Just curious. Do (Asian) Indians assign lighter = better / dark = less desirable notions to skin color, or is that mainly a Western prejudice they are beyond?
Oh my. Yes there certainly is. My ex boyfriend was very dark. His mother HATED me, she had nothing but bad things to say…but once she grudgingly said, “Well, at least she’s fair-skinned”.
Indian mothers all over India tell their sons to hold out for a nice “light-skinned girl”. Indian girls are advised not to tan, so they don’t darken more. “Gori” (light-skinned) is a compliment. For a long time, beautiful dusky-skinned S. Indian actresses would use skin lightener so you didn’t know how dark they were.
It’s disgusting. Even now I admit that my ex was one of the handsomest men I ever met, and the dark skin was part of that.
I still get compliments on my (relatively) light skin from my relatives. :rolleyes:
In India, “fair” skin is heavily privileged over dark skin, especially regarding women.
Exhibit A: Unilever’s Fair and Lovely fairness cream, probably the most popular commercial complexion-lightening product in India:
Exhibit B: Online advice column at Indiaparenting.com with questions about skin care and complexion. Notice how many of the correspondents are seeking advice on ways to lighten their skin.
Lots of Indians reject this type of skin-color prejudice, but it’s still very prevalent.
Affirming what Anaamika said. Mothers want their sons to marry “fair-skinned” girls, and you’ll notice that ads seeking marital matches often focus on the skin color of the female.
But, to answer the OP properly, one must define “discrimination.” There isn’t a systematic societal discrimination against people with dark complexions, not as a primary focus anyway. This might be because skin color isn’t a reliable indicator of the kind of characteristics that Indians do find more amenable to discrimination – religion, education, family background, caste, social class, language, ethnicity, etc. There are people of all ranges of skin color in all these categories.
There is also the complication that skin tone is often reflective of geography. Kashmiris, for example, tend to be very light skinned and people from southern India tend to be very dark. I don’t think you could argue that Kashmiris in general hold a higher status in Indian society because of their light skin color or that South Indians hold a lower status in Indian society because of their dark skin color.
However, there does seem to be a perception that people of the highest social classes – wealthy, educated Brahmins, for example – are more likely to have lighter skin tones.
Also add – even today, many parents (or grandparents or other relatives) are very concerned that their daughters not have dark skin and go to a lot of trouble with folk remedies (as well as commercial products as indicated by Kimstu) to try to ensure that their daughters are fair.
Is this indirectly related to the caste system? Is it because higher castes tend to have fairer skins, and lower castes tend to have darker skins? (Either because of genetics, or because lower-caste people are more likely tro work out in the sun).
I think it could be a few things:
The North-South difference.
The British influence. After all, what do British poets talk about? Milky-white skin.
Because traditionally, rich and well-to-do people get to stay indoors during the heat of the day and relax and not work. Fat people are also termed “healthy” in a very complimentary way, because it shows they have plenty of money and food to eat.
Please forgive my slight hijack, but do lightening creams work? How? Are they safe?
In college I had a suite-mate who was (I believe) Korean and used a lightening cream. Despite the fact that we got stuck in the same suite, I really didn’t know her at all, so I didn’t feel comfortable asking her about it, but I was always curious. I’m a recovering goth, and I remember wondering at the time if lightening cream could make my already fair skin even paler.
So far as I can tell, they don’t work.
There isn’t really much of a correlation here. People of all levels of society hold up light skin as a standard of beauty for women (very little is mentioned about men’s skin color). Any mother of a son would like to have a fair-skinned (read, beautiful) daughter-in-law. And any mother of a daughter would like her daughter to be fair-skinned in order to be more easily married off.
However, there is no widespread preference for a “higher caste” spouse for one’s child. It wouldn’t really make sense. And people don’t think of a woman’s beauty as being related to her caste status.
Here’s sort of an interesting data point – of all sectors of the economy, the entertainment industry (especially movies and music) are the most integrated so far as Hindu-Muslim representation. I’ve even heard it said that in the “creative industries” (which would include advertising and modeling), it’s close to 50-50 (only about 11-15 percent of the total population is Muslim). So that means a large percentage of the men and women who are considered the most desirable physically are Muslim, and Muslims have no caste status.