The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Campaign against complexion complex

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Sunday, Mar 08, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Campaign against complexion complex

Amritha Alladi

Women of Worth celebrates Women’s Day with the ‘Dark is Beautiful’ theme

“The fair ideal is not one that realistically depicts the Indian image”
Purpose of the contest is to give an outlet to express their frustration

Chennai: “Indian groom, 28, auditor, seeks bride, 20-25, complexion: very fair,” reads the matrimonial ad.

...And there’s much more where that came from.

For the tanner, qualified woman, the future of marriage possibilities seems dark—shades darker than it does for the Indian male, says Kavitha Emmanuel, founder of Women of Worth (WOW), a network of women across Chennai that works to empower them in social, professional, and personal spheres.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, WOW launched a campaign geared at an issue still facing women looking to get married: complexion. The week’s events, which included entertainment by seven all-female bands, a seminar on personality building, and an art contest featuring this year’s theme, ‘Dark is Beautiful,’ came to a close on Saturday.

The message behind all of the events was the same: a woman’s skin colour should not determine her worth.

“There’s a lot of emphasis on how women look rather than what they do,” says Ms.Emmanuel. “God has helped me,” says Joy Christina, her friend. “If He has created me as what He considers beautiful, then who am I to say I’m not?”

Emmanuel says the purpose of the contest was to give people an outlet to express their sadness or frustration regarding discrimination based on skin colour. But she says the fair ideal is not one that realistically depicts the Indian image. Children often get confused when waiting in the beauty parlours with parents because the images of perfect skin and hair–fair skin and blonde hair– reflect the Western look, she says.

It’s the correlation between fairness and success promoted in fairness cream advertisements that her organisation is trying to dispel.

“Why should you be anything other than yourself?” she says.

Meanwhile, Ms.Christina says the standards by which a single woman is measured up for marriage are stricter than those for men, especially with regard to complexion. “Somehow,” she says, “they get away with it.”

Many women agree with her. Abigail Paul, student of the Hebron Boarding School in Ooty, says since childhood, she has witnessed discrimination only against women with dark skin, including herself. Ms.Paul’s artwork, which inspired the campaign, will continue to be on display at the British Council until March 12, along with several paintings, photographs, short stories and poems that were part of the contest.

Columnist Sharanya Manivanan, who co-judged the poetry entries of the contest, noted that, as pleased as she was with the writing, many of the works expressed ‘dark is beautiful too.’ She said through awareness and the spread of this campaign, the message should go further: “We can say, ‘Dark is beautiful.’”

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