Real Beauty... If You're White
Unilever tells Western women they're beautiful as is. In India, it's a different story.
Indian actress Ileana D'Cruz got start in Fair & Lovely ad.
[Editor's Note: Last week The Tyee ran an article on Dove's Real Women ad campaign. That piece led Munisha Tumato, a writer at Vancouver's Mehfil magazine, to pen this response.]
It's a scene straight out of vile Bollywood.
A pretty young Indian girl approaches a fair-skinned, business-suited woman sitting behind a desk and offers a prayer for the business. "Pooja?" the woman replies, horrified. This is a modern beauty company!" As the mortified girl turns to leave, the receptionist comments snidely on the difficulties of making "these kinds of girls" beautiful.
Flash forward to the next scene: the girl walks back into the same office, but this time everyone stands in amazement. The receptionist wears a look of pure amazement and one man catches his breath and utters, "What a face...."
What is it that propelled this backward young woman into the supermodel that she is today? Simple. Before the girl wore a salwar kameez and was brown-skinned. Now she wears western clothes and has a pale face.
How did she get so white? Simple again. The girl went home after being humiliated and applied a healthy dose of "Fair and Lovely," the single most popular skin whitening cream in India today.
Real [Western] women
Who is behind this product and this advertising campaign that tells Indian women not to be brown -- or to be brown and suffer the humiliating consequences? Skin care giant, Unilever, that's who.
Yes, that's right, Unilever. The same company responsible for Dove and Dove's "Real Women" campaign, an advertising venture that has garnered international attention and kudos for using women with curvy parts and wrinkly parts and saggy parts in its ads.
"Real women, real curves!" shouts Dove. Go ahead, Western women! You have our permission to be yourselves!
But for Indian women, it's a different story. Unilever runs its skin-whitening ad campaigns in India like state-issued propaganda. The Fair and Lovely brand is as prevalent in the Indian female psyche as Coke ads are in the average North American teenage mental wasteland.
"They advertise skin lightening so much that it's just there in the back of your mind," says Neetu, 32. "You see so much Fair and Lovely out there, so you sort of just pick it up with the other things [you're buying] and you don't even think about it." Neetu is a mother of three, who emigrated from India and now lives in the Lower Mainland. She used Fair and Lovely whitening products for about four years.
What's more is that by claiming that a whitening cream can increase your chances of being happily married and financially successful, Fair and Lovely appeals to the most vulnerable (and usually the darkest) segment of the India population: poor and often uneducated women for whom a leg up, by any means necessary, is a highly desirable proposition.
'Colonial Hangover'
For Indian woman, fairness is next to godliness. Indian girls are taught from a young age that fair and lovely go hand in hand; a complexion a couple shades lighter could mean the difference between a successful marriage and career, and a lifetime of dismal failure.
Darker Indian girls are continually berated for their darkness and compared to lighter-skinned kin. Call it a sort of colonial hangover -- a psychological effect collectively affecting a group of people conquered throughout their history by fairer folk from Europe and the Middle East.
"I don't think Unilever invented this sexist bias in society but they are certainly exploiting it," says Aneel Karnani, professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. Karnani has been vocal about his distaste for Unilever's India ad campaign in his research and writing.
"A few years ago, the dominant message of these ads was that, as a woman, you had to be fair in order to get a husband, and that's pretty bad in itself," he says. But these days, more and more the message is that you have to be fair to get a job. That, I think, is much worse. Romance you can claim is based on looks, but why would a job be based on your looks?"
'No more than a sun block'
The real piss of it though is that there is no readily available proof that Fair and Lovely actually works. Most dermatologists will tell you that making your skin lighter than its natural tone is impossible without the help of harsh chemicals like mercury and hydroquinone. Those same experts agree that Fair and Lovely -- which does not contain harsh chemicals -- acts as no more than a sun block.
But Unilever can afford to be hypocritical. Skin lightening products are by far the most popular product in India's $318 million skin care market. Fair and Lovely, meanwhile, commands over half of that.
