Perception of skin color in sub-Saharan Africa

 

Beyoncé Knowles, 2012. Is skin bleaching consistent with indigenous African values? (source)

A Zambian-born sociologist visited his home village with his white American wife and two of their children. Having lost his way, he asked an elderly lady for directions. She gladly told him:

But then she said, addressing his boys in the car, in the Tumbuka bantu African language:

"Monile asungwana, muli uli?" ("Greetings girls, how are you?")

At first, the author was flustered as he assumed the woman could not see very well since the boys were sitting in the car and their full bodies and clothes were concealed from her. The author corrected her. She didn't seem perturbed at all. He thought to himself how could she or anyone not see that these boys had no breasts, were not wearing earrings, blouses, or dresses. His pubescent fifteen year-old had even the beginnings of dark whiskers around his chin. The author dismissed the incident and did not reflect on it again. But a couple of times again, total strangers at a glance, while the two boys were sitting in the vehicle, referred to them in the Tumbuka language as "asungwana" or "those girls". What surprised him was that these comments were not made in a mean way or out of visual perceptual error. (Tembo, 2010, p. 5)

He came back to the United States and began writing up an article about his visit. For this, he had to select a few photos from the hundreds he had taken of men, women, and children from the village. Only then did the answer to his puzzle dawn on him:

His children, who have quite pronounced features of a Sub-Saharan African, but are light skinned compared to many relatives in the village, stood out in all the group photographs. There was nothing unusual about this obvious reality. But then he noticed something very subtle; all women had lighter glowing ambience to their skins than men although both men and women had dark skin tones. Some women had a definite characteristic glow to their lighter dark skin compared to the other women and the men. (Tembo, 2010, p. 6)

Women are in fact lighter-skinned than men throughout the world, although this sex difference is larger in populations of medium color than in those that are very pale or very dark (Frost, 2007; Madrigal and Kelly, 2006; van den Berghe and Frost, 1986). Girls become lighter-skinned than boys from puberty onward, apparently as part of sexual maturation. For one thing, this post-pubescent lightening correlates in girls with the post-pubescent thickening of subcutaneous fat (Mazess, 1967). For another, it correlates with the digit ratio—a marker of the degree of prenatal estrogenization (Manning et al., 2004).

This sexual dimorphism is paralleled by a traditional tendency to associate women with the lighter end of the local spectrum of complexions. Hence, the ideal woman was said to be "white" in Europe and East Asia, "golden" in South-East Asia, and "red" in sub-Saharan Africa.

The term "red" may puzzle non-Africans. It actually means a reddish-brown-orange complexion, which is the lightest color that occurs locally in normal individuals:

[...] in the Tumbuka bantu African language people describe women's beauty saying: "Mwanakazi mswesi ndiye muwemi comene" which translates as "A woman who is red-skinned is most attractive". This is more accurate than what would be the conventional translation: "A woman who is light skinned is most attractive" (Tembo, 2010, p. 10).

When Africans speak of a beautiful woman, they may describe her as "red" or even "white," thus seeming to emulate European standards of beauty. On this point, Tembo (2010, p. 12) quotes the lyrics of a Zambian song from the 1950s, "Maggie": 

Ndikonda miyendo yako

Ndifiga yako
Maggie ulinso
Mkazi woyera 

A literal translation would be:

I love your legs

Your figure too
Maggie you are also
A white woman 

Woyera does mean "white" but not in an ethnic sense. Maggie is simply an African woman with a naturally light complexion. Tembo argues that Africans and non-Africans alike have misconstrued this indigenous norm of female beauty as something that European colonialism has imposed. While not condoning skin bleaching, he argues that this widespread practice among modern African women is a logical consequence of indigenous aesthetic values.  

A cultural norm for African women?

This female norm is attested in many other sub-Saharan societies: 

Bambara (Mali)

The Bambara are not unmoved by the beauty of a woman's form; they can distinguish a well-formed body from a malformed one, a pretty woman from an ugly one, and they find a coppery skin more attractive than one of ebony black. (Henry, 1910, p. 217)

Tallensi (Ghana)

In skin colour they vary from black through chocolate brown to bronze, which the natives call "red" (bon-ze'e) and regard as the most attractive bodily hue. (Fortes, 1945, p. 7)

Hausa (Nigeria)

Light skin colour, referred to as "red", ranks high in the Hausa criteria of beauty; many variations of colour, from black to a very light reddish brown are seen. (Smith, 1965, p. 264)

