The Obsession For Whiteness

What is the price of wanting to achieve white skin?

Filipinos have generally tanned skin, or “moreno/morena”, as we call it. While other nations spend so much money on getting their skin tanned, Filipinos, on the other hand, stock their shelves with various whitening products from soap to lotion to creams and to powders, among others.

It has been said that the media is to blame for this obsession. Advertisements, more often than not, promote the thinking that whiter and fairer is more beautiful. In fact, most advertisers use fair-skinned models to endorse their products. Some also say that this craze is due to colonial mentality. Having been colonized by the Spaniards and Americans during the early years, it was the “mestiza” madness that was ingrained in to our consciousness.

Some studies show that one out of two Filipinas use skin whitening products, and remains to be a growing market as advertisements promoting it are scattered from television to radio to billboard and even on the internet. While women are the usual target market of these products, there is now also a wide variety of skin whitening lines available for men, which has a growing market now.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to achieve a whiter complexion. However, consumers should still be wary and cautious of choosing which products to use. Just recently, there have been whitening products that have been pulled out of the market because of its high mercury content.  Those who use skin whitening products in large doses, hoping to become white the shortest time possible, tend to attain more harm than positive results.

Here is an excerpt from www.lailustrada.blogspot.com, a blog whose writer is a Filipina, tackled the  Filipinos’ obsession with white skin:

“Most of the indigenous Filipino have brown skin color, which anthropologically speaking is logical given our geographical position which is near the equator, thus having darker skin is safer and healthier despite long sun exposure. Having more melanin and in turn having a darker skin color is specifically protective against skin cancer. So in spite of this, where does this desire of having whiter skin comes from? Why do Filipinos believe that white is beautiful, and on the contrary, that dark skin is undesirable? Why do we have this absurd complex of wishing to be something we are not? For one, having a whiter skin is associated with wealth and higher education. Those who belong to the lower classes, such as farmers, laborers and fishermen, work under the sun and have darker complexion. In a way having a whiter skin gives others a perception that a person is “sosyal”, and in turn upgrades one’s socio-economic class that others perceive that person belongs to. It is a reflection of the importance that people place on social status, and a feeling or sense of inferiority. Those with darken skin are highly subject to teasing and prejudice, just like those who have other physical features similar to that of indigenous peoples such as the Negrito and Aeta, with mentality that peoples of these groups are inferior. This skin-whitening craze could not be considered as only a fad, and also has historical roots that go with it. On top of this status obsession even before the colonial times of which socio-economic classes are being associated with certain physical features, a colonial mentality has developed in the brains of Filipinos, i.e., associating being mestizo with a higher class in society, and being white is close to being American which is considered as superior.”