Jezebel: skin color

Skin-Lightening Creams Popular In Arab World • 14-Year-Old FLDS Leader "Wife" Taken To Foster Care

Maria — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Skin-lightening creams — already popular in East and South Asia — are finding a market in the Arab world, where the commercials claim that darker skin is a hindrance any every aspect of a woman's life. • A new study from UC Davis claims that biracial Asian-Americans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with psychological disorders as "monoracial individuals." • A new police plan in Scotland may require men who are accused of abusing their wives to be banned from alcohol consumption and undergo regular alcohol testing. • Golshifteh Farahani, a top Iranian actress who recently appeared in Body of Lies was banned from leaving Iran for Hollywood. •

• The "celebrity stock indices" for famous females like Gisele Bundchen and Angelina Jolie outperform the Dow. • According to one Russian woman's English-language wholly unscientific Google search, post-Communist women from Russia and Ukraine all want foreign husbands. • The science behind common food-related aphrodisiacs reveals there is some truth behind the myths. • A baby whale who lost its mother off the coast of Sydney, Australia faces judgment today to asses if it should be put down by the National Parks authorities. • Don't read this account of tortures inflicted on Tennessee walking horses if you have a weak stomach. • The alleged 14-year-old wife of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs has been sent to foster care after a Judge order on Tuesday. • Today in history: Soviet pups made a safe landing after going on a journey in Space in 1960! • No, Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin did not get to meet Michael Phelps. But she will get a parade!

Skin Deep

Dodai — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:20:00 EDT

A man was sentenced to two years in jail for driving his wife to suicide by calling her "black." This was in India, where, as previously reported, fair skin is highly deisired, and where being called dark is "worse than physical torture," according to the court. In the case, Syed Fathima was so distressed after two months of marriage to Farook Batcha (two months of constant fighting, and of him calling her too dark) that she put an end to the marriage — and her life — by pouring kerosene over her head and setting herself on fire. Just a note to the people who don't think it's a big deal when fashion designers refuse to use black models: It's all related, and it's global. [The Times Of India]

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]

Michelle Obama's Darker Shade Of Skin: Whoopi Weighs In

Anna — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:00:00 EST

Imagine my surprise when, during The View's "Hot Topics" segment this morning, moderator Whoopi Goldberg confessed that she was woken up during the night by a "strange thought" regarding Michelle Obama. "It was a thought that had never occurred to me," she began. "Barack Obama is one of the few men that we have seen who is a black man who has a very, very dark-skinned wife. She's very dark-skinned for normally what you see. And I wondered to myself, would he be electable if he had a white wife?" Yeah, not exactly what I said yesterday, but close! Maybe even inspired? Clip — in which hottie Harold Ford also gets a shoutout — above.

Earlier: Michelle Obama Is Not A Lighter Shade Of "Trophy" Wife