Ibo (Nigeria)

In Ibo culture, however, these yellowish or reddish complexions are considered more beautiful than the darker, 'blacker,' complexions. [...] It is true that, in West Africa, government has for many years been identified with pale-skinned Europeans, but the Ibo evidence suggests that preference for paleness of complexion is indigenous. (Ardener, 1954, pp. 71-72)

Azande (Sudan)

Of the women and girls, some with babies, he kept the most beautiful in Zande eyes, those brightest of eye and clearest of skin and with full breasts, for his couch. (Evans-Pritchard, 1937, p. 60)

Berti (Sudan)

Men and women affirm without any hesitation that men are black, hot and hard and women are white, cold and soft. (Holy, 1988, p. 471) 

Somali (Somalia)

Men appreciate women of good height and stature, with good hips and breasts, and plump but not fat. A reddish tinged skin is thought highly of in preference to a dark dull black. (Lewis, 1962, p. 13)

Masai (Kenya, Tanzania)

Further requirements for being regarded as beautiful are an oval face, white teeth, black gums, a skin color as light as possible ... (Merker, 1910, p. 18)

Rundi (Rwanda, Burundi)

Beauty does not count very heavily, but a man is not displeased if people notice that his wife is attractive and well-fleshed, has a long and narrow nose, a light skin, and is somewhat like a cow. (Albert, 1963, p. 203)

Ganda (Uganda)

There is, in respect of the ordinary negroid complexion, a preference for paleness deeply rooted in the Ganda ideal of beauty. [...] The Ganda concept of skin pigmentation considers light coloured complexions to be differing shades of white. A dark brown skin colour is said to be eruyeru, that is, somewhat white. A really brown-reddish-yellow person is said to be mweru = white, which in comparison would be considered to be blonde; and this in the Ganda aesthetic language is considered as red = myufu, the most perfect skin pigmentation. (Lugira, 1970, pp. 34-35)

Nairobi (Kenya)

In the future the increasing use of skin lightening creams such as "Ambi" may eventually reduce the importance of natural skin color. But whatever the case, in Nairobi of the 1960's, as throughout much of Kenya, the lighter "brown" girls are usually considered to be more beautiful than "black" girls — and the more successful prostitutes are invariably "brown." (McVicar, 1969, p. 242) 

Ila, Lunda, Luvale, and Chokwe (Zambia)

Here too words meaning literally "white" are commonly used to refer to light skins though "red" may also be used. Light skins are admired just as much as is shown to occur among the Ibo, and young girls discussing the possible attractions of various young men have often been heard to emphasize "very black" as a point against someone. In the past at least one attraction of a light skin apart from its intrinsic appeal was the fact that the tattooing stood out against it in strong contrast. Very black skins are not infrequently thought to go hand in hand with inherited witchcraft and a light skin to indicate its absence. Dark-skinned women conscious of their possible disadvantage have been heard to tell men that light-skinned women will be found to be sexually unsatisfying. (White, 1954)

Ngoni (Malawi)

Young men say that what they like in a girl is a light skin colour, a pretty face, and the ability to dance and to copulate well. (Barnes, 1951, p. 30)

Kgatla (Botswana)

[...] the generally admired type is a light-skinned girl of somewhat heavy build, with prominent breasts and large, firm buttocks. (Schapera, 1966, p. 46)

A cultural norm for African infants?

Lighter skin is a norm not only for African women but also for African infants. All humans, in fact, are born pale (Grande et al., 1994; Kahlon, 1976; Walsh, 1964). This pallor is a striking contrast to the darker color of adult Africans. In Kenya, newborn infants are often called mzungu ('European' in Swahili), and a new mother may tell her neighbors to come and see her mzungu (Walentowitz, 2008). Among the Tuareg, children are said to be born "white" because of the freshness and moisture of the womb (Walentowitz, 2008). The cause is often thought to be a previous spiritual life:

There is a rather widespread concept in Black Africa, according to which human beings, before "coming" into this world, dwell in heaven, where they are white. For, heaven itself is white and all the beings dwelling there are also white. Therefore the whiter a child is at birth, the more splendid it is. In other words, at that particular moment in a person's life, special importance is attached to the whiteness of his colour, which is endowed with exceptional qualities. (Zahan, 1974, p. 385)

Another Africanist makes the same point: "black is thus the color of maturity [...] White on the other hand is a sign of the before-life and the after-life: the African newborn is light-skinned and the color of mourning is white kaolin" (Maertens, 1978, p. 41).

