Last week, I came across a really interesting post at Feministing.com. Entitled, “Jessica Simpson and the Price of Beauty,” the piece discussed Jessica Simpson‘s upcoming docu-series The Price of Beauty, as well as the unfair standards of beauty placed upon women around the world. While Simpson’s series will undoubtedly have its flaws (Feministing noted it may fall into the “all too familiar trap of cultural relativism and Western desire to understand the ‘other'”), the article caused me to ponder the price of beauty in Pakistan. I turned to my close friend Maria Saadat, who runs the South Asian beauty blog, Lipstick Masala, and asked her to weigh in on a timely piece for International Women’s Day. Below, Maria discusses the often arbitrary and unfair standard of beauty impressed upon many women in Pakistan:
The latest Bollywood song blared from the speakers and the crowd at my sister’s wedding cheered in delight. As I laughed with my friends and shimmied my hips in time to the music, I was unaware that a family friend’s son was observing me from across the room. He had attended the event in order to “take a look at me” for a possible rishta (proposal). I didn’t make the cut, however. I wasn’t gori (fair) enough. It didn’t matter that I was well educated, courteous to others, or that I could cook a mean chicken karahi. No, he did not know any of these things about me or even the sound of my voice, for he didn’t bother speaking to me. I was simply cast aside, rejected from afar, solely based on the color of my skin. Six months later said bachelor was married – to his 17-year-old cousin. Yes, she was a child. But, oh, was she pale!
The general response amongst my friends to this story was, “Oh, they must have been backward. Nobody cares about these things anymore.” As much as I would like to believe that is true, this kind of bias is still prevalent in our society, and not just with our grandparents’ generation. In the last decade, women in Pakistan have made a place for themselves independent of their husbands – whether in high heels and a pantsuit or a modest shalwar kameez and chador, they have stormed the workplace as educated television news anchors, driven politicians, and dynamic business women. But, it seems no matter how many barriers we break, or how far we women come, our worth is still measured in many circles by how closely we resemble a blank sheet of printer paper and whether or not we can produce beautiful, milky white babies.
We belong to an age where dark beauties like Rani Mukherjee and Bipasha Basu sizzle on screen, and fake tanner is sold by the millions in the U.S. so that lighter-skinned ladies can achieve the bronzed glow most of us Pakistanis are born with. The whole world is trying to go darker, yet our society is still hung up on what products or methods to use to become just a few shades paler. Who do we blame for this? Should we condemn advertisers hawking skin-lightening products to the working classes with the promise that success will come with fair skin? Should we point fingers at our great grandparents who passed their own prejudices down to the younger generations?

Fair & Lovely, aka skin bleach.
The truth is, the blame does not lie solely with the ads for “Fair and Lovely” cream or obnoxious aunties admonishing us for sitting out in the sun for too long. It lies with us. We ourselves are feeding into preconceived notions about what we should look like. How many of us flip through the Daily Times Sunday magazine? As a relatively forward thinking publication, they share delicious tidbits such as “how to wear red nail polish to make one’s hands look fairer.” We skim through such articles without a thought, but the words are embedded into our subconscious. A few days later, we find ourselves at the nearest beauty salon getting a red manicure. There, while our nails are being buffed and shaped, we are offered the newest “body polishing” treatment that will bring a “neat” (read: FAIR) look to our skin. And we say, “sure, why not?”
I was blessed with a beautiful niece a few months ago. The first question asked was not “is she healthy?” but rather, “Rang kaisa hai?” (What is her complexion like?). When it was discovered that she didn’t have the fair coloring of her mother, our family was advised to rub her skin with besan so that her skin would become saaf (clean). Is this what it has come down to? Torturing a newborn’s fragile skin with gram flour in the hopes that her color will change?
This is why I say NO. NO to the “body polishing”, NO to the mothers inspecting me for their sons, and NO to the magazines that tell us we should be something that we’re not. I will not allow my niece to grow up in a world where she is conscious of what shade of brown her skin is. Yes, I know – it sounds like a cheesy anti-drug campaign. But, the truth is, this obsession with fair vs. dark is an addiction, especially when one spends thousands of rupees on it! And I refuse to let myself succumb to it. I may offend people by how I tan my skin in the summer or how much bronzer I use, but ultimately I choose to be defined by who I am, not what color I am. So, put down the whitening creams and toss out the trashy magazines and embrace your color, whether fair or dark. Who knows, maybe we’ll start a new trend.
