Black Beauty

This week the reading The Black Beauty Myth really struck me as interesting and insightful. Sirena Riley brings to light that fact that black women have been excluded from the ongoing discussion about body image. There seems to be an underlying assumption that all black women do not struggle with issues of body image, which Riley asserts is not the case. She says, "I would love to believe that as a whole we are completely secure with our bodies. But that would completely miss the racism, sexism, and classism that affect the specific ways in which black women's beauty ideals and experiences of body dissatisfaction are often different than those of white women." (p. 227) As I was looking for an article to blog about this week I came across one entitled The 30 Most Beautiful Black Women in History. (the link is below) This article is mainly pictures of black women from across the decades who are famous for various reasons. What I noticed about the article most was the fact that the majority of the women pictured had fairly light skin and they all were of an ideal body type; tall, thin, many with straight hair. I thought this really spoke to the racism, sexism, and classism that Riley speaks about as affecting black women's beauty ideals.

http://photos.essence.com/galleries/30-most-beautiful-black-women-history/#128669_35736

Trends in Describing Skin Color

I've noticed that, when it comes to describing the skin tone of women of color, the variations in darkness and warmth are often compared to different foods. Different shades of blackness are described as soft honey, mocha, toasted almond, cappuccino, caramel, rich ginger, warm chocolate, or even spicy brown or—legitimately—simply, "toast." (all of those names were taken from the first three popular makeup brands I could think of— Revlon, Rimmel London, and CoverGirl). Meanwhile, light or medium shades have names like ivory, white sand, nude, golden beige, and—most disconcerting—natural and perfect ivory. The uniformity of these differences was odd to me, and I couldn't help think about its implications. This labeling of shades is an example of the damaging potrayal of woman of color as "exotic"—as foreign and objectified sexualities, only represented as food, as sweet or tantalizing indulgences. Historically in the United States, women of color existed to be owned and often 'tasted' by their masters, their bodies and appearances never belonging to themselves. In The Black Beauty Myth, Sirena J. Riley "I was completely out of touch with my body. I didn't want to live there. I don't even think I really considered it a part of me" (228). I can't help but wonder how a person of color might feel walking through the supermarket aisles, searching through a sea of "perfect ivory" and "natural" for something that looked remotely like their own skin; then, when the makeup for darker shades was inevitably found on the bottom shelf, they would be greeted with reminders that their beauty is one that can only be experienced by others, because they are objects of desire. Do you think that something as seemingly innocuous as foundation names could be indicative of unwitting prejudice and continued exotification of women of color? If not, why do you think this difference is so notable?


Here is an article I found in which an author discusses their experience with descriptions of skin color in everyday use, not just with makeup.

The Role of Rap Music in Beauty Appreciation

When it comes to the appreciation of women, rap music has a pretty bad track record. In "The Black Beauty Myth", Riley talks about rap music when she states:

"It is the latest mainstream forum for objectifying women of color, because almost all of the ghetto-fabulous black male rappers have the obligatory video girls parading around everywhere from luxury liner cruise ships to mansions in the Hamptons. If this doesn't speak to the distinctive race/class twist that these images add to the body image discussion, I don't know what does." 

Although I couldn't agree more with her statements, I think that her statement can and probably has been used by some to continue to bash hip-hop as an exclusively degrading genre. As patriarchy runs rampant throughout rap music—and most pop music for that matter—(and the predominately white, male, wealthy corporate figures who control its mainstream dissemination) there are bound to be a lot of issues (such as objectification of women) that are produced through the music and the videos that accompany them.

However, as the basis of rap music is subversive and socially conscious in nature, there is a lot of music that speaks to these types of issues. Shockingly (well not to me), this music is almost NEVER heard on the radio and these artists are not really given much clout because they don't perpetuate the class and racial stereotypes that attract music labels (that's a statement that deserves an entirely separate post that has little or nothing to do with this women's studies class so I'll just stop there). More recently, I have noticed a few popular artists that have began to put messages of black beauty appreciation, respect for women, and language towards women in their music. The genius of some of these messages is that they're presented in a way that is consistent with the sounds, approaches and style that is used to objectify women in the first place. They are effective because they reach the people that need to hear the message the most.