What skin color originally meant to humans … and to ancestral primates

In sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps more so than elsewhere, we see the older, non-ethnic way of perceiving skin color, where darker skin means an adult male and lighter skin an infant or an adult female. Facial skin color can also signal whether a woman is younger or older, specifically through the degree of luminous contrast between her face and her lips or eyes (Porcheron et al., 2013). In this older perceptual system, skin color might unconsciously prepare the observer for situationally appropriate behavior, e.g., if the observed person is a woman or an infant, the mental threshold is raised for expression of aggressive impulses and lowered for expression of caring (Guthrie, 1970).

The pale skin of infants seems to be the oldest component of this system, being present even in non-human primates. Among langurs, baboons, and macaques, the skin is pink in newborns and almost black in adults (Jay, 1962). The infant coloration apparently does more than help parents find wayward offspring. As it disappears with age, juveniles no longer arouse the same interest, are less often sought out and held by adult females, and cease to arouse defensive reactions from adults when humans approach (Alley, 1980; Booth, 1962; Jay, 1962). 

Although there are no primate species where the adult female has the infant's pink skin, there are some where fur coloration shows this kind of neoteny. Of the eight primate species where adult males and females differ in coat color, seven are characterized by persistence of the infant's lighter coloration into adulthood among females. Interestingly, 63% of these dichromatic species are monogamous, versus only 18% of all primate species (Blaffer-Hrdy and Hartung, 1979). By retaining a lighter infant-like color, the female might better cope with the riskier social environment of monogamy, which makes her more vulnerable to male aggression and to insufficient provisioning because of longer and more continuous cohabitation.

So why aren’t we all light-skinned?

If lighter skin is perceived as a female trait, even to the point of becoming an unconscious input for sex recognition, wouldn’t it be favored by sexual selection? And since skin color is only partly sex-linked, wouldn’t selection for lighter-skinned women end up lightening both sexes? Humans everywhere would have therefore lightened in color right up to the end point of white skin. So why hasn’t this happened?

There are two reasons: (1) sexual selection of women hasn’t been equally strong everywhere; and (2) this sexual selection has been offset to varying degrees by natural selection for darker skin.  

First, sexual selection of women is weaker in sub-Saharan Africa because of the higher polygyny rate: 20-50% of all marriages in the West and Center and 15-30% in the East and South (Pebley and Mbugua, 1989). With too many men competing for too few women, the pressure of sexual selection is shifted from women to men, and selection is thereby weakened for desirable female traits. This may be why high-polygyny populations in sub-Saharan Africa are visibly darker-skinned than low-polygyny ones (Frost, 2008).

Second, sexual selection for lighter female skin can be offset by natural selection for darker skin—as a means to protect against UV and such adverse effects as sunburn, skin cancer, and loss of folic acid. This is especially true in the tropics. Since UV protection becomes less necessary farther away from the equator, Aoki (2002) has argued that the sex difference in skin color should become correspondingly larger, being less constrained by natural selection. In reality, it’s largest at medium latitudes among populations that are medium in skin color (Frost, 2007; Madrigal and Kelly, 2006). It’s actually smaller in white-skinned northern Europeans. This is probably because of a ‘ceiling effect’: in northern Europe, women are less able to become lighter-skinned than men because both sexes are already close to the physiological limit of depigmentation.

 

References

Albert, E. (1963). Women of Burundi, in D. Paulme (ed.) Women of Tropical Africa, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

http://books.google.fr/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=zIXYnMZxomUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA179&dq=Women+of+Burundi&ots=8-xGchaphB&sig=HmYrfNEAl6IT_dj8iKs5JUk8ugY#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Alley, T.R. (1980). Infantile colouration as an elicitor of caretaking behaviour in Old World primates, Primates, 21, 416-429.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02390470# 

Aoki, K. (2002). Sexual selection as a cause of human skin colour variation: Darwin’s hypothesis revisited, Annals of Human Biology, 29, 589-608.

http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0301446021000019144 

Ardener, E.W. (1954). Some Ibo attitudes to skin pigmentation, Man, 54, 71-73.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2793760?uid=3737720&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102505426581

Barnes, J.A. (1951). Marriage in a Changing Society, Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

Blaffer-Hrdy, S. and J. Hartung. (1979). The evolution of sexual dichromatism among primates, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 50, 450. 

