enhanced by the desire to present as a woman. As Lucy writes on her blog,
Lovely Lucy: My Life as a Transgender Woman in Academia:
Iâve reached the point where I feel like a woman and see myself as a woman but seeing myself as a âman in a dressâ hasnât entirely disappeared. When I catch my reflection in the mirror at a certain angle or see a picture of myself, sometimes all I can see are the parts of myself that scream âman!â I know many other trans women have felt the same way.
5
THE COLOR OF BEAUTY
All too often, the beauty ideal embraced by our culture is a white ideal (and a narrowly defined one at that). As early as the 1850s, skin bleaching and hair straightening were pitched to African Americans as ways to obtain the privileges of white society. 6 Today, women of color around the world apply skin-whitening creams either to lighten or to even their complexions. Some contain mercury, a known toxin that blocks the melanin that gives skin pigmentation. 7
In the United States, the FDA banned mercury in compounds in most cosmetics, but testing is rarely conducted. In 2010, the
Chicago Tribune
sent fifty skin-lightening creams to a certified lab for testing, most of them bought in Chicago stores and a few ordered online. Six were found to contain amounts of mercury banned by federal law, and of those, five had more than 6,000 parts per million, enough to potentially cause kidney damage over time. 8
The Tribune
made the full list of products tested available to the public. 9
Two common active ingredients used in skin-lightening creams are corticosteroids (such as hydrocortisone), which can make the skin more thin and fragile over time and cause excess hair growth and skin rashes and infections, and hydroquinone, which may act as a carcinogen or cancer-causing chemical, although its cancer-causing properties have yet to be proved in humans. Hydroquinone also has been linked with the medical condition ochronosis, which causes the skin to become dark and thick.
Advertisers are now using social media to encourage the virtual whitening of oneâs skin. The skin care company Vaseline launched a skin-lightening application for Facebook in India, encouraging users to lighten their skin in their profile pictures. According to a representative from the global advertising firm that designed the campaign, the response to the application has been âphenomenal.â 10
The preference for lighter skin is reinforced when a woman of color appears in advertisements or on magazine covers and her skin is digitally lightened.
Elle
magazine came under fire for the dramatic lightening of cover models Aishwarya Rai, a star of Indian cinema, and Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe. 11 And though LâOréal Parisâthe worldâs largest cosmetics maker, whose product line includes skin-whitening creamsâdenied digitally altering Beyoncéâs features or skin tone in a hair color campaign, the singerâs skin tone seemed remarkably different. 12
----
IN TRANSLATION: SKIN WHITENING: AT WHAT COST?
Group: Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Sénégal (GREFELS)
Country: Senegal
Resource: Notre Corps, Notre Santé (Our Body, Our Health) , inspired by Our Bodies, Ourselves for French-speaking Africa
Website: grefels.org
The use of cosmetic products to bleach or lighten the skin is a growing issue worldwide, with products heavily marketed in Africa and South Asia, as well as throughout Japan and some Caribbean countries. Lighter skin is not only portrayed as a beauty ideal but also associated with higher economic and social status.
In countries such as Tanzania, the skin-whitening industry is worth millions. Creams cost the equivalent of $4 to $10 each, a huge sum of money in a country where the average daily wage is less than $1. The products are dangerous as well as costly.
Our Bodies Ourselvesâ partner in SenegalâGroupe de Recherche sur les Femmes
Lovely Lucy: My Life as a Transgender Woman in Academia:
Iâve reached the point where I feel like a woman and see myself as a woman but seeing myself as a âman in a dressâ hasnât entirely disappeared. When I catch my reflection in the mirror at a certain angle or see a picture of myself, sometimes all I can see are the parts of myself that scream âman!â I know many other trans women have felt the same way.
5
THE COLOR OF BEAUTY
All too often, the beauty ideal embraced by our culture is a white ideal (and a narrowly defined one at that). As early as the 1850s, skin bleaching and hair straightening were pitched to African Americans as ways to obtain the privileges of white society. 6 Today, women of color around the world apply skin-whitening creams either to lighten or to even their complexions. Some contain mercury, a known toxin that blocks the melanin that gives skin pigmentation. 7
In the United States, the FDA banned mercury in compounds in most cosmetics, but testing is rarely conducted. In 2010, the
Chicago Tribune
sent fifty skin-lightening creams to a certified lab for testing, most of them bought in Chicago stores and a few ordered online. Six were found to contain amounts of mercury banned by federal law, and of those, five had more than 6,000 parts per million, enough to potentially cause kidney damage over time. 8
The Tribune
made the full list of products tested available to the public. 9
Two common active ingredients used in skin-lightening creams are corticosteroids (such as hydrocortisone), which can make the skin more thin and fragile over time and cause excess hair growth and skin rashes and infections, and hydroquinone, which may act as a carcinogen or cancer-causing chemical, although its cancer-causing properties have yet to be proved in humans. Hydroquinone also has been linked with the medical condition ochronosis, which causes the skin to become dark and thick.
Advertisers are now using social media to encourage the virtual whitening of oneâs skin. The skin care company Vaseline launched a skin-lightening application for Facebook in India, encouraging users to lighten their skin in their profile pictures. According to a representative from the global advertising firm that designed the campaign, the response to the application has been âphenomenal.â 10
The preference for lighter skin is reinforced when a woman of color appears in advertisements or on magazine covers and her skin is digitally lightened.
Elle
magazine came under fire for the dramatic lightening of cover models Aishwarya Rai, a star of Indian cinema, and Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe. 11 And though LâOréal Parisâthe worldâs largest cosmetics maker, whose product line includes skin-whitening creamsâdenied digitally altering Beyoncéâs features or skin tone in a hair color campaign, the singerâs skin tone seemed remarkably different. 12
----
IN TRANSLATION: SKIN WHITENING: AT WHAT COST?
Group: Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Sénégal (GREFELS)
Country: Senegal
Resource: Notre Corps, Notre Santé (Our Body, Our Health) , inspired by Our Bodies, Ourselves for French-speaking Africa
Website: grefels.org
The use of cosmetic products to bleach or lighten the skin is a growing issue worldwide, with products heavily marketed in Africa and South Asia, as well as throughout Japan and some Caribbean countries. Lighter skin is not only portrayed as a beauty ideal but also associated with higher economic and social status.
In countries such as Tanzania, the skin-whitening industry is worth millions. Creams cost the equivalent of $4 to $10 each, a huge sum of money in a country where the average daily wage is less than $1. The products are dangerous as well as costly.
Our Bodies Ourselvesâ partner in SenegalâGroupe de Recherche sur les Femmes
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