a zine
Issue 0
The Eye of a Little God
Copyright © Briefly Beautiful 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the copyright holder. Typeset in MVB Fantabular & Obviously Designed by Azmina Haris
Preface Yours Truly, Colonialism The Beginning as We Know It Ugly Stories Does It Matter What They Think But it Never Really Ends Sources
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Mirror I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful‚ The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Sylvia Plath
Briefly Beautiful
Preface What does beauty mean to you? What do symmetrical face shapes, fair, unblemished skin and lean body proportions have to do with winning in life? Something most women in the world would be able to relate to is having their self-confidence and worth equated with their physical appearance, at least to some degree. One might not be able to pinpoint precisely when it began or why it did, but women’s beauty standards in India have a level of significance for most young women, right from a young age. In a South Indian household, girls are taught the importance of taking care of one’s appearance from a very young age, and there’s great emphasis on how one might be perceived in society. It’s been made clear, however, that despite the effort that one puts in looking their best, unsolicited advice and comments on physical appearance is essentially a given, not taking into consideration the harsher words young girls might hear from their parents. Why do people believe that it was acceptable to judge and belittle women based on their physical attributes and when did these floodgates for harsh criticism and judgement open?
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In Sylvia Plath’s poem, Mirror, the personified mirror, which faithfully reflects what it sees, is a representation of the constant male gaze and a woman trapped within the stifling standards of beauty imposed on her. At the end, the youthful, beautiful version of the woman is drowned and she succumbs to self-hatred at the image of an old woman, who no longer fits these standards and the masquerade falls apart. This is precisely what we hope to address with this campaign – the ugly side of beauty. The effects of these stifling standards of beauty that women are subjected to in our society, from a young age – and expected to live up to. We want to share the stories of women living in South India and question these parameters placed on women, a notion which has strangely enough managed to find its place in modern society where most womens’ issues are being questioned. This culturally propped stereotype, however is not news for most, but something they have learned to accept and live up to without second thought.
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Yours Coloni
Truly, ialism
Briefly Beautiful
Today, a fair complexion is a significant aspect to being considered beautiful by many in India, but this idea took root in India due to British Colonialism in the late 18th century. The British colonized our country for more than 200 years, not only occupied the land and its resources but also successfully instilled Western values, culture, and language in our country which resulted in the weakening of our traditional culture, values and languages that lasted for centuries. Society’s idea of beauty was, and still is greatly affected by colonisation in many countries and a standard of fairness to measure beauty and the notion of “white is good and beautiful”. Naturally, this went on to imply one’s social status, caste and intellectual ability. Colonialists promoted this belief by changing the social stratification system at the time, so that those with a fairer complexion were of a higher class and were beautiful while darker-skinned Indians were of low caste, ugly and were made to be uncultured and cheap people. This was, of course, all so that the highest position in the system would be occupied by the Colonialists themselves as the most superior and intelligent. But, more than anyone else, this notion mainly affected
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women’s position and role at the bottom of the system because of the level of white superiority at the time. As a consequence, women faced double oppression to find a place for themselves in society at the time by living up to the parameters of beauty. Women were led to believe that being fair meant being beautiful and it was the naturally preferred skin tone around the world. This notion was planted in society through various strategies by distorting our historical Indian beauty standards and promoting what was considered the ideal in the West instead. These parameters were not limited to complexion, of course, and went as far as face shape, height, clothing and the various aspects of one’s lifestyle at the time in postcolonial countries. Not only does the damage of this system show today in our society, most young people have internalised racism at home and grow up struggling to fight this belief in a society where many are darkskinned.
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The Begin We Kn
nning as now It
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If you were asked to pinpoint exactly when you began to notice the harsh criticism and the urge to meet these beauty standards that were imposed on you, would you remember when it all began? For many, it’s not from a time one might have even developed basic self-awareness and consciousness. One of the very first things a mother might have to hear about their newborn would be how fair or dark-skinned they are – how beautiful this makes them and how well they might do in life is implied there. The comparisons drawn with their siblings/other family members go without saying – “She’s quite dark, isn’t she? Her sister was much fairer when he was born”, and so on. Although this, we admit, is something that all young children might be subjected to, not just girls. It’s maybe that family members feel there’s nothing else to comment on, and they choose
to pass judgement on their physical
appearance instead. However, we realised that boys stop hearing this after a certain point in their child-hood and it’s their aspirations, future and hobbies that are spoken of instead; on the other hand, women continue to hear judgement and unsolicited advice their whole lives.
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To understand precisely why people feel like it’s perfectly fine to subject children, or young girls to harsh criticism and thoughtless comments, we spoke to a few women who were willing to share their stories.
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Briefly Beautiful
“I might have been 6 or 7, in primary school. I realised that I was treated differently because I was a girl, and also because I looked different from most girls my age then. It was mostly my family at first, but then I started hearing more comments from my classmates as I got older.”
