Hudfärgsföreställningar i Indien - en barriär för kvinnor : Hur colorism påverkar en redan marginaliserad grupp i ett patriarkalt samhälle
(2010) MRSK30 20101Centre for Theology and Religious Studies
Human Rights Studies
- Abstract
- In 2003, partly due to intense protests from the All Indian Democratic Women’s Association, the Indian state prohibited a commercial for skin lightening cream from continuing being aired on Indian television. The commercial indirectly suggests that a girl can neither get a well paid job, nor a husband to provide for her, due to her dark skin tone. Ashok Venkatramani, spokesman for the company producing the cream, insists that taking offense of the product is a ”very western way of looking at the world”, and that the Asian definition of beauty ”is all about being two shades lighter”.
The overall aim of this paper is to identify how colorism is expressed in the Indian community and how it affects women by answering the question of which... (More) - In 2003, partly due to intense protests from the All Indian Democratic Women’s Association, the Indian state prohibited a commercial for skin lightening cream from continuing being aired on Indian television. The commercial indirectly suggests that a girl can neither get a well paid job, nor a husband to provide for her, due to her dark skin tone. Ashok Venkatramani, spokesman for the company producing the cream, insists that taking offense of the product is a ”very western way of looking at the world”, and that the Asian definition of beauty ”is all about being two shades lighter”.
The overall aim of this paper is to identify how colorism is expressed in the Indian community and how it affects women by answering the question of which values and beliefs are connected to skin tone in India and how these are rooted in the cultural context and social structure. By doing this, Venkatramanis statement is also being questioned. My study suggests that colorism and the patriarchal Indian society are interacting in numerous ways. In postcolonial media where colorism is visible, women are repeatedly depicted as instruments for other's purposes rather than an end in herself in accordance with Martha C. Nussbaums theory on universal values. In all media contexts referred to in this study, light skin color is associated with happiness, beauty, and male recognition, while dark skin color consistently is associated with the opposite. It is also suggested that due to colorism and suppression of women as universal rather than cultural or geographically bound phenomenas, Venkatramanis argument is invalid. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1653473
- author
- Fahd, Isabelle LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MRSK30 20101
- year
- 2010
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- universal values, skin tone, kvinnor, universella värden, Hindustan Unilever Limited, hudfärgsnyans, Fair & Lovely, skin lightening products, colorism, India, women, hudblekningsprodukter, hudfärgsdiskriminering, Indien
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 1653473
- date added to LUP
- 2010-09-24 16:24:05
- date last changed
- 2014-09-04 08:27:54
@misc{1653473,
abstract = {{In 2003, partly due to intense protests from the All Indian Democratic Women’s Association, the Indian state prohibited a commercial for skin lightening cream from continuing being aired on Indian television. The commercial indirectly suggests that a girl can neither get a well paid job, nor a husband to provide for her, due to her dark skin tone. Ashok Venkatramani, spokesman for the company producing the cream, insists that taking offense of the product is a ”very western way of looking at the world”, and that the Asian definition of beauty ”is all about being two shades lighter”.
The overall aim of this paper is to identify how colorism is expressed in the Indian community and how it affects women by answering the question of which values and beliefs are connected to skin tone in India and how these are rooted in the cultural context and social structure. By doing this, Venkatramanis statement is also being questioned. My study suggests that colorism and the patriarchal Indian society are interacting in numerous ways. In postcolonial media where colorism is visible, women are repeatedly depicted as instruments for other's purposes rather than an end in herself in accordance with Martha C. Nussbaums theory on universal values. In all media contexts referred to in this study, light skin color is associated with happiness, beauty, and male recognition, while dark skin color consistently is associated with the opposite. It is also suggested that due to colorism and suppression of women as universal rather than cultural or geographically bound phenomenas, Venkatramanis argument is invalid.}},
author = {{Fahd, Isabelle}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Hudfärgsföreställningar i Indien - en barriär för kvinnor : Hur colorism påverkar en redan marginaliserad grupp i ett patriarkalt samhälle}},
year = {{2010}},
}