Black Women Ignore Many of Media’s Beauty Ideals

Trula — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 01:50:00 +0000

Women’s eNews:
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FEATURE: Culture
Black Women Ignore Many of Media’s Beauty Ideals
By Dakota Smith – WeNews correspondent

Black women are less vulnerable than white women to reacting negatively if they don’t match the beauty ideals pervading prime-time television shows and magazines, according to two studies.

Full Story: http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=1865
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Well, I am black:

I agree with this a little but I agree more with what Janette Robinson-Flint had to say…I do think that the study ignored or undervalued? (I’m not sure of the word I mean) that for black women, self-hatred may be manifested in a different way than it is for white women. While your average black woman may not be ashamed of her body or feel disgusted with heself because she is not thin, the average black woman in America refuses to wear her hair in it’s natural state…I know black women who have never, ever had their hair in it’s natural state (since they were toddlers), who wouldn’t even think of it. Who have no idea! How to take care of their hair. (Note: I realize that some black women have great self-esteem and love being black who still straighten their hair.) Colorism is also rampant in the black community, many black women have a strong desire to be lighter and a preference for having lighter partners and light-skinned children. I have multi-racial children and one of my kids is very light, so people tend to assume I am like this and so feel free to say the wackiest things to me, like it’s nice to have light children instead of real black children and they have good hair and dumb stuff like that.

From the article:
“There just isn’t a black standard of beauty to live up to,” she says. “We celebrate our uniqueness, whether it’s different skin hues, or different hair. Unlike mainstream culture, there is no one standard that is going to make us feel inferior.”

That is totally untrue. You don’t have to do a study to know this is not the case, you just have to be a member of the black community. I do agree that there seems to be more freedom to wear our hair natural and less pressure to ‘lighten up’ our families, I disagree that there is no standard to make people feel inferior or superior. Black people still come up to me and tell me I’m brave! for wearing my hair in dreadlocks, still tell my daughter she’s brave for wearing her hair in afro puffs. Isn’t that wacky? The products to straighten hair for black people sell billions of dollars every year in this country.

From the article:
And when blacks watch television, “there’s not a yearning on the part of the audience to look like any other culture,” she adds.

I also disagree with this…in addition to hair straighteners, skin bleach is still selling well to black consumers, as well as green and blue contacts. I think there is a big segment of the black community that does want to look anything but black, that has serious issues related to not looking like what is deemed attractive in this culture.

For myself and I suspect many other black women, we don’t feel bad looking at thin women because we have heard positive affirmations about our bodies all our lives, from all types of men and from other women. We also have mothers and other female family members who showed little or no dismay at their bodies. I can recall going over to white friends’ houses as a kid and teenager and their mothers were always on diets, always moaning about being too fat. My mom didn’t seem to care, when she wanted to lose weight for health reasons she took up walking and cut down on over-eating; she never made her weight the focus of her life.

I don’t know why or how any white woman really believes that a big butt is a bad thing, every man I’ve ever dated has been very enthusiastic and wowed by my bum. Also, no matter what my weight most of my fat is in my butt and thighs. Even when I was very thin I had a round butt, thick legs. I’m also very muscular in those areas. That’s my body shape, it’s never going to change. And why would I want it to? I have a fantastic body. Even when I was 195 pounds I still got whistled at and hit on all the time. There’s no way I’m going to let a magazine make me feel bad when people tell me I’m fine all the time.

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Black Women Ignore Many of Media’s Beauty Ideals