Primarily, in Lupe Fiasco's song "Bitch Bad" he details how the use of the word 'bitch' in rap music can be harmful to the perceptions of women. He brilliantly lays out how the use of words skew their meaning, and in the process skew how women are treated by men and how they look at themselves. Secondly, in their album Watch the Throne, Jay-Z and Kanye West bring to light several issues regarding women, and present them in a way that is consistent with degrading music, and then flips the message back on the listeners and asks them some important questions. For example, in a song called "That's My Bitch", the two begin by making a series of statements that completely objectify women and would seemingly be in line with typical degrading hip hop songs. However, towards the end of the song, Jay-Z makes a couple of points (some more explicit than others) that questions the absence of women of color in standard beauty discussions, and then explains that people treat women like "dogs" (hence the use of the word bitch in the song).

On the surface level, people may not hear this message, but after a few listens it's almost impossible to ignore. As the two preceding songs show, it is very possible for prominent rap stars to use their clout, privilege, and influence to spread messages about the treatment of women, beauty ideals, and women's empowerment.

Body image pressure comes from many different places, but when you're involved in a sport, it's even harder. I found this article on someone's Facebook the other day and thought it was perfect for this class. Misty Copeland is an amazing ballerina, thought of as one of the best in the world and she is also the first African American soloist ballerina. In this article she talks about the constant pressure to maintain a certain body type and how she was forced into puberty through birth control when she had an injury. Like most girls, puberty completely changes your body. No longer did Misty have the tiny hips and flat chest that she was used to and as her body grew and transformed, the pressure to go back to her prepubescent body was at an all time high.
This pressure from her peers and from her coaches caused a severe eating disorder that consisted of late night Krispy Kreme binges and lots of purging. Just like Sirena J. Riley said in her article, The Black Beauty Myth, "...negative body image is an all too common phenomenon" (Riley, 227). Although Copeland is one of the lucky ones and was able to overcome this eating disorder, many are not and still suffer from terrible self body image. If we can work to change the media and their perception of what is perfect, then maybe we can make steps to end this chain retain of negativity.


http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/03/14/stretching-beauty-ballerina-misty-copeland-on-her-body-struggles/

Whitenicious Add Campaign

The African singer Dencia is currently defending her bleaching cream whitenicious. The cream has raised a large amount of controversy about whether or not she is promoting a negative body image and setting a bad example for her younger fans. The singer is now stating that the cream is only for covering or lightening bleaches however; in her recent add campaigns she tends to be covered head to toe in the cream. Denica continued to claim that, “white means pure, not necessarily skin, but in general. 

This same idea of white purity was seen throughout the class novel, The Bluest Eye. In the novel the children discuss a new, “high-yellow dream child,” entering their school. Because of the child’s looks and money they believe she, “enchanted the entire school.” Similarly, because of her looks she earned the respect of the entire school. “Black boys didn’t trip her in the hall; the white boys didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck in their teeth when they were assigned to be their partners,” The novel continues to persuade us that the connotation of white purity leads to racism and oppression of other races. However, is adds for bleaching cream destroying the progress that has already been made? Placing chemicals on your skin to lighten your skin tone is teaching children first, that they have to harm the bodies to be beautiful. Secondly, it reinforces racist ideas in children that are highly susceptible to judgment.

For the article click here

Beauty inside and out

In class we have been talking about women's body image and some insecurities that come along with that. While reading the book, The Bluest Eye, I found that it mentions some of these insecurities. The character Pecola struggles with her self-image and wishes she could change her appearance. In the book it states, " if her eyes… those eyes that held the pictures were different... she herself would be different" (Morrison 48). This quote talks about how Pecola doesn’t want the eyes she has. She thinks not that they conform to the white beauty standards but that she could pray and her eyes would become another color. In her mind, she thinks that if she had the blue eyes then she could see the beauty of others in a positive way. In the reading The Black Beauty Myth from our textbook, it talks about how black women and white women perceive body image. The quote says, "...black women's beauty ideals and experiences of body dissatisfaction are often different from those of white women" (Kirk 227). Pecola’s desire to change her eye color is unattainable. To her, the color of her eyes and even her skin effect the influence how one is treated and what she is forced to see. After having read this and discussing it in class, I wish that Pecola could see her natural beauty and embrace it instead of comparing herself to others. As I read further into the book, I hope to reveal some positive ideas Pecola will gain by the end of the novel. She needs to learn how to love herself and not criticize or wish for someone else's attributes to fix her problems.