The contribution is the sole opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the opinion of CHUP. If you would like to contribute a piece to CHUP, please email Kalsoom at changinguppakistan[at]gmail[dot]com. Pieces should be no longer than 800 words please. For past contributions, click here.
amen
its amazing how nobody asks the fair and lovely girl if she’s ok with marrying the less that perfect man who singled her out to suit his ‘high’ standards.
what if SHE rejects the guy because he’s not as fair as her. wouldn’t that be priceless.
like my mom say’s about many such assh…ermm misguided men, “inhee ke armaan hain…larki ke toh armaan hain hee nahin!”
😀
signing off,
miss ‘tanned and proud of it’
Ohh can I get an ameen!! I love this article !
such a beautifully written article (disclaimer: i am the author’s sister, but you’ve read the article, need i say more 🙂 the most bizarre part of the story is, Maria was not even interested in this person- nor had she ever seen him. talk about being rejected by someone YOU have rejected. her point is spot on- with bells on- it is the women who need to take a stand, we need to stop writing articles about how we can apply red nail polish to make our hands look more “fair”. it’s up to us to say no. loved the article and love how it chimes in with Kalsoom’s mandate- to speak the truth about issues in our part of the world and portray them in an unbiased manner. le brave ragazze!
Maria,
Great article, for someone who doesn’t live back home I usually don’t see this but can imagine it still being prevalent. One thing in your article that was a bit unsettling “Should we condemn advertisers hawking skin-lightening products to the lower classes with the promise that success will come with fair skin?” I am hoping you used “Lower Class” as a mean to create economic segregation. Googling the term the first result that comes up is “the social class lowest in the social hierarchy”. I will not go off on the rant brewing in my head if the term was used for any other purpose…
Kalsoom:
Great blog, I get an RSS feed on the office computer and appreciate the insights during hectic mind numbing days…
Thanks Hassan!
Hi Hassan,
Thanks for your comment. I definitely meant “lower” from an economic standpoint and by no means as a classist phrase. I suppose being surrounded by economists my entire life I tend to assume everyone is on the same page when speaking of such terms, but I can see where you might have thought otherwise. Thanks for pointing it out!
In order to avoid confusion with the readers, Kalsoom, would you be so kind as to swap out the word for “working” or “poorer”?
Best,
Maria
It is really a shame to know how our society is so hung up on color. It’s not a big deal if you are fair or dark because they dont define a personality. We are so stuck in the dark ages that we only judge a book by it’s cover.
I love this article, it is especially true that the fair vs dark complex has filtered into our subconscious. Well done!
Great article Maria. I come from a family where I’m a man but very fair and my sister is on the darker side. Our whole lives people would tell us how our colors should have been switched…My sister has never let it bother her but words like those continue to cause complexes in so many women.
I’ll be sure to pass this article on!
thanks maria (and kalsoom)
quite a few eligible desis can be mamma’s boys
it is not color only
they can (and have) live-in relationships and then fly off to marry some poor ……
more power to you guys
[…] series will undoubtedly have its flaws (Feministing noted it […] Read more at: CHUP! – Changing Up Pakistan asian beauty, bachelor, bias, bollywood song, chicken karahi, color of my skin, cousin, […]
[…] Saadat, who runs a South Asian beauty blog, guest blogs at CHUP! – Changing Up Pakistan. She writes about the obsession of Pakistanis for fairer skin and the stigma related to having a darker shade of […]
It is almost as if I wrote this! Power to you, sister(s) 🙂
Nice Article infact one of the best article thanks for sharing
I love this article, its REALLY well-written and I agree with every single word.
Kudos Maria for a thoughtful, insightful and very to the point article on one of the things that still links our culture to the dark ages. The tragedy is that we have women using chemicals and bleaches and what not in a bid to get to that standard that society demands of them, in the process sometimes ruining their skin permanently, subjecting themselves to the risk of skin cancer and basically wasting their money which could be spent on feeding their families. From an Islamic point of view, Islam disregards the outside appearance and instead encourages choosing a potential mate based on their piety and purity rather than on their looks.
What is rather disappointing is that most guys dont realize that 5 years and 2 kids down the line it is not looks that will keep them attracted to their wives but their inner attributes. I mean would you rather be married to a gori wife whom you couldn’t bear to talk to and whose cooking you couldn’t bear or a sanwali wife who can engage you in conversation and who cooks a mean Chicken Karahi?
All I can say is “Jis ki biwi gori uss ka bhi bara naam hai, kamray mein bitha do batti ka kya kaam hai”. And sadly that is all such a wife ends up being: A trophy.
