Stop Questing for Whiteness

                                                 Stop Questing for Whiteness
For the first time when I noticed a bride in my culture I wondered why she needs to apply makeup to look white for the sake of just few hours and with the passage of time I got more startled when brides having more white paint on their faces were given credit for being beautiful. It is a socially constructed ideology that only white women are beautiful. It is easy for the mainstream to carry on the ideology due to their encounter to advertisements, promoting beauty products, in their day to day life. In Asian context media is playing highly imperative role in sending out the message about female white skin. We should stop associating whiteness with female beauty, because women are more than defining them for their skin tone. Giving importance to white skin tone in Asia is deteriorating females’ rights to be known for their talent and hard work. Also, women, who seek for white skin through cosmetics, mainly get adverse effect on their health.
It needs to discourage media to associate women with beauty and advertising the skin lightening products. Seeing such advertisements common women in the society think that woman needs to be white to look beautiful and if not she is worthless. Sohail Kamran, an assistant professor in Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, has carried out a study in order to figure out media role in promoting skin whitening in the country. He states that skin whitening creams are advertised with the aim to have a broad range of consumers for their products. Further Kamran highlights various scenes through which beauty products are advertised. “A college girl with tan color used the fairness cream, which made her face skin white. She received approval from female friends and opposite sex” (Kamran). Seeing something time and again makes someone habitual of it and the person starts perceiving it a natural fact. When women encounter advertisements on magazines and televisions, regulating women beauty and women whiteness, then most probably these women consider it a fact that women are worthy only when they are white. Most advertises, promoting beauty products, convey the message that women are accepted by opposite sex and peer if and only if they are white. Such regulated notions highly motivate most women to use beauty products.
Associating women with whiteness limit them to only physical beauty and most women find no way out where their other strengths and capabilities could be appreciated by the society. It establishes hierarchy in the society when women are only known for the physical beauty. Elayne Saltzberg, a postdoctoral clinical psychology fellow at Yale University School of Medicine and Joan C. Chrisler, a Professor of Psychology at Connecticut College mention Dr. Rita Freedman’s quote in their article, who is a psychologist and a noted expert on topics related to physical appearance. According to Freedman, “Attractiveness is prerequisite for femininity but not for masculinity. The word beauty always refers to the female body. Attractive male bodies are described as “handsome,” a word derived from “hand” that refers as much to action as appearance” (Saltzberg). It would not be wrong to assume that almost all men believe that women take much time to get ready while going for any party, family function, outing or some public gatherings. Women are not born with the instinct to take a lot of time to get ready; however, it is what the society makes them to be so. Society demands from them to be up to the beauty standards and even the compliments women are given mainly define their physique, unlike men who are praised for being talented or for their actions. Not all women in Asian societies remain fortunate enough to meet the standards, kept by the society, for being white and the ones who leave behind, struggle to meet the standards through using skin whitening creams. It is also possible that some women might not even try the beauty products, but get psychologically affected for being less important in the society. Society needs to change its perspective regarding female and male beauty. Women need encouragement in order to be known for their actions, capabilities and intelligent.
    When the ideology of associating women with whiteness remains alive, in most cases it makes those women oppressed, who do not meet the standards of beauty. Ian A. Parker (born 1956) is a British psychologist who has been a principal exponent of three quite diverse critical traditions inside the discipline, supervised an article “‘Asian Women Magazine: A Discourse…”. In this article various Asian Magazines are analyzed with the aim to know how Asian women are shown in the magazines. It is stated at one point in the article that with the union of women images and the title like ‘Rapunzel’ and ‘Sleeping beauty’ Asian magazines are sending out the message, “that dark skin is associated with the sinful side of femininity and pale-skin associated with purity and innocence” (Parker 10). Further, the article includes that according to one expert “the subcontinent origins for the preference for light-skin, attributing this prejudice to ancient times arguing that people wished to mirror the physical attributes of the dominant groups. For the sub-continent these were the higher Indian castes of Brahamins and Kshatriyas, who had lighter skin than the lower castes” (Parker 13). When the society judges women’s class statuses on the ground of their white skin, it life becomes hard for the women, having dark skin complexion. In most cases these dark skinned women are not easily accepted by the people around them and they are being discriminated. At this point such women cannot be expected to play a magnificent role in the society or to contribute toward the development of the society. Hence, more probably most of the time dark-skinned women are psychologically affected.
Most women in Asia lose their self worth and get psychologically affected when they are not up to the standards of beauty, kept by the society and media. When a woman encounters talks and thoughts about female beauty in her surrounding and she always sees female beauty is rewarded in media then most probably she ignores her capabilities and strives to be known for her beauty. Looking for the advertisements in the media and as well as society’s perception about white skin in the history, it can be said that questing for white skin can hardly be a woman’s personal choice. Society keeps a beauty standard and judges women on the basis of those standards. As Lei Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Agribusiness and Applied Economics at North Dakota State University, writes that as a result of whiteness as a beauty standard for women, most of the Asian women show less self-esteem when they are unable to meet the standard (Zhang). Such women get scared of being judged on the ground of their dark skin tone and that is how they lose confidence from themselves to conduct something fruitful and prove themselves worthy. It is also possible that when women come up with groundbreaking ideas, they are but down by the society just because they are not white or beautiful.
Most women use cosmetics in order to look white, following beauty standard shown in media; such cosmetics mostly have adverse effect on their health. Media sources often advertise skin whitening products and the advantages women gain being white: they would be shown getting wealthy spouses, availing better job opportunities and also having happy lives. When women in the society come across such advertisements they try to imitate them and choose to use the beauty products. It is mentioned earlier that Obiora N. Anekwe, a graduate of Clark Atlanta University (B.A., Mass Media Arts), writes about the adverse effects of skin lightening creams on a woman’s health. He states, “The ethical issue involved in skin bleaching is that many skin bleaching products cause great harm to customers due to high levels of mercury. Thus, many customers who buy these products are endangering the health of their skin” (Anekwe). This is how women, who use skin whitening creams, get involved into health issues. The issue of skin related diseases due to use of skin whitening creams needs to be addressed in order to aware women to avoid using the superficial means to be white and generally society needs to know to change its perception about female beauty.
The society needs awareness in order to know a woman’s worth, not considering her skin complexion. However, most importantly, media should stop promoting female beauty standard. By changing the mainstream perception about female idealized beauty, actually a society’s shape could be changed; it can help women to step forward to contribute to its development.