Booth, C. (1962). Some observations on behavior of Cercopithecus monkeys, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 102, 477-487.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1962.tb13654.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false 

Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1937). Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

http://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/Witchcraft.pdf 

Fortes, M. (1945). The Dynamics of Clanship among the Tallensi, London: Oxford University Press.

Frost, P. (2008). Sexual selection and human geographic variation, Special Issue: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2(4),169-191. http://137.140.1.71/jsec/articles/volume2/issue4/NEEPSfrost.pdf

  

Frost, P. (2007). Comment on Human skin-color sexual dimorphism: A test of the sexual selection hypothesis, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 133, 779-781.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.20555/abstract 

Grande, R., E. Gutierrez, E. Latorre, and F. Arguelles. (1994). Physiological variations in the pigmentation of newborn infants, Human Biology, 66, 495-507.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41465000?uid=3737720&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102505426581

Guthrie, R.D. (1970). Evolution of human threat display organs, Evolutionary Biology, 4, 257-302. 

Henry, J. (1910). L'âme d'un peuple africain, Münster: Aschendorff.

Holy, L. (1988). Gender and ritual in an Islamic society: The Berti of Darfur, Man, 23, 469-487.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2803261?uid=3737720&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102505426581 

Jay, P.C. (1962). Aspects of maternal behavior among langurs, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 102, 468-476.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1962.tb13653.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false 

Kahlon, D.P.S. (1976). Age variation in skin color, a study in Sikh immigrants in Britain, Human Biology, 48, 419-428.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41462894?uid=3737720&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102505426581

Lewis, I.M. (1962). Marriage and the Family in Northern Somaliland, Kampala: East African Institute of Social Research.

Lugira, A.M. (1970). Ganda Art, Kampala: Osasa pub.

 

Madrigal, L. and W. Kelly. (2006). Human skin-color sexual dimorphism: A test of the sexual selection hypothesis, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 132, 470-482.

http://anthropology.usf.edu/faculty/personal/publications/Madrigal%20L%20and%20Kelly%20W%20132%20470%20482%202007.pdf

Maertens, J-T. (1978). Le dessein sur la peau. Essai d'anthropologie des inscriptions tégumentaires, Ritologiques I, Paris: Aubier Montaigne. 

Manning, J.T., Bundred, P.E., and Mather, F.M. (2004). Second to fourth digit ratio, sexual selection, and skin colour, Evolution and Human Behavior, 25, 38-50.

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(03)00082-5/abstract 

Mazess, R.B. (1967). Skin color in Bahamian Negroes, Human Biology, 39, 145-154.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41448835?uid=3737720&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102505426581 

McVicar, K.G. (1969). Twilight of an East African Slum, Ann Arbor, University Microfilms (UCLA Dissertation 1968).

http://www.turisticosnoroeste.com.mx/handle/123456789/24102

Merker, M. (1910). Die Masai, Berlin: Reimer.

Pebley, A. R., and W. Mbugua. (1989). Polygyny and Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa. In R. J. Lesthaeghe (ed.), Reproduction and Social Organization in Sub-Saharan Africa, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 338-364. 

Porcheron, A., E. Mauger, and R. Russell (2013). Aspects of facial contrast decrease with age and are cues for age perception, PLoS ONE 8(3): e57985

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057985

Schapera, I. (1966). Married Life in an African Tribe, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 

Smith, M.F. (1965). Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa, London: Faber & Faber.

http://books.google.fr/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=Rk3KadLaRssC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=Baba+of+Karo:+A+Woman+of+the+Muslim+Hausa&ots=73-7DHwlF_&sig=weagaZ075hTVMCY6nJ5pIo8XtH8#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Tembo, M.S. (2010). The Rediscovery of the Beautiful Woman in African Societies. Eurocentric Destruction of Indigenous Conceptions: the Secret Rediscovery of the Beautiful Woman in African Societies.

http://people.bridgewater.edu/~mtembo/menu/articles/AfricanBeautyRevisedMarch162010.pdf

van den Berghe, P. L. and P. Frost. (1986). Skin color preference, sexual dimorphism, and sexual selection: A case of gene-culture co-evolution? Ethnic and Racial Studies, 9, 87-113.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.1986.9993516

Walentowitz, S. (2008). Des êtres à peaufiner. Variations de la coloration et de la pigmentation du nouveau-né, in J-P. Albert, B. Andrieu, P. Blanchard, G. Boëtsch, and D. Chevé (eds.) Coloris Corpus, (pp. 113-120), Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2008. 

