that they looked really good in it to reinforce the idea that a dark tan can actually be a "good thing" and not necessarily something that you shouldn't be happy about.

I'm really interested in what you have to think about it from this angle occhi, cos you seem to be making some really good points and I'd hate to have been wrong about all of this.

Have to log off now so talk to ya tomorrow, g'night!

My wife's father is black, and her mother is Ashkenazi Jew. Most people see her as black; her whole life, black people have given her lots of compliments about her skin tone and hair texture. It usually makes her feel objectified, but also makes her feel very much the Other, not a part of any race, not accepted by anyone, special, yeah, but different. She's embraced that now, celebrates it, but it wasn't very much fun when whe was a teenager.

3 observations related only in that they have to do with skin tone:

1) There are a couple of East Indian girls that go to my mom's church. They are dark dark dark- darker than most of the black people. And yet according to the school system they're white, because they're East Indian. Nevermind that the people they hang out with (and sound like) are black- they don't qualify. Annoying because they're screwed out of the Affirmative Action perks while getting all the negatives of discrimination.

2) A (white, American) friend of a friend ended up with hottest Malaysian wife you ever saw because she was "too dark" to get a husband in Malaysia. Malaysia's loss is America's gain.

3) I haven't noticed that ghost white people get hassled in the Bay Area too much- I might be wrong, but it SEEMS to me that in San Francisco, whiter is better (think Dita von Teese).

Actually, extremer is better. Blacker than black goes over well too, for instance. There just happens to be a whole lot more pasty-white available.

I don't have an intelligent contribution to this discussion, but I did want to note that if you say "Thorstein Veblen" aloud really fast it sounds like the pull-start of a lawnmower engine.

I might be wrong, but it SEEMS to me that in San Francisco, whiter is better

I only half-jokingly attribute this to the nerd culture here. I think there's a definite "Sunlight and outdoors is for dumb people" running through some of the communities here. (There's also huge outdoorsy communities, obviously; I just don't know if there's a lot of overlap.)

Hadjiboy, the "Yes you are!" "No you're not!" thing was a bit of an exaggeration, but I do stand behind the idea that reinforcing that a woman should be judged on her looks is buying into a system in which no one *ever* measures up. I don't think theoretically that it *has* to be that way, but I think, given the culture we've got, it almost always *is* going to be that way.

I don't know. If you were their boyfriend or father or even brother, I think my response might be different. And I certainly don't think your intentions are bad or misguided. I just think that what you're doing may not really be working toward the overall social-justice-y goal you seem to have in mind. (From what you've told us, at least.)

Though partly, I just have a huge thing about not getting involved in arguing with people about their attractiveness. I think it has the paradoxical effect of encouraging women to slag on themselves -- either because they feel awkward about the compliment and need to deflect it, or because they just start bickering and get more firmly entrenched in their opinion. But if you're not running into that dynamic, then it may just be my skewed history talking.

It sort of depends on what your goal is, though. If a woman believes that she is unattractive because she has dark skin, then it seems that she has to believe that dark skin is not a barrier to being attractive before she can break free of the system in which a woman's attractiveness* is judged by her appearance. Theoretically, the two goals are not mutually exclusive.

I don't know if that makes sense, or if it's even defensible. I also don't know what that theory means for what people should do in the situation which hadjiboy described.

* I use "attractive" as a shorthand for the general feeling of "I like that person" (both romantically and platonically). I don't mean it as physically appealing. Maybe that's semantically lazy, but I can't think of a better word, which in and of itself says something about how women are evaluated in our society. Is there a word like that for men?

If a woman believes that she is unattractive because she has dark skin, then it seems that she has to believe that dark skin is not a barrier to being attractive before she can break free of the system in which a woman's attractiveness* is judged by her appearance.

Do you think it's a two-step process like that? That idea was kind of rolling around in my head when I was writing my earlier comment, but I couldn't quite figure out what I thought about it enough to work through it.

I think there *can* be a progression of "I'm not attractive because of X --> I'm attractive despite X --> I'm attractive because of X --> It doesn't matter whether or not I'm attractive; my self-worth is based on more than that." But I don't think it's the only way to go, and I'm not sure it's the easiest or healthiest way to go. And I think the first two, and maybe three, steps of that are keeping oneself in the framework that's causing the problem in the first place.

I guess what I'm saying is, framing the problem as "Women who have dark skin [or whatever other feature] aren't attractive," and fighting against that frame, doesn't seem to go far enough, especially if we're talking about a context in which men are complimenting women to whom they're not related. Because fighting against that limited frame, in that context, still holds up women as things that are to be judged by random men's preferences; even if this particular man's preferences are more inclusive than the culture at large's, his complimenting a feature that's not culturally sanctioned still actively upholds and reinforces the overall idea that women exist to be judged. And as long as that idea exists, someone is always going to be telling women that even if society now finds dark skin [or whatever other feature] attractive, it doesn't really matter because she's still got to conform by doing Y procedure or buying Z cosmetic.

And I think that theoretically we could probably get to a place where we run out of things to fix, but from what I've seen, we just seem to keep inventing new and improved bodily insecurities for women; I don't see that Beauty Myth cycle slowing down any time soon.

Of course, in the real world, we can't all solve all problems at all times, so I'm not trying to set up a real-world total ban on complimenting people. But I think there is a framework operating here that it's nice to be aware of, in order to make decisions about how each individual wants to handle it.

I don't know that it's a two step process. I was conjecturing on top of theorizing on top of speculating, there (so doing pretty much exactly what college has trained me to do).

I think that there's some connection, though, between these two things:
1. realizing that culturally/socially imposed standards of beauty are more or less arbitrary and hold no inherent value
2. breaking free of the masculinist system which judges a woman's worth by her appearance

Theoretically, these two goals should not be incompatible. I understand how achieving the first continues to perpetuate the idea that a woman's purpose is to be looked at by a man. And I completely agree with what you're saying about how fighting one oppression within a system that enacts another oppression is frustrating and seems counterproductive.

I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly where I'm going with this, and I don't have any real conclusions. I guess I'm just not totally convinced that striving for the first goal is somehow an inherently bad thing. I think there's a piece I'm missing for all of this to come together into a cohesive theory for me.

And I'm trying to come up with a response to a woman who claims her skin is too dark that doesn't reinforce a "male gaze" point of view. The only thing I've come up with is some variation on "It doesn't matter what you look like. I like you, not your skin." But then that sounds like you're calling her ugly, which is of course a consequence of how society views women, and we're right back where we started.

which is of course a consequence of how society views women, and we're right back where we started.

Yeah. I think we end up there a lot, no matter what we do.

Stupid oppression :p

(Has anyone ever seen that movie about Chopin with Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson? I remember nothing about it except a line from Thompson, in which she's flouncing around pouting and says, "Stupid stupid rain!" and the line and delivery are just brilliantly inane. That just got stuck in my head and will be there for the rest of the evening.)

i love that movie, Impromptu.