“So three Black women in maybe two thousand pages of women’s magazines and all of them...

[redqueen]

biracial or racially ambiguous, so they could be Indian or Puerto Rican or something. Not one of them is dark. Not one of them looks like me, so I can’t get clues for makeup from these magazines. Look, this article tells you to pinch your cheeks for color because all their readers are supposed to have cheeks you can pinch for color. This tells you about different hair products for everyone—and everyone means blondes, brunettes, and redheads. I am none of those. And this tells you about the best conditioners—for straight, wavy and curly. No kinky. See what they mean by curly? My hair could never do that. This tells you about matching your eye color and eye shadow—blue, green, and hazel eyes. But my eyes are black so I can’t know what shadow works for me. This says that this pink lipstick is universal, but they mean universal if you are white because I would look like a golliwog if I tried that shade of pink. Oh look, here is some progress. An advertisement for foundation. There are seven different shades for white skin and one generic chocolate shade, but that is progress. Now let’s talk about what is racially skewed. Do you see why a magazine like Essence exists?”

Excerpted from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah

[msongs]

1. so start her own magazine featuring people she wants to see :-) nt

[JI7]

3. i believe that is a response to someone who may have criticized the existence

of Essence Magazine for being targeted to Black Women.

[ismnotwasm]

2. And then there's those spreads

You know "The 50 most beautiful women" or something in some magazine like people. While the women are certainly current cultural standards beautiful, they are also stilted and Stepford-like. The skin shades the women may or may not have is lost in the sameness of their features, all which fit into some Caucasian norm--big eyes, small nose, wide smile, with plumped lips--but not TOO plumped, hair that looks lustrous and also looks caged, tamed. Bodes thin, heels high expressions exactly the same. Ick.

[redqueen]

4. It's so complicated being a feminist...

First and foremost, fuck patriarchal beauty standards. One of my biggest pet peeves is all the helpful, motivating advice given to women to raise their self esteem and confidence... this or that is beautiful, you're beautiful, we're all beautiful... I want to shake everyone and insist it doesn't fucking matter what anyone looks like, stop reinforcing this superficial bullshit! Stop buying into it!

IMO reinforcing the idea that self esteem and appearance deserve to be connected in any way, or that appearance is important at all, is one of the worst roadblocks preventing significant progress as a society. Look what is said about political candidates... how many brilliant minds have been successfully sidelined by the tendency of most people to prioritize taller, more attractive, or more well-dressed people? It's fucking mindless.

But that's a long way off, right? For now, we still have little girls growing up being inundated by these messages from every direction... that their looks are what matters most about them. So until we smash the patriarchy and get to be seen as human beings and not decorations... I have to push for inclusive beauty standards. Not this eurocentric shit. Because these constant messages not only push our focus to meaningless crap, they also completely marginalize anyone who doesn't fit the barbie mold. And sometimes I think if I see one more comment about how Christina hendricks or some plus size model (lol) prove that anything is changing my head will explode. Because no, bigger women with eurocentric, conventionally attractive features and boner-pleasing hip/waist ratios ain't changing jack fucking shit.

Sorry, ranting... anyway all this reminds me of the fact that Miss Black America contestants now usually have straightened or braided hair... and they didn't used to when it started out as a protest of the fact that black women were excluded from miss America contests. It burns me up that these eurocentric standards have not budged one fucking inch.

Two steps forward, three steps back.

[ismnotwasm]

5. Oh I agree

The thing about beauty standards is when it promotes sameness, is it still beauty? Or is it a means to promote fuckability standards aka cis male sexual privilege within those same narrow confines? I think we know the answer to that.