Walsh, R.J. (1964). Variation in the melanin content of the skin of New Guinea natives at different ages, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 42, 261-265.

White, C.M.M. (1954). Correspondence, Man, 54,147.

Zahan, D. (1974). White, Red and Black: Colour Symbolism in Black Africa, in A. Portmann and R. Ritsema (eds.) The Realms of Colour, Eranos 41 (1972), 365-395, Leiden: Eranos. 

More on high-polygyny societies

Female and male bush spirits, Côte d’Ivoire

The polygyny rate varies considerably among human populations, being highest (20 to 40% of all sexual unions) in the agricultural societies of sub-Saharan Africa and Papua-New Guinea.

Such high rates have consequences. The average man will have to wait for a wife until well into adulthood. The average woman will end up sharing her man with another woman. How are these consequences managed in a high-polygyny society? Surely there must be jealousy and frustration?

Many anthropologists, especially armchair ones, will deny there is any. What seems intolerable to us is quite normal to such societies.

This is half-true. Yes, people eventually resign themselves to most situations, especially if they see no alternative. The intolerable can become normal. But it would be false to claim that widespread polygyny creates no more than its fair share of frictions. Indeed, such frictions are much talked about in oral African culture.

This may be seen in a recent compendium of West African folk tales, Contes de l’Afrique de l’Ouest. Many of the tales have polygyny-related themes.

One theme is a woman’s resistance to sharing her husband with another woman. As the editor explains:

These tales are about conflicts that pit wives against the children of co-wives or about conflicts between co-wives. In this tale, the conflict pits the husband against his first wife, who does not want a co-wife. The tale, in keeping with tradition, criticizes the attitude of the woman who wishes to remain her husband’s exclusive partner.

Another theme is the difficulty in finding a wife. There is a “series of tales whose theme is the father who imposes impossible ordeals on his daughter’s suitors.” One tale is The Marriage without Bride Price:

A man had a very beautiful daughter, as beautiful as a genie. She grew up and reached the age of being married off. Her father made his requirements known. Whoever wishes to marry her will pay no bride price. He will simply have to harvest a field of fonio, —the man’s field was a hundred kilometers long! He will also have to weave, —the man had yarn that formed a hill the size of our hill of Bagnon. He will furthermore have to gather the fruits of a baobab, —the baobab had been bearing fruits for a hundred years, and they had never fallen. It had so many that one could no longer see its branches! He will in addition have to drink a full cask of gruel. To end it all, he will have to strike one by one the pearls of his daughter’s belts. She wore them up to her armpits! Whoever would accomplish all this in one day, between sunrise and sunset, would have his daughter.

A bush spirit learns of these outrageous demands and turns itself into a handsome young man. It passes all of the tests and marries the girl. It then resumes its former appearance—a filthy body covered with ticks.

“You’re not the one I love!” says the daughter.
“If you repeat that, I will kill you. However pretty a woman may be, it’s still a man who will marry her. Your father had demanded work that no one can accomplish. He said there was no bride price. But it has always been by bride price that one gets a woman. He thought there was no other man than himself.”
(Meyer 2009, pp. 89-92)

Both types of folk tale reflect the male viewpoint. One type criticizes women who reject co-wives. The other criticizes fathers who want too much in exchange for their daughters. Yet these two criticisms are mutually inconsistent. Polygyny is what drives up the cost of brides on the marriage market. You can’t have one without the other.

High-polygyny society = Failed society?

In my last post, I noted that high-polygyny societies remain simple in large part because intense sexual competition keeps them from evolving into more complex entities. The surplus males stir up endless conflict, if only because war provides them with access to women, i.e., through rape and abduction. There can never be pacification and, therefore, the formation of larger, more advanced societies.

There is a second problem that blocks the evolution of high-polygyny societies. Although widespread polygyny is widely resented by men and women, this resentment cannot translate into efforts to limit the practice. Divided attitudes are part of the problem. On the one hand, younger men resent the wife shortage created by older polygynous men. On the other, they themselves hope to become polygynous as they too advance in years. Furthermore, power is generally vested in older men—the very ones most likely to have multiple wives.