The skin whitening business is so lucrative that several skin care companies have launched new whitening products targeted at Indian men. The most popular? Fair and Handsome, produced by Emami and advertised like Fair and Lovely: by telling brown men that fair women will only love them if they are fair themselves.
'Fair skin is like education'
Unilever (and subsidiary Hindustan Lever) make a big deal about being a "socially responsible" company. The company claims that 90 per cent of Indian women want to use Fair and Lovely because it is "aspirational... fair skin is like education, regarded as a social and economic step up."
When Karnani questioned a representative of the company about their social responsibility, he was told that Unilever was simply giving Indian women what they want. A very capitalist argument, says Karnani, for a company that pats itself on the back for its social responsibility to the "real women" in the West.
Skin whitening cannot be equated with tanning or thinness either, says Karnani, because both are achievable, to a certain extent, without causing major harm (and there are reams of information and support for women who do cross the line.) On the other hand, to successfully de-pigment the skin is a highly dangerous procedure that no sane dermatologist would ever recommend, let alone endorse.
Empowerment: Not for sale
In India, apparently, it is still acceptable to flaunt the reeking-of-colonialism argument that when it comes to beauty, white is right. And as a brown woman, I'm tired of this self-loathing trussed up as "empowerment" and sold hand over fist by corporations out to make a buck.
"Empowerment" is not an ethical marketing tool anymore than shame is. White and brown alike, how we ever allowed ourselves to be convinced that beauty had to be bought in a tube or bar is beyond me. The truth is that empowerment is nothing a corporation can sell you. Empowerment comes from knowing that beauty is confidence and acceptance of self. Beauty is age and wisdom. Beauty is pride.
Related Tyee stories:
- How I Became a Dove Girl
I'm no cover model, but this ad campaign I joined. - Have You Been Infected?
By viral marketing, that is. - Wal-Mart's 'Good Works'
Donations are lean from the box store giant. The hype is generous.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
marta
30-08-2007
Not quite accurate
The elevation of fair skinned women in India predates colonialism.
dorothy
30-08-2007
but,but...?
I am not rying to put this back 'in the face' of people in India. But is it correct to ascribe this to 'colonialism'? Was there not, prior to colonial times, a social stratification present in India, which was based on skin tone? I understand even now, the government there is doing a battle for egalitarian principles and practices in the presence of the very stubborn remnants of this old caste system.
Please, whoever has the knowledge, enlighten me and others on this, as I believe it is fundamental for putting this debate into the correct context.
Whatever its origin, I can certainly understand the quest for 'fairness' (is that linguisitc similarity not intriguing?). I have time and again encountered the phenomenon here and now, that it certainly doesn't hurt one's progress to be fair-haired and blue-eyed. Someone should do stats on how many villains and how many heroes have been fair-and dark-hued down through filmic history. It would be interesting, if we could ever be completely objective about this, to try to trace its prehistoric roots, as there must once have been an evolutionary rationale for the bias, which seems to crop up so persistently down through our history.
Sarah L
30-08-2007
Excellent article
Thanks so much for this. There was always something about the Dove campaign that made me a little queasy and your last paragraph made it click for me. And of course the marketing in India is sickening. I am going to pass on this article to all the nice people who sent me that Dove video that was so "empowering."
from a chunky short Jewish girl with stretch marks who does not use Dove and is therefore woefully unempowered
southdeltawalker
30-08-2007
Unilever/Dove-The New Cynicism
The Dove "Real Women" campaign has always sickened me.
A year ago i was emailed a Dove "Real Women" ad. This e-mail was sent to hundreds of women.
When i replied that all we were doing was free advertising for a multinational- some women got mad and stated that i was negative and didn't see the positive.
All they want is our money. So Unilever/Dove will pretend to be "feminist" in North America while selling "skin whiteners" to women of colour in India.
A more apt slogan for the Unlilever/Dove campaign is not "The Real Women" but "The Real Cynicism".
BTW..this is my first comment in month's. i took a break from "The Tyee" for most of the summer.
I find "The Tyee" very male. Sure enough in yesterdays' column "My suburban summer' both the writer and the one commentator found a way to work in the size of women's breasts.