-Aly
http://discomaulvi.wordpress.com/
http://www.twitter.com/DiscoMaulvi
This is unbelievable. There is nothing more attractive thn a dark skinned female. they are simply the best!!
Kalsoom its actually a funny day. I normally access your blog through cloudkhizzy and today for some odd reason, while opening it, perhaps mistakenly i skipped the introduction and read from the mentioning of the sis’s wedding. Half way through i was already shocked wondering what went wrong with Kalsoom hehe
A person possessing such fine brain, high intellect should have been least bothered about her skin color
Nevertheless i found out it was a contribution:D and felt better
And khiz is right. I suppose she has already rejected many fair n lovely boys:P
Hi Butterscotch,
I think perhaps you may have missed the gist of the article. The point is that I, the contributor, do not care for Pakistani obsession with color and am quite happy in my own skin. This article is about bringing to light the prejudices present in our society and to encourage others to be content with who they are despite the shade of brown their skin is.
Best,
Maria
Women with fair skin think they’re ugly and get fake tans… women with darker skin think they’re ugly and bleach their skin?
Something is definitely wrong here.
Great article! you tell em mars!
Thank you all for your lovely comments! Hopefully we all can start a new movement to eradicate such discrimination from our society!
Via Twitter friend @rabayl, this video illustrates how being fairer is also a prevalent standard among the African-American community: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjy9q8VekmE
Very sad!
Maria
My apologies if I have displayed insensitivity in any possible manner. It was a lovely article and I totally agreed with what you mentioned and supported your argument by declaring my love for dark skinned women:)
I don’t think a desi male’s preference for a lighter skinned desi woman is any more immoral than a desi woman’s preference for a tall desi man. Both height and skin color are mostly genetic and there is not much we can do about either.
I think in an arranged marriage situation especially what is wrong in a man going for a lighter skinned woman? That’s the whole point of an arranged marriage. You only look at qualities/traits which are objective and apparent to everyone. Education, height, skin color etc.
I am in my early 30s (grew up in India) and was socialized in a culture where a lighter skin tone was idealized. Am I supposed to feel guily because I internalized those preferences? Are desi women considered ‘backward’ if they want their spouse in an arranged marriage situation to be tall and educated? At some level, in 3rd world countries, even education is mostly a function of your parents wealth. What about all the desi women who would not give a second look to a guy who speaks bad english? In the sub-continent, your English accent is almost always a function of where you went to primary school which again will depend upon how much wealth your parents accumulated.
My point is that I am yet to hear a good articulation of why exactly the preference of light skin is a more sininster and insidious preference when compared to all other preferences like height etc.
Also this preference for light skinned women is not an exclusively Sub-continent trait conjured up by a cabal of lighter skinned Aryan invaders when they crossed the Hindu Kush. Peter Frost in his book ‘ Fair Women, Dark Men’ researched cultures who are completely isolated most still had a preference for light skinned women within a distribution. Some have attributed it to a evolutionaly preference as lighter skinned women within a distribution are evidence of youth, which in turn is evidence of fertility.
So as a first-time reader of this blog (I found my way through dawn.com), I read this comment–and felt a necessity to reply back. Although I do agree with your idea that hieght should be considered in the same realm of superficiality as is skin color, the feature of skin color by and far has a more historical envelope around it which is the true problem. It is not merely skin color preference but why that preference exists. What has made fair-skin more preferable in a whole society? Why do you as an individual prefer it?
As a Pakistani American born and raised in the states I can only give you my opinions without a complete understanding of the motivations in Pakistan. But here (where the problem does also exist) we are unfortunately giving weight to ideals that have not been extinguished despite decades of trying. This is a racist ideal, point blank. (I want to establish one thing, I am NOT calling you a racist, but I am pointing out that this is an IDEA that stems from racism). This argument can be justified by whichever means one wishes, but the reality of it can not washed away.
You said that you were “socialized in a culture where a lighter skin tone was idealized. Am I supposed to feel guily because I internalized those preferences?” My answer isn’t a simple yes/no (it is truly not about guilt) but a question back to you: Why does your culture idealize lighter skin? And why are you (an assumingly well-educated male) hiding behind a curtain of ‘culture’ when you make your own desicions–you choose what you believe Sir, whether it comes to religion, profession, or ideals. This ‘mob effect’ and believing what the majority believe is what allows wrong-minded beliefs to prevail. It is of necessity to all of us to constantly be weary of this, and continually question our motivation and ideals. In this manner not only can we understand ourselves better, but we can also be sure that our ethical beliefs are coinciding with our day to day actions and thoughts.