Here is a link to a really cool drawing that I think goes with my post:

http://thebluesteyetonimorrison.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/thebluesteye1400.jpg

Healing the Beauty Game

After reading the class readings my interest was really struck to the beauty of black women. As of late with the release of, 12 Years a Slave, the beauty of black women have crept from the groundwork. It never struck to me the lack of black women in the beauty industry or modeling, unlike black men, “Over the years, we’ve had our cultural obsessions with dark-skinned African descended men. This is to be expected within a culture in which Black male sexuality is both fetishized and feared and dark skin speaks to both desire and deathwish” (Real Colored Girls). So a question that rose to me is why this imbalanced existed? In the article they give their own stance, “Black women in the representational sphere have, almost exclusively, been considered desirable only when we are portrayed as half-white or otherwise obviously mixed-race versions of ourselves” (Real Colored Girls). Why is the rank of beauty portrayed as white skinned, light colored skin, and then dark skin at the bottom of the spectrum? Lastly even with the progress that dark black women are making in the beauty industry the change the struggle is still very prevalent. “In a recent photo shoot featuring Nyong’o, the magazine countered what appears to be this moment’s universal admiration for dark skinned beauty by portraying her as several shades lighter than her actual skin tone” (Real Colored Girls). It seems downgrading that these magazines are taking pride in putting a dark skinned woman on the cover of a magazine, but still altering her color.

 

 

http://realcoloredgirls.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/pretty-hurts-how-lupita-nyongo-is-healing-the-beauty-game/

The ideal just doesn't exist

It is natural for people to criticize themselves and it can better a person as far as wanting to be a better person in society or wanting to get healthier. However, the ideals that we place upon ourselves based off of the images of models that we see simply is not a real thing, and is an unfair bar to hold ourselves to. Similar to the "To Other women who were Ugly Once" article, the video here shows that women who used to dislike their imperfections and want to be "the ideal", realized that our imperfections are what make us "us". As Hernandez said, "So ultra bright would be their smile so lovely their complexion their confianza based on someone else's fashion and their mascara'd mascaras hiding the cascaras that hide their ser?". Models are dressed, posed, and have their makeup and hair done with no say in their appearance. After that their pictures are photoshopped to make them look even more "ideal". This video is so eye opening to how unreal the standard that so many of us hold us to now, and that if we ever reached that standard, we would be even more unhappy because we would all just be perfect. Imperfections make us who we are and we should embrace them as women.

http://elitedaily.com/women/beauty/average-women-get-photoshopped-to-look-like-models-only-to-realize-they-dont-like-it-at-all/

True Life!

            This week in class we discussed some very uncomfortable topics. Being overweight or being called “fat” in our society is something very common that a lot of people experience. However, we do not go about the issue in a positive way. We belittle people and make them feel bad about themselves to the point that they become sick. Either they begin a diet that consumes their life and may be unhealthy or they go onto bigger “solutions” such as eating disorders. We read about anorexia and some of the reasons people go to it. These individuals experience negative life experiences that cause them to hate their image and look for unhealthy solutions.

           I was watching a show on MTV that is very popular called True Life. This show brings light to problems every-day human beings experience and have to deal with. In this episode two young women experience an addiction to food. They are of course seen as overweight and their friends are constantly calling them fat. Throughout the show these women look for therapy and for other solutions that will help them overcome this addiction. What I found interesting in this episode is that they were both female. As we mentioned in class, females experience eating disorders more often than males. Females are also a bigger target for this “fat-hate” we read about. In one of the scenes of this show, a male friend of the girl was eating McDonalds and bought a salad for the girl. She gets mad because while he is eating a hamburger with fries, she is left with a simple salad.

