On Beauty

A few weeks ago, I had one of the most heartbreaking experiences during my time in Ghana.

Since we have recently just come from break, many students have returned with changes to their appearance-- new uniforms, new haircuts, new shoes. However, about a half dozen students came back with a more startling change: drastically lighter skin.

The teachers at my school were furious and called the one boy and five girls to the front of the morning assembly to confront them about their new skin color. While they were doing so, I could hear the teachers whispering back and forth, dropping my name.

"They want to look like her."

"I wonder if she encouraged them to do it."

"She did this to our kids."

And while I would NEVER encourage my students to bleach their skin and have always made an effort to compliment their skin color, I couldn't help but feel like I HAD caused it. Was my presence here doing more harm than good? Seeing me every day during class and around campus-- surely that had encouraged them to do it? Should I leave, knowing that would never undo the damage wreaked on these students' skin?

But after a few days, I realized: I alone had not done this. My students' behavior was the result of centuries of black people being told that their skin color is lesser-- that "white is right" and is therefore the beauty ideal. As a result of this pressure, skin whitening creams are widely available in market. Even lotions that are meant to soothe irritated skin have harsh whitening chemicals in them.

Like women in America, Ghanaian women suffer from the pressure of trying to meet lofty beauty ideals. However, unlike white women (American women of color also find themselves struggling with the white beauty ideal in the U.S.), whose skin color matches the global ideal of whiteness established through a history of Western colonialism, black Ghanaian women find themselves jumping through impossible hoops trying to attain that same ideal.

What does a Ghanaian woman need to be considered beautiful?
- light skin
- straight or braided hair (natural hair is a NO NO; it is considered "dirty")
- "American" clothes (African fabrics, especially in Ghanaian cities are more frequently being cast aside for Western-style clothing options)
- total hairlessness (as is ever more the trend in America, Ghanaians have moved to shaving every inch of their bodies with the exception of male beard hair)
- heavy makeup (while village girls are less susceptible to the pressure of needing to color their lips or wear mascara, I have noticed girls in my small city starting to wear makeup as early as primary school)

Men, on the other hand, are excused from these ideals. While there is some pressure to be lighter skinned, they are more easily forgiven if they fail to meet that ideal. In fact, as opposed to America, where men feel pressured to be physically fit, tall, and always well-groomed, no such standard exists in Ghana. A dark-skinned, short, chubby, or sloppy-looking man has just as much as a chance with women as one who more closely fits into the "American ideal" mold. However, this does not mean that Ghanaian women have "no standards." Instead, men are looked at in terms of how well they can provide for a family-- does he have a job? Can he build a home? Can he care for a farm? Can he care for children? If the answer is yes to all of these, he is a golden option for a husband. Such forgiveness for a man's inability to match Western beauty ideals is seen in Ghanaian music videos, where male singers are a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. Their female backup dancers on the other hand? All light-skinned with hairless bodies, flatironed and dyed hair, and heavy makeup.

This male-female beauty standard disparity is clearly seen when one looks at the percentage of each gender that has reported using skin whitening creams. According to an article written in Ghana's own The Daily Graphic, while less than 10% of men have attempted to lighten their skin, more than 60% of women have reported doing so. Ghana, in fact, reports the second-highest levels of skin whitening, behind only Nigeria. In fact, skin-bleaching has reached such epidemic proportions that 1 in 3 women has begun taking pills meant to whiten their fetus's skin. While these pills have been shown to cause birth defects, women continue to take them, as the chance at being lighter skinned is still seen as more important than a healthy baby.

While I myself cannot do very much to ameliorate the damaging effects racism and colonialism have had on Ghana, it does not mean I am powerless. Instead, it means I have to use my position as a white woman who embodies the beauty ideal my students are trying to achieve in order to teach them an alternative truth: that black bodies ARE beautiful. This means making an extra effort to bring in host country nationals to talk to them about why their skin color does not need to be "fixed," continuing to compliment them on and remind them of their beauty, and developing sessions for my girls' club to discuss the issue and its roots in racism instead of ignoring it until it is too late and my girls have already turned to bleaching chemicals.

So I guess that means I won't be packing my bags just yet. There's work to be done.