Also some of the comments on the initial story "How I became a Dove Girl" were misogynist especially by one commentator who finally got censored {once}.
watcher_t
30-08-2007
Marketing
It seems that everyone misses the point here, nothing to do with racism at all. It has all to do with corporate marketing.
Dark skin women are supposed to get ahead with light skin.
In our society white women are encourage to get brown for a healthy look.
These companies will tell you anything to make a buck and most will fall for it.
James Burns
30-08-2007
Colonialism, science, culture and skin 1
There are a few things I think that need to clarified due to earlier commenters misinterpretations. First, IAMC I don't recall this article being directed specifically at you, it's about Unilever. As for racism being rampant, it most certainly is, it's just rarely as blatant as the Fair and Lovely campaign. Unilever is exploiting racism to sell their product.
As for skin shade bias being present in India before colonialism, the mistake some of the commenters have made was thinking the only colonialism Ms. Tumato was referring to was British colonialism. Much of India has had many different colonialists over it's very long history. For example, Alexander the Great was one of the earliest "western" conquerors of the region that we know of, but civilization on the Indian subcontinent existed for thousands of years prior to that.
I should also point out the caste system, is far more complicated than skin shade. Wikipedia has some good information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_caste_system
Historically the British preference for lighter skin wasn't "official" policy. But in the same way a restaurant like the Cactus Club doesn't "officially" hire young attractive female servers, in practice that is exactly what they do. (cont'd)
James Burns
30-08-2007
Colonialism, science, culture and skin 2
(cont'd) Now, where evolution is concerned, I've heard a number of evolutionary psychologists speculate that lighter skin may have a slight selection pressure in its favor, because it may be easier to tell how healthy someone is who has lighter skin. I've also heard them suggest that blond hair attracts more attention, in the same way bright colors attract our attention, and thus it also has a favorable selection pressure. But as far as I've been able to find, there is absolutely no scientific evidence for any of this speculation. I'm highly dubious of it as well, primarily because lighter skin would be a definite biological disadvantage in certain parts of the world. What the science unequivocally demonstrates about skin shade and hair color is that they are primarily adaptations that are a balance between sun protection and letting enough light into the skin for it to produce vitamin D. Notions of what is considered attractive in the case of color seems to have less to do with evolutionary drives, and far more to do with culture, and developmental experience (e.g., the first person you were sexually attracted to often sets a template for who you will be attracted to in the future).
As far as my personal experience goes, I've been involved with a number of darker skinned women of different ethnic backgrounds, and I have to say I don't really understand preference for lighter skin. Personally I find darker skin at least as attractive as light or white skin. What attracts me has far more to do with personality, and yes physical attributes like symmetry, and other indicators of health. I find it no harder to see the visible signs of health in someone dark as opposed to someone light. But I'm well aware that within pretty much every non-white ethnic community I've been exposed to, there seems to be a preference for lighter shades, which I find extremely frustrating. I've seen the emotional toll it can take on women who worry about being too dark.
I'm sorry to say that, in my experience, the Indian community seems to be the worst for having a lighter skin bias. While it happens in the black community as well, it is at least far more politicized, and people seem to be more aware of the negative implications. It's also there in most Asian ethnic groups, although it seems far less common among Asians born and raised here, as opposed to immigrants.
Stump
30-08-2007
Unwitting prejudice?
Wow. And here's me thinking that it's the person and their personality, not their skin colour, I'm supposed to be attracted to.
Anyway, watcher t nailed it. The Beauty Machine wants to sell you whatever you ain't.
nightbloom
30-08-2007
Interesting comments, JB. I
Interesting comments, JB. I believe you'll find an ingrained antipathy to arguments grounded in bio-social data in the whole race/class/gender debate. It's the quickest way to make yourself persona non grata in liberal-left policy enclaves. Such data tend to undercut the political agenda by undermining the structuralist assumptions upon which it's based. Fascinating material though - as I've said so often, to rehabilitate its relevance the Social Sciences (or large swathes of it at least) must doff its cap, genuflect reverently and invite science and scientific method back into the curriculum on penitentially bended knee, and then observe a vow of silence and study for the next generation or two.