          I agree that every person should be entitled to their own body and the way they want to treat it. Yes, we have seen how bad anorexia is and other similar eating disorders. We have also talked about the negative aspects of using the word fat. And we even talked about the poor, unrealistic image media has made us believe to be beauty. Most women are not skinny or thin. That does not mean that we should not be healthy. Like this show portrayed, not being skinny is not bad but there is a point to where it becomes a health issue. We should not belittle women with extra on their body but we should also look into health risks. As it was mentioned in one of the readings in class, we should not ignore the “fat” talk. We should look into it and make sure that we approach it in a safe and caring way.

         As Nomy Lamm writes in her article, It's a Big Fat Revolution, “It doesn't help much when my friends and family...continue to make anti-fat statements and bitch about how fat they feel and mention new diets they've heard about and are just dying to try.” Ignoring the problem is just as bad as the above statement. That is why as we go through this feminist movement, we should be careful of how we treat these sensitive topics.  

Links:

http://www.mtv.com/videos/true-life-im-addicted-to-food/1654861/playlist.jhtml

Women Are Already On the Front Line!!

I am an Army, woman veteran. I was a paralegal specialist who was attached to an artillery unit. I have been part of the training, zero my weapon, and used it. I know that women aren't allowed on the "front line" but in Operation Iraq Freedom, it didn't have a "front line." Every time you went off of the military base, you were ready for action to take place. I didn't even know about the Combat Exclusion Policy until I came to school. I have friends and myself who received combat fire. To know that we weren't suppose to be on the "front line" confused me. So we weren't suppose to leave the base then. That's odd because we were out there. Female soldiers are double amputees, lost hearing, are Prisoners of War and suffer from PTSD. How is this possible if we aren't suppose to be on the "front line"? What saddens me more is that it's hard for women to claim these service-connected disabilities as combat related. It's usually falls under some fancy wording that means you know your job is going to put you in harms way and you should've done a better job protecting yourself. 

SGT Veronica - Military Police (My Bestie)

Women are already in combat. I have women who are military police, medics, and cooks, who go off of the base and has to defend themselves and there battle buddies because they are on the "front line"! So even though the law is removed, which is great for the women who are trying to claim benefits for their combat related disabilities. I still don't see the difference. One way or another, women have been on the "front line" and we have been doing a great damn job!

It is OUR Body

Body image is a huge deal to women. They can't help but compare their body with other women's bodies. If women say they don't do that and that every woman's body is beautiful just the way it is then they probably have to work at that every day to ignore the fact that their are different body types and they are all unique in some kind of way. Some women gain weight in different parts of their body. For me, I gain no my sides and my belly. Some it is their thighs and butt. We were all made unique and as a result of that we all look different. This website talks about how we are constantly overwhelmed with media telling us we have to be a certain size and shape when it really isn't how we have to be. The first page of "Women's Bodies, Women's Health" talks about all the things our bodies are capable of and what we can do with them, so why do we let media tell us what we have to do or what we are supposed to look like? We have a million different things we can choose for our bodies, so go out and find what fits your body best!

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jvaleri/dissatisfaction%20with%20bodies.htm

Love Yourself

As women we let marketing twist our minds and use the sickness of women the same as the slave owners used “her vagina, used for his sexual pleasure, was the gateway to the womb, which was his place of capital investment- the capital investment being the sex act and the resulting child the accumulated surplus, worth money on the slave market”  (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey, p. 211).  Today the capital investment is women’s health and the accumulated surplus is the image portrayed to them that they spend billions of dollars trying to attain.

It’s sad that to sell clothes fashion designers want to use someone a size zero to four to promote them but at the same time they line the store shelves with the same clothes in bigger sizes.

We as women need to remember we are real and not some image conjured up and as mothers we have the responsibility to teach our daughter’s what it means to love yourself from the inside out and not spend your life chase the fantasy of others and not let the media tell them that “ only thin people are loveable, healthy, beautiful, talented, fun? (Lamm, pg. 136)

 http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2013/05/victoria-secret-model-kylie-bisutti-accuses-industry-promoting-eating-disorders-exploiting-young-girls/