Some women likewise gain from polygyny. This is particularly so with second wives who usurp resources built up by older co-wives. Other women accept polygyny as a lesser evil:

Undoubtedly one reason for the widespread acceptance of polygyny is the distaste for the alternative, which in this cultural context is most often not faithful monogamy but legal monogamy paralleled by a series of more or less open affairs. [… The reason is that] men spend less money on their wives than on their mistresses, and that the position of a wife is defined rather than fluid and uncontrollable.

It may seem remarkable that a mistress should impose a greater economic strain than an additional wife, but it should be remembered that Yoruba wives are traditionally largely self-supporting, their major economic claim upon their husbands being on behalf of their children, while a mistress in many cases only remains a mistress for as long as it is economically beneficial for her to do so.
(Ware 1979)

Widespread polygyny is thus an institution that cannot easily reform itself. Yes, it does create profound social frictions that pit men against men and women against women. These frictions, however, cannot coalesce into a movement to oppose polygyny. The potential opposition is too fragmented and too marginal.

Urban Africa and the new mating environment

This is not to say that a high-polygyny society cannot evolve into a low-polygyny one. It can, if the material conditions of life change. We see this happening as Africans move off the land and into cities and towns, where women can less easily feed themselves and their children without assistance (1). Urban African men are less likely to be polygynous because it costs them more to provide for a second wife.

This in turn has shifted the pressure of sexual competition from men to women. It is increasingly the woman who must compete to find a mate. Whereas before she only had to work hard at tending her plot of land, she must now invest in her physical appearance, notably by lengthening her hair and bleaching her skin.

This new mating environment is described by Fokuo (2009) with respect to Ghana. Traditionally, Ghanaian women were married off through family mediation and bride price. This situation has changed since World War II and especially since the 1980s. They now largely find mates on their own, and do so in an increasingly competitive market that pressures them to be as sexually attractive as possible. One result has been the spread of skin bleaching:

By the late 1980’s and 1990’s, skin bleaching was no longer practiced by prostitutes. The popular culture of the 1980s praised lighter skin tones. This praise encouraged the spread of skin bleaching across gender lines and throughout all socio-economic classes of women. (Fokuo 2009)

Interviews with Ghanaian women suggest that this practice is driven by a competitive marriage market:

Sometimes if you really want to marry a particular man, you have to bleach.
(Interview 14, 2006)

Lighter-skinned women tend to attract more men by virtue of their lightness. So if they are at marrying age they get more men coming to court them earlier and quicker than darker-skinned women. (Interview 16, 2006)

Darker-skinned women look at themselves and realize that they need to bleach to be beautiful. Just so men can call them beautiful. (Interview 17, 2006)
(Fokuo 2009)

This shift to ‘bodily commodification,’ together with the decline of matriarchy, is deplored in the literature. Yet the consequences are not entirely negative. Matriarchy meant that African women bore a very disproportionate share of labor in raising their families, especially physical labor. Today, there is a move toward a more equal balance of parental investment between African men and women. And bodily commodification is perhaps a necessary precondition for much of what we call ‘high culture,’ i.e., the pursuit of the aesthetic.

Note

1. The future of polygyny in sub-Saharan Africa is closely linked to female autonomy. This came out in a study of polygynous families in Ibadan, Nigeria:

Perhaps the ultimate women's issue is the extent to which women can lead autonomous existences without men. Trial interviews showed that it was possible to ask the question: "Apart from having children, do women need to have husbands?" without puzzling or antagonizing the respondents (only 2 percent of wives failed to respond to this question in the final survey). Remarkably, in a society where 99 percent of women marry by the age of 40, 47 percent of women answered that women do not need husbands. They explained that women are equal to men, that marriage has many disadvantages and that in many cases women are in a better position on their own. For those women who did consider husbands to play an important role apart from fatherhood, companionship (cited by 16 percent of all wives) was the most valuable function, followed by advice (11 percent) and the value of working together (10 percent). Only 7 percent of wives thought that women needed husbands for economic support, care or protection, the remainder cited sexual satisfaction (2 percent), prestige (2 percent) and nature (3 percent). Understandably, wives in polygynous unions were less likely to stress the companionship role of the husband, but even among women with two or more co-wives, 12 percent argued for this as compared with 21 percent of the monogamously married. Overall, what is most striking is just how dispassionately women view marriage. Childlessness is a terrible tragedy never to be assuaged, but every woman can find a husband of some sort, and hence they are not very highly valued. In discussing the need for a husband, nearly a fifth of the wives mentioned companionship, but no one mentioned love.
(Ware 1979)

References

Fokuo, J.K. (2009). The lighter side of marriage: Skin bleaching in post-colonial Ghana, Research Review NS, 25(1), 47-66.

