Fairly Alarming

The obsession with 'fair' skin continues in India. I have also witnessed this in the Arabian Gulf countries and much of Asia. In Japan where many women when driving wear gloves should their hands become dark from the sun streaming through the windscreen. More recently I saw this questionable practice in the pursuit of vanity in Cambodia where women bleach their skin and in a couple of terrible cases where it went horribly wrong, it cost them their life.

In India the products for whitening skin usually have women as their target market. Stories of fair maidens in a country of (different shades of) brown people abound and matrimonial ads when seeking suitable grooms highlight fair skin along with the family's caste straight after the potential bride's education and qualifications showing the significance of this in the hierarchy of qualities considered desirable.

Now the fair skin products makers have set their sights on men.

This advertisement is on the bottom half of the front page of one of the major daily Indian newspapers.

In my journalism studies, we were taught that this section of a broadsheet newspaper is the second most important of the lead stories of the day.

It's alarming to think that in a country where so many starve; children under the age of 5 are the most malnourished in the world, there exists a parallel universe where any, let alone this level of importance is given to having white skin.

The world is certainly not fair.