COLORISM IN OUR SOCIETY

Women of color especially those of the African race all over the world deal with the issue of beauty in line with the pigment of their skin. The idea is that the lighter you are; the more attractive you seem to men, other women and at times even to yourself. As a result of this, women with darker skin tones  have had to resort to brightening their colour either by bleaching or toning.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) in a study conducted indicated that about 77 percent of 

Nigerian women use skin lightening products, Togo at 59 percent, and Senegal at 27 percent. Of course there are indications of skin bleaching in all other African countries, but this is just an estimation of the reality of skin bleaching for the average African woman.

We were taught as kids to love our skin colour the way it was. That being of a darker tone doesn’t take away from us being the best version of ourselves. If this is true, why does society  attributes dark skin tones as a form of beauty that is striking in peculiar situations only?  Here is where our “two-facedness” comes to play. We do all things in our society with the psychology that lighter skin tones girls are beautiful on all type of days but when we want to talk about the African heritage, we begin to look for the extremely dark skin girls as a reflection of the beauty of the motherland. So are we now as a society restricting the period at which we feel it is okay to celebrate the idea of the beauty of a dark skinned person?

We all at one time or the other impliedly or directly equate dark skin tones with a lesser standard of beauty. We would say things like: “oh I saw Tolu  the other time, she has lost her touch, she has gone darker" etc. Not that there is anything wrong with these expressions, but it is in the context we have used them that has implied that been dark signifies a bad omen in the standards of beauty we have created for ourselves. 

So at this point we have established that society tells us that we should love ourselves the way we are, that having a dark skin is a beautiful thing, a thing of pride, but the same society will be quick to identify a darker skin tone as a sign of a not so glamorous life or good living.

So what discussion are we having? Can we blame the system that instilled this psychology in us? Or is it our collective fault as a society that we have consistently allowed foreign impressions dictate our standards of beauty?

PS- This article is not intended to shade any skin tone as been the better of the other, rather it is aimed at having conversations some of us are not even aware we are avoiding.