Saturday, October 3, 2009

Some vaguely feminist ramblings AND Olay say (Don't) Love the Skin You're In


1. The current craft obsession. Recently, I've thought about attempting dress-making. Though anything I make will probably resemble an Oxfam reject, it seems a sensible economic measure given that I like dresses and the dresses I like are pretty basic. Aside from that, my most crafty interest in baking. I've had a passing thing for cross-stitch (album covers, never gonna happen) and a more than passing thing with fanzines.

Given my interests, I've noticed the huge number of craft events kicking about. Frankly, they look terrifying. I was recently disturbed by seeing some pictures of a craft evening sent to me where fully-grown adult women were sitting around stitching sock monkeys. It reminded me of the art events organised by the Crisis shelter I worked at last Christmas - except these were on the whole (I imagine) non-traumatised adults who set up/took part in the sock monkey evening.

Perhaps I am inordinately angry, and as someone who quite often relaxes with a game of Zombie Hooker Nightmare, I have no right to question the feminist credentials of craft and sock monkeys. But I will anyway. The whole craft movement, especially when it is couched in feminist rhetoric seems to be another way of placing more pressure on women to be A CERTAIN WAY. However, the things we are expected to be good at now aren't particularly important in the course of life. Will baking a cake really improve my earning abilities? Will stitching a piece of aida fabric with 'FUCK YOU' help me understand global warming? I wanted to join the Shoreditch Sisters WI, but only one of the several meetings they emailed me about involved actually discussing feminist concerns. I'd honestly rather get the chance to discuss and learn about current issues than faff around for an hour making a piece of jewellery which I wouldn't even pay for if someone else made it.

Okay, I know that feminists have been reclaiming embroidery, knitting etc for several years and it's been a trope used by female poets (Don't put up my Thread and Needle --I'll begin to Sew--When the Birds begin to whistle --Better Stitches -- so --....) but I think NOW, in 2009, it seems slightly regressive to celebrate it for its feminist credentials.

2. Body image in India

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Reading a lot about the latest goings-on in Bollywood, I feel fully qualified to make very broad and uninformed statements on the relationship between Western images of beauty and the body images of young women in India. I 'wrote' something about Katrina Kaif promoting a skin-whitening range of Olay products called White Radiance (that's exactly what I wrote, no more, no less, such a creative job). The Indian newspaper article that I sourced the story from was completely uncritical of Kaif. For some reason, though it shouldn't make a difference, I find it slightly appalling that Kaif grew up in England and is publicising these products abroad, when she would absolutely refuse to be associated with them over here.

I don't know what the campaign will be like, but I found this Pond's White Beauty advert from last year. It centres on how Priyanka Chopra (hot news in Bollywood) decides to change her skin colour to get the attentions of a fairly averagely brown dude played by Saif Ali Khan. Though skin whitening products are bought by a fair percentage of men in India, the onus here is on the 'darker' woman to change. Beauty, skin colour, attractiveness, and relationship prospects are pretty inextricably linked. Having a quick look on the internet has led me to sites like this and this. What they seem to have in common is a real emphasis on how SAFE their products are, as though making it possible to rationalise using something to change your very skin colour. Some might argue, why not? How different is it from experimenting with other looks? But when there's such a clear cultural preference for paler skin, and far more positive connotations of 'pale/wheatish' etc, then I'm not sure that it can be an issue of neutral personal choice.

From my personal experience, I know skin tone is fairly important to some South Asian people. On the Shaadi dot com marriage website, they give you several options with which to describe skin ('wheatish', 'fair', blah blah). I have an aunt that didn't get married for several years ostensibly because she was dark-skinned (though she was a complete weirdo as well).

I don't really know where this cultural hangover comes from - initially I assumed it was a throwback to attitudes that also existed over here during Victorian times. Dark skin was associated with manual outdoors labour. Pale skin was a sign of refinement, and being at leisure. I guess that these reasons could still persist in countries where inequalities are far more marked and fateful than over here in England. An article in the Independent last year (on which I saw the video last year) quoted an Indian professor who believes the obsession with lighter skin stems from a history of colonisation, which entrenched the idea that Aryan people are superior to the indigenous Dravidian people.

The weirdest thing about this video is that Chopra is considered 'dusky' when she's actually probably lighter than average. Such fine gradations in skin tone. I also see that Pond's is a Unilever product (Some comment, Youtube, 2008) - puts a different slant on the Dove compaign for 'real women' then.

2a. The size zero range by Kareena Kapoor

Okay, she's a massive twat, so I'm not sure this is even worth ranting about. But apparently, she's launching a range of clothing based on how popular she and her size zero measurements are with young Indian women. Given that only she and one designer are quoted in the article, it's probably not indicative of en masse eating disorders. It's just the lack of criticism in the source article that bothered me, and the unquestioned belief that there can be an ideal body type (in this instance, skinny, no tits even though the person who suggests this is also paradoxically aware that body shapes go out of fashion too - from the original article: 'Sridevi was famed for her thunder thighs').