I truly wanted to be respectful while also getting my point across, but I apologize in advance if anything above is too pointed.
(Maria, very nice article as well as the ideas of progression.)
Peace.
As I spend all my money loading up on skin lightening products from Costco, I am too poor and busy to check for bad spellings. Apologies!
Maria you did a great job bringing the prejudices to the surface, these aspects need to be talked about more openly!! Things are changing as social more always do but what shocked me most was that someone as liberal and open minded like Shahrukh Khan should lend his name and face to an ad pertaining to Fair and Lovely.Did’nt he hear about the phrase” Kali naseebon walee?
This article touches close to home for so many Pakistani girls/women out there. I was born in the USA…. far from my parents origin in Lahore, Pakistan…. yet the standards of Pakistani beauty never escaped me. Since my childhood I always heard that I was darker than my younger sisters or my cousins and despite the fact that I was still a pretty girl and smart and kind…. I was never quite good enough. As a became of age of the typical Pakistani girl to get married it became a terrible ordeal for me… hearing everyday my mom on the phone describing that I was very smart and independent and a great person but when it got to the inevitable question of “color” I was called wheatish. Often these phone calls ended up with me getting rejected from rishtas that I would not be interested. Ultimately, I finally realized that I needed to believe that I was beautiful and that I had so much to offer. After that…. it was hilarious…. I met my husband. The most ironic thing is that he is fairer than I am…. yet he never judged me for the color of my skin. He saw the real me… the beautiful face that happens to be brown, the intelligent brain, the kind person and the good heart I had to offer. He loved me for me and he is Pakistani…. born here in the USA. I won’t say that I still don’t hear comments of my lack of fairness…. but I will say that the same family members (aunts and uncles) that used to send me rishtas of men who were divorced, needed a greencard or not even high school educated, now ask me to look for rishtas for my younger cousins. In my heart, I only thank Allah for opening my eyes to the real me and I only hope that our society stops judging ourselves by our skin and starts to look at the qualities that really matter.
Maria, thanks for this great article.
Most of the guys I know in North America are not too inclined towards fair/pale girls… Unfortunately, when boggled down to looks, there are always a few desi men who would pick a girl with fair complexion rather than a wheatish/darker/bronzer female…. regardless of the girl’s intellectual abilities!
Don’t get me wrong, I respect people’s opinions and everybody has a right to choose their preferences… But, I always HATE when I hear about a guy/guy’s mom telling a potential rishta family O WE WANT A FAIR GIRL… Why hurt someone’s feelings like that? The girl might be an awesome awesome person, and with a few words they just ruined her self esteem by indirectly saying that you are below average SORRY!! Although Ladies, it is a blessing in disguise you didn’t end up with jerk families like that…
I hope these things change, or at least people start to develop the common decency to respect feelings of another human being when particularly in a “rishta” situation. I do hope that people start being graceful to Allah’s blessings bestowed upon them…
PEACE OUT
Saad S.
Dear Some peoples are using medicine for fair clour complextion.whats tha name of that medicine..?
maria let me know the secrect for fair ang glowing skin i work in selling pakistani dressess and goes to out side so be get rough skin.
Well, every bit of it perfection, but it’s still lacking. I expected at-least a paragraph on the same Fair Vs. Dark feud for men as well, i mean granted you’re a woman and you obviously can’t relate but it’s just an idea of making a good article closer to great. 🙂
>We belong to an age where dark beauties like Rani Mukherjee and Bipasha Basu sizzle on screen, and fake tanner is sold by the millions in the U.S. so that lighter-skinned ladies can achieve the bronzed glow most of us Pakistanis are born with. The whole world is trying to go darker, yet our society is still hung up on what products or methods to use to become just a few shades paler. Who do we blame for this?
Rani Mukherjee and Bipasha Basu are the only dark skinned women who “sizzle” on screen. I said women and not beauties because they are not beautiful to many. Secondly, to say that the whole world is trying to go darker is a HUGE exaggeration. Lastly, we need to stop flattering ourselves by saying that everyone wants to have the skin colour that Pakistanis are born with.
Women are rejected for their colour (despite having good qualities) just as men are rejected for not being rich (despite having good qualities).
I do agree that rubbing a child’s skin with besan is going to an extreme, and that some of the advertisements, especially the one with a woman being rejected a job because she looks dark is highly idiotic.
The issue that fairness creams promote racism has not been raised.
@Maria Saadat: What do you have to say about the millions of western women who plaster their faces with make up to look even whiter?