The Grass is Always Lighter/Darker on the Other Side

By Molly Ratcliffe 

Humans are funny. We always want want we don’t have. Whether you live in cold Alberta and want to live in Los Angeles, or you straighten your curly hair, people always seem to strive to have what they just can’t have. 

What is scary is how far some women have taken it to the next level. Altering your skin or facial features to look like that of another race. For example. I have always been a fan of Beyonce. I think she is extremely glamorous and when she and her mother invented a clothing line that caters to women size 0-27, I considered her one of the best female roll models of the 21st century. However, what has now confused me about Beyonce is her skin. She is of obvious African-American decent, with a gorgeous dark skin tone and dark hair. In every movie she has been in, she has obviously been cast as an African-American female lead. However, after seeing this recent comparison photo...I’m not sure what type of race you could cast her as. 

Beyonce in 2006                               Beyonce in 2011

Beyonce has given into the popular trend of skin bleaching. It is the process where a cream chemical substance is rubbed over the skin several times a day in order to whiten the skin pigment, killing the cells that give your skin it’s natural colour. This cream was originally invented for the purpose of making freckles and moles less visible, but many woman have taken it to the next level by rubbing it over their entire body. 

In this video clip for the the recent TV show My Strange Addiction, a young African-American girl admits that she is addicted to bleaching her skin. She claims that there was pressure in her school to have light skin...how can there be pressure to change something you were born with? Her friends and family ask her why she is addicted and she doesn't really seem to know. 

But then just as we are wondering why a woman of colour would want to be light, we see lighter skinned women wanting to be dark! You often hear the expression “I am so pasty”, “I can’t wait to go down South to get rid of this pale skin”. My sister who is a natural red-head has often worn jeans and a sweatshirt during the summer because she is self conscious of her pale skin and thinks it looks gross. Here in the same show My Strange Addiction, another young girl is addicted to tanning her skin...why does this remind me of the other girl? Because they are both literally uncomfortable in their own skin. 

If darker skinned women are claiming that dark skin is ugly or gross, then why would lighter women want to be dark? And if a lighter skinned woman thinks being light is ugly or gross, then why would a darker woman want to be light? Maybe life would be easier if we were all one colour...like the blue people from Avatar. 

But in all seriousness, this is just another example of how humans always want what they don’t have. And just like our blog Designing Women, this shows that even if you try and make yourself the “perfect woman” you never truly will be, whether you are comfortable in your own skin or not.