At the end of the day whether someone uses a bleaching product to make their skin lighter (hydroquinone and mercury killing the melanin-making cells), or sits in the sun burning their skin (causing the cells in the epidermis to produce toxic compounds and damaging the capillarys), they are essentially doing the same thing - trying to change their skin colour.
Why is bleaching considered outrageous and yet sunbathing a status symbol.
Sunbathers will argue that they are just trying to look 'healthy', but we all know the history of people using arsenic to make their skin lighter (this was considered 'healthy' then), so it is clearly just the current fashion.
Is it the racial connotations of bleaching?
All I'm saying is: sunbathers are freaks!
It's strange to hear you argue that using bleach is as natural as using the sun. In terms of denoting health, an active lifestyle, in the sun, would naturally produce a tan. Today we think being active and in the sun is a sign of health because most of us are indoors all day. In the past everyone had to be outdoors, so staying in doors was the sign of wealth. I would suggest the desire for a tan represents a class divide and not a racial divide. From this perspective, bleaching would appear to not fit into what we think is ok (class and wealth aspiration), but be entirely part of racial aspirations. So it would be frowned upon as a desperate attempt to do something not considered worth while. Other darker skinned people would look on it as selling out, and lighter skinned people would view it as pathetic. In a climate where racism is not tolerated, it is out of place. Getting a tan is not about trying to be darker from a racial perspective, and if we were all tanned, the trend would revert, much like Burberry is now chav so abandoned by the rich who always seek new ways to distinguish themselves. Actually all of fashion is simply the attempt by the very wealthy to keep ahead of the aspiring pack.
ReplyDeleteFair enough but, 2 points:
ReplyDelete1 - Could bleaching not be considered as a class/wealth aspiration in those countries where a lighter skin signifies exactly this?
2 - I'm certainly not arguing against getting a 'natural active' tan...but lying in ths sun purely to look like you have an 'active/natural' tan seems only a few steps of vanity away from bleaching.
I think in this day and age, both are down to vanity. In the past it may have been necessary to mofidy ones look in order to gain acceptance but now it's just about what you prefer to be looking back at you in a mirror. I myself do sit in the sun and do it to look good in my eyes. If I feel atractive then I feel better about myself which then improves my outlook and so on.
ReplyDeleteBleaching also seems a bit drastic and probably has a lot in common with those types of people who spend an entire day in the sun and then end up with leather skin in their old age.