Miss Jamaica World 2003, Jade Fulford (centre) is fllanked, by runners up Chantelle Fisher (left) and Tracey Cowan (right). -
File photoTHE YEAR 2003 will soon be behind us and 2004 will usher in another season of beauty competitions through which women will be pitted against each other in our national frenzy to identify the "fairest of them all". Like all other activities the beauty business will be impacted by the forces of globalisation and open markets.
It is within this broader context that local activities such as beauty pageants must be analysed.
Pinky C. Serafica, writing in 'Women in Action, No. 3, 2002', reminds us that "beauty is largely subjective and personal though at the same time communal and therefore prey to the powers that be. Culture provides a standard of what is beautiful, but so do ideology and more so now capitalist economy". Serafica is trying to remind women of all ages that we have the power to make a better world beyond the physical reality.
Since women are the commodity in the 'beauty' marketplace, they must always be aware of how the overt and covert actions of male dominated businesses are designed to perpetuate the 'Beauty Myth' and to relegate the majority of women to the side line. Women must also be vigilant in their resolve to be in control of their essential humanity at all times. They must, therefore, be even more attuned to the global trends that will undermine their efforts to free themselves from patriarchal values. These values will keep determining where groups of women will fit with the global thrust of male dominated businesses and the resultant world view. It is such a world view that is discussed by Jonathan Leake, Science Editor of The Sunday Times, who argues in the November 16, 2003 edition that in the next 100 years redheads will be an "exotic and desirable rarity".
RACIAL MINGLING
Leake sees 'racial mingling' as a threat to both redheads and blondes. However, he argues that blondes will last longer because there are more of them. The demise of the redhead and the blonde is being blamed on the rapid pace of globalisation and migration. Apparently, the races are inter-marrying and inter-breeding. This will put a high priority on redheads and natural blondes who are able to keep their genetic trait. In other words, those white folks who are able to keep their children from mating with the unwashed hordes will produce the desired models of beauty.
Obviously, Jonathan Leake's article was about the struggle to maintain "white distinctiveness" and white supremacy not only in the economic and military spheres but in the social sphere where certain types of white women are valued and prized. In making his point, Leake acknowledged that "although humans probably evolved in Africa one to two million years ago, red and blonde hair appeared only once humans had settled in Europe - possibly as recently as 20,000 years ago". Furthermore, Leake reminds us that "many ancient societies, including the Romans, prized redheads and blondes as mates". Such mates were considered the most desirable and fitting partners for rich and powerful men.
In line with this notion of how beauty has been and will continue to be defined, in the Sunday Times of November 16, 2003 Tessa Mayes alerted us to the fact that Asian women are seeking white donor eggs so that they can have light-skin babies. This trend is noticed in British fertility clinics where Asian clients from places such as India, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are requesting white donor eggs. Apparently these "would-be" parents want the "designer children" who do not look like them. They certainly do not want their children to have dark skin or brown eyes.
Tessa Mayes used several cases to make her point. Among these was the case of "a light-skinned Asian female and her white boyfriend who used a white donor egg along with the man's sperm. They ended up with a white baby who bore no resemblance to the mother. Of course, such a woman would be ecstatic to "own" a white baby because she is so low in self-esteem that she does not want to reproduce herself.
TREND OF ASIA
Many scientists including the doctors who run fertility clinics are concerned about the trend of Asian peoples choosing to have white babies rather than babies that fit in the face-scape of their ethnic group.
Mayes quotes Peter Brinsden, medical director of Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge who argues that in his experience of being overseas "mixed-race babies are always at a disadvantage and looked down upon by both ethnic groups". He believes that every effort should be made to match ethnic origins.
Some sociologists and other opinion makers hold up interracial relationships as a sign not only of racial progress but as an important step in the direction of producing the "perfectly beautiful woman" - one who takes a "little bit of this and a little bit of that" to make up the desired whole. It is this notion of creating the ideal beauty that is discussed by Fred Guterl and Michael Hastings in the November 10, 2003 edition of Newsweek.