  

Work Citation
Zhang, Lei. “Western Beauty Ideals on the Asian Population.” Web. 14 April. 2014.
<http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/leizhang-draft1-delib2013.original.pdf>.
Anekwe, N. Obiora. “The Global Phenomenon of Skin Bleaching: A Crisis in Public Health
(Part 1).” 29 Jan. 2014. Web. 14 April. 2014. <http://voicesinbioethics.org/2014/01/29/the-
global-phenomenon-of-skin-bleaching-a-crisis-in-public-health-an-opinion-editorial-part-1/>.
Panagda, Charundi. “The Dark Beauty’s Struggle.” NOW’s Blog For Equality. 2011. Web. 14
     April. 2014. <http://www.now.org/news/blogs/index.php/sayit/2011/10/19/dark-beautys-
struggle>.
Saltzberg, Elayne and Joan C. Chrisler. “Beauty Is the Beast: Psychological Effects of the
Pursuit of the Perfect Female Body.” 1995. Web. 19 April 2014.
Kamran, Sohail. “Potential Issues of Skin Fairness Creams TV advertisements in Pakistan.”
EJBO Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies. 2010. Web. 19 April 2014. < http://ejbo.jyu.fi/pdf/ejbo_vol15_no1_pages_15-20.pdf>.
Parker, A. Ian. “Asian Women Magazine: A Discourse Analysis on the construction of ‘Race’
 and ‘Gender’.” Manchester Metropolitan University. March 2011. Web. 19 April 2014.

Lost Opportunities

                                                             Lost Opportunities
Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them. When I was in high school in Bangladesh, I had a chance. But I missed that opportunity.

It was 2012 I was a high school student and my exam was going on. But that time I wasn’t serious about my studies. I used to hang out with my friends, on texting them and playing with them. I spent the whole day doing some foolish things. I only read two hours. But it wasn’t enough time to prepare for exam. So I couldn’t finish my study and I did very poorly on the exam. I was upset when the text results were announced, I was horrified. All of my classmates got better score. I felt so bad and I couldn’t face my classmates. Because of my poor scores in C.G.P.A, I couldn’t apply for a good university. Then I realized that how fool I had been. Now I got a chance to study at a college in America. I am trying to do my best and use my time wisely.

