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Inferiority complex and obsession of Punjabis with fair skin
It is she who smiles back at us from advertisements as she sells frozen chicken or from billboards as she recommends antiseptic soap. The fair woman is who Pakistani men want to marry, who Pakistani women want to look like; she dominates fantasy and fable. All Pakistani fairytales, one can safely assert, require that the heroine be snow white.
The quest to become fair is not just the stuff of imaginings, for where there is desire there is also commercial opportunity.
The skin-whitening industry, catering to the yearnings of women who wish to be fair, has in recent years gone from the hopeful peddling of ‘Fair and Lovely’ to potions, creams and treatments of increasing potency and questionable toxicity. The price is paid willingly by consumers all over the country for everyone, from the girl in the slum to the begum, wants to get the job done.
The disasters happening everywhere, from corner beauty parlours to high-end spas, go unmentioned and risks are routinely ignored.
According to specialists at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the hunger to get fairer faster and for longer has resulted in women burning their skin from noxious acid peels and even suffering life-threatening side effects from steroidal creams.
Lesser remedies have their own burdens, containing large amounts of ammonia and hydrogen peroxide that can cause irritation, redness and skin ulcers while promising to deliver ‘freshness’ and ‘fairness’.
These dark facts, of course, are the concerns of the weak-willed, those not willing to commit completely to the attainment of beauty — which seems to be the same thing as having white skin.
Like sturdy weeds, the roots of the fever for fairness run deep in the soil of our post-colonial Pakistani psyche. The fair bride and the light-skinned model are in this sense manifestations of unmet longings and beliefs cherished over centuries.
White skin, many claim, means a connection to an Aryan heritage, a direct relation to the conquering hordes who came thousands of years ago. It also means distance from the native Dravidian race — the small, dark people who inhabited the subcontinent and toiled for centuries along its rivers and mountains.
It is she who smiles back at us from advertisements as she sells frozen chicken or from billboards as she recommends antiseptic soap. The fair woman is who Pakistani men want to marry, who Pakistani women want to look like; she dominates fantasy and fable. All Pakistani fairytales, one can safely assert, require that the heroine be snow white.
The quest to become fair is not just the stuff of imaginings, for where there is desire there is also commercial opportunity.
The skin-whitening industry, catering to the yearnings of women who wish to be fair, has in recent years gone from the hopeful peddling of ‘Fair and Lovely’ to potions, creams and treatments of increasing potency and questionable toxicity. The price is paid willingly by consumers all over the country for everyone, from the girl in the slum to the begum, wants to get the job done.
The disasters happening everywhere, from corner beauty parlours to high-end spas, go unmentioned and risks are routinely ignored.
According to specialists at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the hunger to get fairer faster and for longer has resulted in women burning their skin from noxious acid peels and even suffering life-threatening side effects from steroidal creams.
Lesser remedies have their own burdens, containing large amounts of ammonia and hydrogen peroxide that can cause irritation, redness and skin ulcers while promising to deliver ‘freshness’ and ‘fairness’.
These dark facts, of course, are the concerns of the weak-willed, those not willing to commit completely to the attainment of beauty — which seems to be the same thing as having white skin.
Like sturdy weeds, the roots of the fever for fairness run deep in the soil of our post-colonial Pakistani psyche. The fair bride and the light-skinned model are in this sense manifestations of unmet longings and beliefs cherished over centuries.
White skin, many claim, means a connection to an Aryan heritage, a direct relation to the conquering hordes who came thousands of years ago. It also means distance from the native Dravidian race — the small, dark people who inhabited the subcontinent and toiled for centuries along its rivers and mountains.
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