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“Who will marry you?”
(“I’m literally nine years old, please stop”) 16
Briefly Beautiful
“When I’d visit India during school breaks, maybe when I was in primary school, I remember a tailor commenting how she would have to alter the dress again for me because I got chubbier, when I had to have one made for me”.
“When I was in primary school,the first insult kids could think of was shaming me for my weight.”
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“I had a sash saved from my childhood, the kind that was presented to pageant queens.My mother told me it was from my sports day in nursery school, where the three most beautiful girls from my batch were selected to lead the parade…
… My female classmates and I were put through a sexist process of competing against each other to be the prettiest girl to lead a sport’s day parade, and every year, the tallest, fairest girls would get to lead the parade. Meanwhile, the boys faced no scrutiny of the sort”. 18
Briefly Beautiful
“I realised I was being put in the corner for any singing performances at middle school, so I could blend in the shadows and stay invisible on stage”.
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For many young girls, those passing comments were those who often held power in schools, like their teachers, who felt the need to discriminate against them for the way they look. For others, it came from anyone and everyone, their classmates, distant family and people they scarcely met. From their own homes, to schools and classrooms, where a young girl might have been asked why she’s so dark, or so fat for the first time – and had no adequate reply to give.
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Ugly S
Stories
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“Oh, you look much prettier now that you’ve lost weight.”
“My melanin became the topic of discussion around my home”.
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“When I was little, my mother was advised to apply milk and turmeric on my face daily so I would become fair and not ‘look like a Madrasan*’ anymore”. * Madrasan: a person from the southern city of Madras, now Chennai. North Indians are typically lighter skinned than South Indians, who live in a hotter climate
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“Sorry, can’t hear you down there.”
“Why do you wear heels? You’re so intimidating.”
Briefly Beautiful
“Once, I was flipping through a children’s magazine. One article written by eleven-year-old girl says,“My name is…and I am in 5th grade…I like my history teacher because she is Gori*, she is gorgeous, and a kind woman … And I don’t like my Math teacher because she is Kali* and she is ugly and bad”. It made me realize how deeplyrooted colourism is in India.”
*Gori: white or fair Kali: black or dark
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“I noticed that women were scrutinised a lot more for their skin, this went for celebrities as well. Male celebrities who had skin concerns like acne were never questioned or had to endorse a product”.
Does It What Th
Matter They Think
Briefly Beautiful
Now you might think, how do all these harmless little comments add up? India’s obsession with fairness and beauty standards as a whole exacerbate our existing divisions of gender, caste, region and class. Colourism isn’t only a problem we see in our daily life, but onscreen as well. Bollywood films have been known to glorify fair skin and ridicule darker complexions. This is sometimes outright and more explicit, through Bollywood numbers with men who pine after the fair-skinned female lead, to more subtle ways that show how internalised colourism is in our culture. Similarly, the thug-like villains are usually played by darkskinned actors, to portray Tamilians or Malayalis; while the valiant, fair-skinned protagonists would be upper caste North Indians, with last names like Tiwari or Sharma. This only deepens the cultural and geographical divide between North and South India. These notions that took root in our country 200 years ago, continue to exist, to divide and to brand people for their worth and status in society. There have been numerous instances where certain women are denied jobs because of their complexion.
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“‘Whose house do you work as the maid in?’ Baffled, I simply stared at the auntie in the shimmery sari, as she looked me up and down, taking in my dark skin and slightly dishevelled appearance, before getting off the lift without a passing glance.”
“I was always told that my complexion is not suited for luxury brands and struggled to find assignments. It was only after more conversation and debates around colourism that I got to model for luxury clothing brands”. 35
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“In school, I was never made the class monitor, while most of my friends were, only because I was dark-skinned. I was never expected to excel or exceed their expectations in any activity or even academics”.
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“Where in India South India,rea look li
a are you from? eally? You don’t ike it.”
so...what d mean t
does beauty to you? This conversation isn’t one that should end and this narrative is one that should be questioned, constantly. If you have a story to share, write to us to be featured in our next issue! For more information on the complete article guidelines, visit our website brieflybeautiful.in
Briefly Beautiful
Sources http://thelionandthehunter.org/norms-ofbeauty-in-india-fair-is-beautiful-a-legacy-ofcolonialism-and-globalization/ https://feminisminindia.com/2020/06/15/brownracists-internalised-racism/ https://brightthemag.com/fair-but-not-solovely-indias-obsession-with-skin-whiteningbeauty-body-image-bleaching-4d6ba9c9743d https://feminisminindia.com/2017/05/10/beautystandards-ugliest-trick/ https://tina-kumar992.medium.com/on-growingup-with-south-indian-beauty-standards24e584f0eaf1 https://feminisminindia.com/2018/12/18/beautystandards-harming-women/ https://qz.com/india/970452/no-woman-canlive-up-to-indias-impossible-beauty-standards/
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