However, life goes on. If we think too much about the past, we cannot go forward. I learned this from the mistake I made

A Memorable Trip With Friends

                                                A Memorable Trip With FriendsThe most memorable trip in my life is the last trip I made with my friends. My friends arranged this trip just for me because I was leaving my country.
It was last December before the winter holiday. We were ready to go Cox Bazaar , the longest beach in the world by bus. But one of my friends was late and because of it, we missed our first bus. We got on the next bus. It was fun on the bus. We sang, danced took picture .The journey was four hours. After this we booked two hotel rooms. But the funny thing was a we were chatting and laughing, we all fell asleep together in one room!
The next morning we went to the beach. We played football, hangout in a café and enjoy ourselves. After staying five days, it was time to go back and that was the time I felt how close they were to my heart. We had a silent journey back because we knew that we were going to be separated soon.
Nine month I had been passed in New York. But still those friends are very much on my mind and I miss them. I hope one day we will see each other.

They are Two Different Personalities

                                       They are Two Different Personalities
    Isabel Allende has written Of Love and Shadows, which includes love, violence, institutions, corruption and more in it. There are many characters included in the story, having their special peculiarity. Irene is the main character in Of Love and Shadows and Beatriz Alcantara de Beltran plays the role of Irene’s mother. Though, Irene and Beatriz are in a relation of mother and daughter, they have great differences in their characters, attributes, which shows that they do not have intimacy in their relationship. 
    Irene is represented as a kind personalities, who give priority to help others; while her mother is busy in her own world. The story in the Of Love and Shadows starts with the description of the house, where old age people are taken care. Actually one portion of Irene’s house is reserved for the old age people (43). Though Beatriz shares the same compartment with the old people, she is not really interested to share their problems and happiness. “Beatriz had had the separate entrance constructed specifically so she could avoid walking through the geriatric home […] infirmity depressed her and was something she preferred to observe from a distance” (8). Beatriz is very much into her own life and her health; she cares about her looks a lot. As it is mentioned, “Fresh and tranquil after her session of Eastern exercises for relaxing tensions and forgetting the night’s dreams, she held a glass of fruit juice good for improving the digestion and toning the skin” (7). Beatriz is shown as a selfish woman; however, her daughter is having a different personality. Irene is interested in taking care of the old age people in the compartment. She goes to them, talks to them and she is involved in their lives. Irene is shown from Beatriz’s point of view as, “She seemed to have discovered a language that overcome their deafness and faulty memories. Now she was wandering among them, handing out soft candies in consideration for their false teeth” (8).  Here it represents the soft nature of Irene unlike her mother and the tone in which Beatriz describes her daughter does not seem admiring. Beatriz does not like the way Irene is subsumed in the lives of the old people.

They are Two Different Personalities

    Beatriz has somehow arrogant attitudes because of her wealthy status and she is intended to show off their wealth; however, her daughter, Irene, does not really care for whatever they have. Beatriz cares about her own status and at the same time she wants that her daughter should also care. As in one scene Beatriz is in conversation with the servant regarding Irene and says, “Why does not she go to the club to play tennis, where she can meet some young men of her own class?” (9). Beatriz is not really in favor of letting herself down in front of the people, she does not want to show if they do not have enough money or they are getting poor; whereas Irene does not have any issue regarding that. As it is mentioned by the narrator that Beatriz is not willing to leave their home and move to a moderate compartment, because that will show their poverty, but Irene wants to shift and remodel the house (43). Simply, Beatriz is one of those people who are having the nature when they do not want to degrade themselves in any case and it does not matter for them if they are happy or not. While Irene wants happiness of her mother and she is one of those people who give priority to happiness rather than their status in the society. Though Irene is brought up by her mother, she is not much influenced by her mother’s nature, which somehow shows that both mother and daughter are not much closed.
    Irene has the courage to confront adventures in life and she enjoys the adventurous circumstances for the sake of helping others; however, her mother wants a luxurious life and wants to stay far away from difficulties. It is mentioned by the narrator that Irene was raised in a peaceful world, keeping away from difficulties and providing everything because of their high class status, but then later on in her life she confronts very hard times when she decides to help Evangelina’s family in finding Evangelina, who is one of the characters, having a great trouble (117, 118). It is not easy to keep aside the luxurious life and choose a path where the possibility to confront difficulties and challenges is more often. However, people take the step when they start giving priority to humanity above all. They consider it the beauty of life when it is spent for the sake of others. Evidence of such life can be found in the form of Irene’s character in Of Love and Shadows. However, Beatriz wants a luxurious life. She struggles hard to look beautiful and young and gets pleasure from that. It is written about Beatriz, “When Beatriz lay on the warm sands of some tropical beach wearing nothing but one tiny triangle of cloth, and compared herself with women twenty years younger, she smiled with pride” (174). Thus, being in mother and daughter relation they differ from each other.

