Jezebel: color wars

Study: Men Are More Attracted To Women With Lighter Skin

Jessica — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:00:00 EDT

Are those pernicious skin-lightening creams sold in India just capitalizing on deeply-ingrained, subconscious beliefs about skin color, good and evil? Well researchers at the University of Toronto think so. They analyzed over 2,000 photographs of men and women from advertisements and concluded that men are subconsciously attracted to women with lighter skin because they equate whiteness with "purity, innocence, modesty and goodness," according to the Press Trust Of India. Women, on the other hand, are attracted to swarthier men because "darker complexions are associated with sex, virility and danger." (Related: didn't Carl Jung come up with these archetypes like a hundred years ago?)

The lead author of the study, sociologist Dr. Shyon Baumann, the Independent, "What the research shows is that our aesthetic preferences operate to reflect moral preferences. Within our cultures, we have a set of ideals about how women should look and behave... Lightness and darkness have particular meanings attached to them and we subconsciously relate those moral preferences to women."

In the advertisements analyzed by Baumann and his team, the skin of white women was 15.2% lighter than the skin of white men, and the skin of black women was 11.1% lighter than the skin of black men. The other major finding of the study was that ads with darker-skinned women were more likely to show those women in their skivvies or with bare feet. (???) Was Anna Wintour falling prey to subconscious assumptions when she and her editors cast the LeBron/Gisele cover?

How Complexion Sparks Desire [Press Trust Of India]
Men, Women & The Secrets Of Skin Colour [Independent]

Black Fashion Industry Insiders Ask: Where Are The Black Models?

Dodai — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:30:00 EDT

Now that fashion week is over, today's WWD poses a question: Where were the black models? "Everyone is always talking about the weight issue," photographer and America's Next Top Model judge Nigel Barker says. "I think they should be talking about race." Barker says that the celebrity designers — not the ready-to-wear or couture ones — are willing to use a wider range of models. And, in our experience, it was the "outsider" shows, not held in the tents — Baby Phat/KLS, Heatherette — in which we saw black (and Asian) women walking the runway. Last Friday, at a panel discussion called "The Lack of the Black Image in Fashion Today," WWD reports that Bethann Hardison, a former model and founder of casting company Bethann Management, says "In the United States of America, this is the one industry that still has the freedom to refer to people by their color and reject them in their work. I came up in the Sixties. I feel it's the worst it's ever been."

The underrepresentation of black women on the runway comes despite the fact that, according to estimates by Targetmarketnews.com, black women alone spend more than $20 billion on apparel each year.

And though there is a lack of black models, designers and photographers, there is a noticeable increase in Asian models, designers and executives in the industry, says WWD.

Of the 101 shows and presentations posted on Style.com, 31 appear to have no black models. Most of those who did use black models opted for one or two. However, Heatherette, Diane von Furstenberg, Charles Nolan, Tracy Reese, Yigal Azrouël, Philip Lim, Marc Jacobs, Jenni Kayne and Sue Stemp were among the designers who used more than two. Heatherette, von Furstenberg and Lam each opened their shows with a black model. In fact, von Furstenberg closed her show with the opening girl, too, and the first 10 models at Heatherette appeared to be women of color.

Naomi Campbell, who flew in from London for the panel discussion, recalled how Christy Turlington once told Dolce & Gabbana, "If you don't use Naomi, you don't get us," referring to herself and Linda Evangelista. Designer Tracy Reese, who is black, was also on the panel. She said that her booker has to request certain (black) models, otherwise the agencies will not send them.

Cosmetics industry mogul Iman said she felt strongly about organizing a union for models, noting it's the only huge industry that does not have one. "Models don't have a union. They don't have a voice. No one speaks for them. Thank God I'm not a model anymore."

Not one to let a subject like this pass her by, Tyra Banks is working on a segment for her show about race in the fashion industry, according to Fashionista. Chanel Iman, who opened the Heatherette show (and was sort of on the cover of Vogue) will be a guest on the Tyra's program.

The defense of designers who opt for girls who all look alike is often that they want the focus to be on the clothes and not the models. But when a designer sends out a collection on a runway, he or she is offering up a vision of an ideal world. However you feel about the fashion industry or modeling itself, is it not disturbing that so many designers consider a perfect world to be one without any black people?

Where Were the Black Models? [WWD]
Little Diversity in Fashion: African-Americans Bemoan Their Absence in Industry [WWD]
Tyra Hearts Chanel Iman, Heatherette! [Fashionista]

Earlier: Death Of The Black Model?
Chanel Iman: Just Your Regular 16-Year-Old 'Vogue' Cover Model
Magazines Targeted To Black Women Suffer & Die
Crashin' Show: Heatherette

Mary Jane: More Of A Guy's Kind Of Girl

amparry — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:30:00 EDT

Is smoking weed a guy thing? Charlize Theron and her homemade apple bong beg to differ! While we can think of plenty of female stoners we know personally, we're not too big on the ganj ourselves. The munchies are a brutal affront to bikini season. [The Stranger]
Breast density and high levels of circulating sex hormones have largely gone hand in hand as risk factors for breast cancer, however a new study shows that they are independent risk factors as well. Of course they are. God forbid we actually get some good news about our tits. [NY Times]
Seriously, can we please shut the fuck up about all this girls love the color pink nonsense and spend our super experimentation funds on something useful, like finding out why men like to leave nasty wet towels on the bed? Thanks. Also, we like orange. [Guardian]
The UN has released an extremely disturbing report about sexual crimes against women in Darfur, mostly committed by soldiers and government militia. Everyone should read it. Yes, that means you. [NEWS.com.au]

Kids with incarcerated moms can go to summer camp at the clink so that mom can prove she's still is a good role model, even after busting a cap in someone's ass. Great news for Foxy Brown! [NY Times]
Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari was finally released from an Iranian jail yesterday, but has not been given permission to leave the country. What's kind of odd is that Ms. Edfandiari's elderly mother, who lives off her dead husband's pension, put up the $300,000+ bail money, rather than Edfandiari's own husband. WTF? [NY Times]
A woman in Russia, who was cohabitating with her ex-husband — a common practice in the country because of insane housing prices — set fire to his penis as he sat naked on the couch watching TV and drinking vodka. OMG, is it bad that we kind of sort of giggled? [Reuters]
Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein sums up Hillary Clinton's political life over the last 40 years — biggest (not-so-much-a) shocker? Bill's been foolin' around on her since before they were married. [AlterNet]
Republican Mitt Romney has been spewing some rather covert anti-birth control rhetoric to his most right wing supporters. Okay, so if birth control is bad because it stops the egg and the sperm from meeting, isn't jerking off in the shower every morning a bunch of little abortions, you stupid prick? [Baltimore Sun]
Congratulations, Plan B, on Your First Anniversary! Sure wish we could have met that one day last summer, when we forgot our ID at home and the pharmacist told us you weren't available unless we could prove that our old face was indeed over 18. [Salon]
This is cool: the newly formed Afghan Midwives Association recruits and trains midwives to help combat the country's high maternal mortality rate. Poor women caring for other poor women, now that's feminism. [Our Bodies Our Blog]