The writers focused on the trends in Asia and noted that "western notions of beauty have been sweeping aside" classical ideas of the beautiful Indian or Chinese woman. No longer do Indian and Chinese women want to look like themselves and they are going to great lengths to look more and more like European women. In fact, while they might not be able to 'pass for white'they are making sure that they get rid of their ethnic markers such as slanted eyes, heart shaped faces and ample hips. Instead, these women want round eyes, oblong faces, and lean figures. Women come to the perceived global standard of beauty by two routes. They are either the products of ethnic and racial mixing and mating or the product of a scalpel.
According to Guterl and Hastings "as prices keep coming down, more and more women - and men are electing to go under the knife in pursuit of an emerging global standard of beauty". They also pointed out that sometimes all this cutting, sewing, tucking and clipping produce not "beauties" but "beasts" because some ethnic features are difficult to change to the preferred European form.
SWEEP OF BODY TYPES
In the September 29, 1996 edition of the New York Times Magazine, writer Stanley Crouch predicted that in 100 years the concept of "race" will be a thing of the past in America. He argues that "Americans of the future will find themselves surrounded in every direction by people who are part Asian, part Latin, part African, part European, part American Indian".
Out of this smorgasbord of Human types, Crouch envisions a "sweep of body types, combination of facial features, hair textures, eye colours" and "unexpected skin tones".
All of these trends - the hysteria about the disappearance of the natural blondes and redheads, the motivation of dark skinned women to reproduce children who are not like them and the use of the scalpel to redesign our bodies are part of a long process of making women's bodies the prized commodity on the open market.
Globalisation is merely putting
new angles on an old story. This is the story of 'The Tyranny of Beauty' which is the process of putting all women through a socio-cultural syndrome that informs them that it is better to be ill, malnourished, or half-crazed than to be part of a group whose features are considered 'ugly' or 'undesirable'. In this syndrome, a common female goal is to approximate as closely as possible, blonde haired, blue-eyed, long legged, pouty lips, full chested, narrow hipped 'perfection'.
For the majority of women, this quest for the 'perfect' is like the 'quest for the Holy Grail'. Far too many women are motivated to seek out unnecessary plastic surgery or to engage in self starvation, self-induced vomiting, the diet treadmill and other related financially and emotionally costly pathways to 'beauty'.
Women of all races are on this beauty quest. Amongst whites, very few feel really beautiful especially in a Marketplace where the media and powerful fashion moguls and movie and music producers are the image makers. They are the ones who decide which 'girl' will be the 'winner' and in the process they also decide on the 'losers'.
In fact, even when the story line is that 'blondes have more fun' and 'gentlemen prefer blondes', the life and death of Marilyn Munroe is a cautionary tale for all white women.
If white women find it difficult to be "beautiful" in a world where their features are marketed as the ideal, it must be particularly difficult for black women to enter the field.
In fact, if the search for the 'beautiful' results in self-hating and self-rejecting practices such as bulimia and anorexia nervosa on the part of so many young white women (including the late Princess Diana) then such self rejection/self hatred is multiplied a million times in a woman whose physical features are not in sync with the dominant ideas of who should be considered beautiful.
Black women would be well advised to stop participating in the arenas in which their dark skin, full lips and kinky or curly hair are not considered defining traits of the beauty business.
Instead of 'crying foul' every time the local beauty contests produce the closest approximation to the white ideal, black women should be encouraged to boycott all such activities and redirect their energies to validating their essential humanity through efforts to build our nation on principles of creativity, excellence in service, excellence in achievement on all levels and in the solid knowledge of the dignity of their race.
Black women must stop participating in events that are designed to 'keep them in their place' and to define them as the 'other' in the beauty market.
Clea Simon in an article entitled Hooked which was printed in December 2000/January 2001 edition of Ms. Magazine quote Jean Kilbourne's lecture to a white college audience in which she pointed to an image of a woman who presents a doll-like likeness in a Revlon ad and said, 'We are surrounded by such images of ideal beauty' and we 'are all being judged against this porcelain perfection and 'when we are compared to such a standard 'failure is inevitable'.
In a real sense women of all racial groups need to understand that the 'Beauty train' was designed by men to deliberately maintain white supremacy and to satisfy the ego needs of homely, pot-bellied and ageing men of all caste and class.
(Dr. Glenda Simms is Executive Director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs)
