Linking bleaching with social mobility in Nigeria
Author(s): Ijeoma Ekoh
http://telegraphng.com/2013/10/linking-bleaching-social-mobility-nigeria/
Who steal my bleaching?
My precious bleaching?
I buy am for shopping
For forty naira
How I go yellow?
How I go find out?
…
Who say you fine?
Na lie, you no fine at all!
At all, na lie! – Yellow Fever by Fela Kuti
The phenomenon of skin bleaching is a practice found within Africa and its Diaspora. It is fueled by global white supremacy and the internalised racism that it generates among Africans and other racialized people.
In the 1976 song – "Yellow Fever" - the Afrobeat superstar, Fela Kuti, interrogates the obsession with bleaching in Nigerian society and derides our fixation with light skin as a marker of beauty.
Fast-forward to 2013, the skin bleaching and beauty industry continues to bloom in Nigeria as a record number of women, 77% according to the World Health Organisation, increasingly engage in daily routines of bleaching and "toning" in order to order to change or "maintain" the colour of their skin.
For most Nigerian women, achieving fair skin is of utmost importance even if doing so means harming their bodies. And with chemical agents such as hydroquinone and mercury often contained in these creams, the chances of causing damage to their skin and bodies are high. Some of the chemicals found in these products can lead to greater risks of skin cancer, kidney failures and liver damage.
Most reports investigating the factors which motivate Nigerian women to bleach their skin have tended to focus on the psychological benefits of bleaching such as the need to be noticed, which demonstrates the invisibility that dark skinned women feel in relation to their much fair skinned counterparts. Indeed, as Selina Nwokocha tells CNN's Vladmir Duthiers in Lagos, "When you're fair, people easily notice you, you're noticed everywhere, but when you're dark, it will be a bit difficult for people to notice you."
Another motivating factor includes the need to feel beautiful. In Nigeria, the dominance of racist, Western conceptions of beauty over traditional African beauty ideals is the prevailing norm. And beauty standards are increasingly measured by a woman's proximity to whiteness and this includes not only the straightness and smallness of her nose but a slim stature and fair skin; attributes largely associated with white women.
But there is one factor which remains largely unaccounted for in the popular press and that is the relationship that bleaching has with greater economic opportunities.
Indeed, despite the relative lack of research that effectively demonstrates this correlation, many women continue to believe that having fairer skin has a direct correspondence with their ability to access upward social mobility. As the actress Rukky Sanda tells Bella Naija, "Me and my cream, we are best buddies. Whatever they want to say, they should continue. Me I am making money."
As such, skin bleaching is not just about the psychological benefits of feeling beautiful and achieving greater visibility in society, but is also believed to have associated material benefits.
There are also broader social and economic realities that demonstrate the validity of this perspective. Certainly, women's fewer economic opportunities, compared to men, often mean limited avenues for economic empowerment. Two of these channels have tended to be in the expanding entertainment and beauty sector.
For instance, in the flourishing beauty industry, advertisements and commercials tend to feature fair skinned women thereby limiting the access of dark skinned women tothese modelling opportunities.
Further, beauty pageants, including the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN) and the Miss Nigeria pageants, which generally involve millions of Naira in cash prizes and cars, continue to see a significant representation of fair skinned contestants. Indeed with over 50% of the 2013 MGBN participants being fair skinned, it should probably not be seen as a coincidence that one of the fairest girls, Anna Ibiere Banner, emerged victorious.
The same situation is increasingly evident in Nollywood as fair skinned actress including Tonto Dikeh, Yvonne Nelson (who is Ghanaian but stars in Nigerian films) and Rukky Sanda continue to dominate as leading ladies in Nigerian films.
Nigerian women are thus very rational in their employment of these bleaching agents. What needs to change are the conditions including the lack of free public education, limited educational opportunities for women and white supremacist standards of beauty, that make these choices rational.
Ajamu Nangwaya
Membership Development Coordinator, Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity
"We must practice revolutionary democracy in every aspect of our...[organization's] life. Every responsible member must have the courage of his responsibilities, exacting from others a proper respect for his work and properly respecting the work of others. Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories ...." - Amilcar Cabral - Revolution in Guinea
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
No comments:
Post a Comment