Just a point: aren't we forgetting where all Europeans came from to begin with? Notwithstanding gradients in skin colour, the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent are the original seed stock of all "Indo-European" Caucasians, are the not? Alexander was just going home.
jjb
30-08-2007
Can we stop talking about this?
I can't decide which one makes me want to go back to bed more:
—the original Dove ads, which deeply and genuinely touched many of the women I know;
—or this strident, racism-alleging take on the original Dove ads, which deeply and genuinely touched many of the women I know.
They're ads, for God's sake. They can only sell you what you're not. You don't blame a tiger for eating an impala—that's what it does. Unplug.
James Burns
30-08-2007
Human origins
Well humanity started in Africa, specifically the eastern horn. That's where the original seed stock seems to have come from. At least that's what most biological anthropologists say is most likely given the current evidence in the fossil record. Migration started there and spread to all corners of the world. The actual direction of migration is contentious. And really what seems to be the case is that migration was really a lot of back and forth rather than in just one direction. But remember we're talking something like at least 150,000 years ago for the first appearance of Homo sapiens sapiensis (us). Civilization has only been around for about 10,000 years or so. But even 150K years is a blip next the massive time frames of most of fossil record, and forget even trying to conceive geological or cosmological time frames.
But to partially get back to the topic, humanity almost certainly started out quite dark skinned given that where we likely first appeared was both quite close to the equator, and in savanna.
nightbloom
31-08-2007
JB - Aren't scientists now
JB - Aren't scientists now seriously theorizing that there was a parallel evolutionary track in Asia - that most Asians emerged from an independent branch of homo habilis or Australopithecus afarensis?
nightbloom
31-08-2007
A tangentially related
A tangentially related article, of possible interest to some participants here:
Prospect online: India's Middle Class Failurehttp://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9776
"India's 200m-strong middle class is the most economically dynamic group on the planet, but is largely uninterested in politics or social reform. Until it begins to engage politically, India will suffer from a lop-sided modernisation..."
nightbloom
31-08-2007
Oops - that link
Oops - that link again:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9776
G West
31-08-2007
Yep, lots more problems in India
Problems that the self-absorbed 'middle class' couldn't care less about:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/vidarbha/index.html
So, what else is new? Once the bourgeoisie, always the bourgeoisie. Is it any different here in Canada?
Here's a little more:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/13/1451229&mode=thread&tid=25
And, if you're still interested in getting beyond the vanity level...well, let me know.
James Burns
31-08-2007
Quote:JB - Aren't scientists
Not exactly. There is the multi-regional hypothesis, where regional branches of Homo erectus (not the earlier Homo habilis or the even earlier Australopithecus) evolved into regional versions of modern humans. But the multi-regional hypothesis is by far the minority opinion. And even the multi-regional hypothesis asserts there was continual intermixing among human populations.
puppyg
31-08-2007
Fair and Lovely
Where is it? I've been struggling just now to find a travel memento from my two years spent teaching in Bhutan in the late 80's.
Alas, it has been salted away too deeply, my "Foul and Lovely" series.
This collection consists of ten or so 'Fair and Lovely' knock-offs that I found in shops across Bhutan on India's northern frontier.
These little white tubes of skin-whitening cream came in near-identical purple boxes picturing a light-skinned Indian lady and sporting hilarious names like "Dare and Lovely" and "Cherry Lively".
Of course, the game was to trick rural Nepali and Indian girls into thinking they were buying the real deal, soon to be scorching their skins with the good stuff.
(Colgate toothpaste, too, had a knock-off series of which my favourite was "Clogged").
I was both amused and repulsed during the gathering of my collection.
In particular, I was creeped out by what it implied for young women trying to forge an enhanced sense of worth in the marriage markets of South Asia.
One day, I'll stumble upon my collection in a drawer or in a cupboard. I envision it assembled and mounted as a mobile, a sixties-style statement of dangling purple art.