The Effects of the Eurocentric Beauty Standards on Women of Color

By Navya Varma

For generations, white women and white features have been praised and ethnic features have been frowned upon. As a matter of fact, Christoph Meiners and Johann Blumenbach, racial theorists from the 18th century would even define the category of "white," or "Caucasian," as being the “most beautiful of the races”. Slave masters would often cut the hair of their slaves (both women and men) because they were repulsed by the sight of Black hair. Until 1940, women of color weren’t even allowed to enter the Miss America pageant because the rules stated that the contestants must be “of good health and of the white race.”

From an early age, ethnic girls dream of having blond, silky hair and ocean blue eyes. They wish to have fair skin with no body hair and small button noses. The reason girls are conditioned to think like this is due to the Eurocentric beauty standards, which are standards that praise traditionally white European features and look down upon ethnic features.

Women of color are the primary targets of these beauty standards, and they have taken a toll on them for decades.

Our society today is bombarded with ads, movies, and shows starring white women. From a young age, girls are exposed to these influencers. For example, did you know that seven out of twelve of the Disney princesses that have enraptured young girls across cultures are white? It’s no wonder that from an early age, girls equate whiteness with beauty and strive to attain it. They are then fed with a steady onslaught of ads, toys, cosmetics, social media influencers, movies, tv shows, and big brand marketing which underline the same lesson that they were taught when they were little girls. 

Eurocentric beauty standards have also led to colorism, which is the discrimination against people with darker skin.

One of the biggest cosmetic products in South Asia, “Fair & Lovely” is a skin-lightening cream patented by Hindustan Unilever that has been marketed towards women since 1975. The immense popularity of the brand goes to show how ingrained the notion is in South Asian cultures that “dark” skin can’t be “lovely”. It was only in 2020 due to a great uproar against its colorist connotations that “Fair & Lovely” was renamed “Glow & Lovely”.

In Hollywood, when casting agents have to cast Black women as central characters, they tend to gravitate toward a very distinct type of black girl who is thin, lighter-skinned, and has Eurocentric features, such as straight hair or a small nose. In roles that are specifically made for dark-skinned black women, they repeatedly cast light-skinned black women. In 2016, Zoe Saldana was cast for the role of the African American songwriter Nina Simone, which caused a great uproar. Instead of a woman who was closer in appearance to Nina, Zoe was cast and made to wear a prosthetic nose along with skin-color-altering makeup to mimic Nina’s appearance. 

Western beauty standards are harming our heterochromatic society. Because of the standards, women of color are frequently ashamed of their looks, and some are even driven to body dysmorphia. For us to transition towards a more diverse, and therefore more egalitarian definition of beauty, the society as a whole will have to turn a dial on the existing stereotypes.

Sources:

https://aninjusticemag.com/stop-imposing-eurocentric-beauty-standards-1560f58593d2 

https://wamu.org/story/19/02/06/is-beauty-in-the-eyes-of-the-colonizer/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbG9mwt5jpw 

https://marquettewire.org/4036381/featured/moses-eurocentric-beauty-standards-damaging-to-black-people/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wEPOjPb1D0 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/28/fair-lovely-skin-whitening-pitfalls-performative-allyship/ 

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/hollywoods-colorism-problem-cant-be-ignored

GenZHER Magazine