    The story Of love and Shadows is mainly about institutions, human rights, violence, where each and every character plays its role with peculiarity. It includes two important characters of Irene and Beatriz, who are in a relation of mother and daughter, but they are having a profound difference in their nature. Irene is shown as a soft nature woman, who cares about others and who is intentional to help others in difficulty; while her mother is aloof from others sufferings and sorrows, instead she does care about herself, her looks and her life. Beatriz also feels proud being wealthy, whereas Irene does opposite. Moreover, Irene loves of embrace challenges and Beatriz prefers comfort.

Dark Side of a Common Gesture

Dark Side of a Common Gesture
I wish it was possible to shout at the top of one’s voice at men who constantly gawk at women in public places. Unfortunately it is not, per se, and thus this practice of gawking at women continues unchecked.
Not every single man is involved in this trouble making act and also not every woman is affected by this gesture. Staring results in women’s oppression and strengthens gender inequality in the society. This issue profoundly needs public discourses in order to inform men to avoid objectification of women and to give them a safe space to live in. There is need also to raise public awareness on how women should have the privilege to dress according to their own wishes, without feeling insecure of being sexually harassed.
     On behalf of victims of gawking a campaign was started in Pakistan, which has been conducting various programs for the noble cause. During the summer of 2013, Shayan Afzal Khan, who is CEO of “Kuch Khaas”, which is a platform for public discourse, learning, cultural enlightenment and societal participation in Pakistan, presented for a campaign called “Nazrain Neechay”, which could address the issue of gawking in the Pakistani context. “Nazrain Neechay” is an Urdu phrase, which means “lower your gaze”. Of course, the idea of keeping silence reinforces the issue to further expand its roots. Therefore, the campaign aims to address the issue, so that gawking could be eradicated from the society, due to which most women’s lives are restricted.

Dark Side of a Common Gesture

This issue needs public discourses in order to make women realize their right to feel comfortable and safe in public places and also for the amelioration of women’s status in the society. Gender inequality is deep rooted issue in most of the developing countries, including Pakistan and the issue of gawking is one of the primary means of expression of gender inequality in the country. Mainly, women are considered responsible for their own victimization. Interestingly, the mainstream perception holds that women are being stared at because they enter public spaces in such kind of clothing which “captivates men’s attention”. Existence of such kind of perceptions makes it hard to extricate the practice of staring from the issue of women’s oppression and gender inequality. In case of Pakistan, it may be noted, a considerable number of women prefer to wear their cultural attire, which emphasizes covering up rather than exposing oneself. Despite that they become the center of male attention. Hence, it is wrong to assume that mainly women’s clothing matters.
The constant gawking of men at women in public places is an objectification of women, and to stop men from staring at women would be the first step toward building gender equality. Staring could be defined as being targeted to unwelcoming gaze in public places, in the absence of one’s consent. According to Alberta Human Rights commission, sexual harassment is “any unwelcome sexual behavior that adversely affects, or threatens to affect, directly or indirectly, a person’s job security, working conditions or prospects for promotion or earnings; or prevents a person from getting a job, living accommodations or any kind of public service.” Hence, staring could be categorized as kind of sexual harassment. To be targeted to men’s gaze is a problem of those common women, who do work outside, use public transport, often visit public places, for instance the market for groceries, to fulfill their basic needs, and more. When some men keep on looking at them and get pleasure by looking at their various body parts, such women feel sexually harassed. Women are equally human and therefore, men should avoid treating women as sex object. When societies are free from sexual harassments women will feel safe to come out of their homes, which fosters their participation in workplaces.
Gawking is equally intense against women’s rights as sexual assault, eve teasing and passing sexual comments. Women feel sexually aggravated, facing constantly staring by men in their alliance. When men stare at women it makes those women fearful that what next step those men will take. Being center of attention of men in public some women start thinking that such men might attack them, kidnap them and expose to sexual assault or they might pass sexual comments on those women. Due to creating such fearful and insecure environment staring is problematic for some women.
People talk about this issue very rarely. This is because some consider it a natural fact and some perceive the issue is solution less. However, it is not so: that men can stare at women and that there is no harm in it, it is socially constructed ideology, and its solution rests making those men aware of how things actually are and should be. Men need to know that the gesture which they consider normal is hampering some women’s lives. They should realize that women, when they are being stared at do not feel comfortable to venture into public spaces, go for work, studies or even spend leisure time in a park. The issue of gawking needs to be resolved in order to foster gender equality and to encourage women to continue to work in a safe and comfortable environment so that they can become active members of the societies, effectively contributing towards the progress and prosperity of the general public.