I am originally from India. There are no colors there, in terms of skin. But that does not mean there is no discrimination. All my life I suffered from a dark girl syndrome.
Dark Girl syndrome
It’s when girls are socially tormented because their skin color is darker than other girls of the same race.
Society in general is partial towards the fair girl. What is worse is that women propel this psychology. Fair girls get an easy pass in life regardless of qualifications (generalization).
Darker girls are actually looked at as a liability and many times verbally taunted. Yes I have gone thru all of this!!!!
How I got thru this you ask? I gave a rats ass, to what people thought. They came to me and told me to use fair and lovely (a skin lightening bleach cream) I asked them if there was something for their personality in the market? But being sassy took a lot out of me since by nature, I am a very sensitive person .Most of the time I used it as a defense to cover for the hurt. I knew what they were saying was just stupid but it did hurt. As I grew up I thought of how the other girls survived this mental torture, since most of the girls have a dark skin in India.
The Fair girls would hop around actually believing all the crap people were feeding and looking down upon the darker girls. I mean what a stupid topic to waste time upon and to think girls face this issue while growing up, it’s so cruel. Any way I believe in the philosophy "Life is not fair"
So when I came to The USA and saw such a variety in terms of color, I was surprised and thrown off balance. My whole view of beauty and its components were challenged. What surprised me was how much the society I grew up in had affected me. In spite of my total rebellion on the color issue I was still programmed to judge beauty by color and one of the reasons, I realized, I never thought of myself as good looking. I could not see past color. There were so many questions that I asked myself to align me to the changed atmosphere. It was crazy, how a stupid thing like color affected me. Then I realized it was just a cultural shock that I was feeling.
I love my family and respect the society that I was brought up in. It gave me a lot of positive things but like all societies there are underling things that need to be changed and this ridiculous obsession with color is one of the things my society has to change. This change, I thought, will come if individual changes. That means I had to change and it was very easy for me. I looked for what makes a person beautiful instead what makes them look ugly. That was it, suddenly everyone around me was beautiful and shape, color, features just did not matter.
One day I went out to do my grocery and after a long time out, I realized something
I DON'T SEE COLORS .......it felt as though I finally fit in.
Good one Snigdha !
ReplyDeleteOne thing I don't like about India is the obsession for fair skin.. I mean C'mon , All supermodels are dusky and only dusky complexion can carry all sort of makeup shades, clothes but no one would understand that, what 'they' see in girl is 'fair skin' which is really sick !
Fair and lovely type ads are so most stupid ads I have ever seen ..As if looking fair is the only aim of life, grow up people who insist on fair skin !
Snigdha, it is great that you are talking about this. This very issue is still alive and prevalent.
ReplyDeleteColor distinction exists for thousands of years, among races and ethnicities and within one race and one ethnicity. It carries in a sense a link from a historical background where people use skin color variation to identify social class particularly in a homogenous, agricultural society. As human made tools became sophisticated and allowed exploration of the far land, people used skin color distinction to impose their superiority complex on others. Light skin anywhere in the world implies privilege and in the United States it is no exception. With that said, it tends to inflict more on women than on men. Unfortunately most of the time it appears that women tend to be the ones to reinforce this belief with cruel words and crude action. I have also experienced that in Viet Nam and still do in the US. As a young girl, my rebellion was to get darker by spending more time playing outdoors. I still do now mostly at the beach and at the mountains. As I get older, I have learned to love my skin tone and realized with my natural color I have many options to wear or do whatever I please. It is quite empowering.
So women, embrace what you have!!