Mannequin Agenda

An article was written this week in the New York Times talking about the recent viral picture of a new kind of mannequin displayed in Sweden. In my opinion, I think the mannequins are much more realistic than the ones we are used to seeing in our American department stores. This story I think goes hand in hand with the argument of why Barbie's body dimensions are absurd and unrealistic. Barbie's body proportions are completely out of whack and start the poor body image crisis at a young age. Mannequins, in my opinion, have the same implications. We are constantly bombarded with images that have been photoshopped and airbrushed, that we have started to believe that these images are attainable when they aren't. These sort of images influenced young girls so much that they have internalized these images and strive to appear like them. Chernik talks about in her article that when she was growing up she wanted nothing but to be thin and everything about her eventually wasted away. She battled an eating disorder until she decided that she was going to start loving her "fuller" body. I think that many women in our society, especially during their high school and college years, struggle with this concept. The new Swedish mannequins represent women more realistically. This Swedish revolution isn't the first to battle this topic, brands like Zara and Mango have started to replace their models with size 6 models. The problem I see here is that people are getting upset that they have started using bigger models. The sad fact that people "like" or want to continue to see these "famine fashion" mannequins in stores. I think the people who have complained are so jaded to think that since this is our societies image of beauty, that is correct. I hope to see more brands battling this issue moving forward and would hope that the next generations do not have such a jaded opinion of their own body image.

The link to the article http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/18/business/la-fi-mo-swedish-mannequins-20130318.

How you look is up to you or society?

        I came across this photo while scrolling on Pinterest and to be honest it frightened me how true this was.  This picture emulates our societies obsession with beauty and how women who do not wear makeup out in public are sometimes scrutinized and described as "sickly" and "not healthy looking".  The varying levels of beauty in this photo made me think of the poem we read in the class the other day regarding makeup and outside beauty.  The blogger who wrote the poem, Kelly Brake, stated,"So ultra bright would be their smile, so lovely their complexion, their confianza based on someone else's fashion and their mascara'd mascaras hiding the cascaras that hide their ser?".   I felt like the blogger was trying to explain that women in the media and magazines are portrayed as perfection behind layers of makeup and that has become the ideal of American beauty.  

      I am personally a huge fan of makeup.  I absolutely love it.  I love that you can create different looks with different colors and techniques that accentuate various parts of your face.  I do not, however, believe that every woman needs makeup and should not leave the house without it.  I think makeup, like everything else a person decides to put on their body, is a personal choice and should not be judged upon by anyone else.  I am firm in the belief that if an individual is happy with how they look, that is genuinely all that matters. 

http://www.dumpaday.com/random-pictures/funny-pictures/funny-pictures-of-the-day-100-pics-3/attachment/putting-on-makeup/

New Barbie on the Block?

Unrealistic ideals of beauty and body image have infiltrated the minds of America’s youth, following them into adulthood.  Innocently enough, as young children we play with dolls and Barbies—and as the toy section is gendered, young boys are taught to play with their action figures—but these toys set unrealistic expectations of how our bodies should look: Barbies all have small feet, small waists, and large chests; they wear lots of makeup and have “perfect” hair; the action figures marketed to young boys all have muscular builds and are either heroes or manual laborers.  These childhood toys have largely contributed to the distorted standards of beauty and body image that we have in western culture.  Beauty ideals that exist in our western culture are damaging to young men and women.  Barbie dolls and other toys or shows marketed to young women set “an ideal of beauty defined as thin, lean, tall, young, white, and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed hair” and can lead to eating disorders or self hatred if one does not quite fit with the ideals (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 210).

 

Not to worry; there’s a new Barbie soon to be hitting the shelves now!  This new doll is based off of the proportions of the average woman with the slogan “Averageis beautiful.”  While I do have a few things to say about that slogan, let’s focus on the positives.  Having a doll on the shelves that sends the positive message to girls—that curves are okay—is a HUGE step in our society.  In comparison to normal Barbies, this average doll wears little makeup and more sensible clothing while promoting healthy diet and exercise.  Dolls of the past like Bratz Dolls provided girls with a broader range of beauty images than the typical Barbie.  They had big heads, were multicultural, and were not buxom.  These dolls were eventually taken off the shelves and the creator was sewed for many conflicts with the creators of Barbie.  Another doll is now trying to change the standards of beauty once again.  What do you think; will this new doll be part of the solution to resolving beauty and body image distortion?