Subliminal conditioning over decades has led us to believe that beauty has to be associated with fairness and thinness. Even though the biggest fairness cream brand in India is removing ‘fair’ from its title, this is not even close to solving the problem. Society still stands by this biased belief, no matter what kind of person you are but why wouldn’t we think so? History proves that we have been dominated by fairer races since forever but what we forget is that this happened not because of our melanin content but because of our lack of unity. Even actresses and actors have to go through the same dilemma and are only given mainstream roles once they fit into this beauty standard. While celebrities openly support the BLM movement, they themselves earn lakhs of rupees by representing fairness cream brands. These products sell not because they are effective but because we are conditioned to believe that changing our skin colour will make us fit into society. Due to society’s extreme emphasis on being thin, eating disorders are becoming so common that India has the second highest rate of eating disorders in the world and almost 26% of Indian teenager girls have eating disorders. This proves that it is not about our health but about our superficial looks and “fitting into” society. Our country still believes in the outdated concept of beauty and we don’t seem to realize how important it is to get over superficial beauty and look into personality instead. Changing your body to satisfy someone else’s checklist is never and will never be ok. Instead of tearing each other down we need to support each other and spread love.
~Serena Sabharwal
(Batch of 2020-21)
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