Meyer, G. (2009). Contes de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, Paris: Éditions Karthala.

Ware, H. (1979). Polygyny: Women's Views in a Transitional Society, Nigeria 1975, Journal of Marriage and Family, 41, 185-195.

Skin bleaching

Since the mid-20th century, ‘skin bleaching’ has become more and more common among dark-skinned populations. It involves lightening skin color by means of topical preparations that contain hydroquinone, cortisone, or mercury. These products are effective, but prolonged use may damage the skin by making the epidermis thinner and by breaking down collagen fibers. Despite being condemned by the medical profession and increasingly restricted by governments, they can easily be obtained in various places: hair-stylist salons, subway stations, African public markets, etc.

Skin bleachers seem to be used the most in South Asia and its diaspora. Next come sub-Saharan Africa and its diaspora (West Indies, Brazil, United States, Western Europe, etc.), the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia. The market is mainly young and female. Thus, rate of use is 61.4% among Surinamese women of Indian origin less than 26 years old, as compared to 13.1% among young Surinamese of other origins (Javanese, African, etc.) (Menke, 2002).

In Africa, rate of use is 25% in Bamako, Mali, up to 52% in Dakar, Senegal, up to 35% in Pretoria, South Africa, and up to 77% in Lagos, Nigeria (Ntambwe, 2004). The practice has become so widespread that it has been nicknamed maquillage – ‘make-up’ (Ondongo, 1984). According to one African specialist, men encourage it by considering light-skinned women to be more attractive, intelligent, moral, desirable, and chaste. In contrast, dark-skinned women are said to look mean, evil, stupid, and untrustworthy (Ntambwe, 2004). This opinion is consistent with the results of a survey among Ghanaian women. Most of the respondents thought that men prefer light skin in a woman: “Sometimes if you really want to marry a particular man, you have to bleach” (Fokuo, 2009)

In Jamaica, users do not seem motivated by shame of their Black identity. Surveys show them having as much racial self-esteem as non-users. The motivation is more to make one’s face ‘cool’, to imitate one’s peers, to look pretty and attract a partner, and to feel good about oneself. There is also the influence of popular culture, such as Eurocentric beauty contests and singers who glorify women with light brown skin. In the dance-hall song Browning, Buju Banton says he loves his light-skinned girlfriend, his ‘browning’, more than his car, his motorbike, and his money. In Bleach On, Captain Barkey tells girls to keep on bleaching their skin (Charles, 2009).

Strangely, these products have become increasingly popular among South Asians, Africans, and West Indians for the past half-century, yet the same period has also seen these peoples regain much of their cultural independence. In advertising, magazines, or TV serials, one sees many more women from the local population than there were before.

Actually, it’s not so strange. Back when the local media recycled images of women from Western sources, the female audience had trouble identifying with them; there was a gap between the two. Because these images are now adapted to the local reality, they project a stronger normative influence on local women, who are keener to imitate them. These women, however, are still darker-skinned than the somatic norm being projected. This is especially so with Indian ‘Bollywood’ films but is also the case with serial dramas in Latin America and the Arab world.

References

Charles, C.A.D. (2009). Skin bleachers’ representations of skin color in Jamaica, Journal of Black Studies, 40, 153-170.

Charles, C.A.D. (2003). Skin bleaching, self-hate, and Black identity in Jamaica, Journal of Black Studies, 33, 711-728.

Fokuo, J. Konadu. (2009). The lighter side of marriage: Skin bleaching in post-colonial Ghana, Research Review NS, 25(1), 47-66.

Menke, J. (2002). Skin bleaching in multi-ethnic and multicolored societies. The case of Suriname, paper presented to the CSA Conference, Nassau, Bahamas, May 27 – June 1, 2002, Coping with Challenges, Contending with Change.
http://www.colorfoundation.org/pdf/skin%20bleach%20Sur%20CSA%20220502.doc

Ntambwe, M. (2004), 'Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the FAIREST of them all?' Science in Africa, March. http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/march/skinlightening.htm

Ondongo, J. (1984), Noir ou blanc ? Le vécu du double dans la pratique du « maquillage » chez les Noirs, Nouvelle Revue d’Ethnopsychiatrie, 2, 37-65.