This is not FAIR!

I am getting a sick feeling watching all these ABC whitening cream, XYZ whitening soap, …and now so many international brands claiming to bring out fairness with their improved formulae of fairness face wash, in this region if not anywhere else in the world. Oh please enough is enough. This is twenty first century and the world has gone much beyond skin color. Why on earth are we sticking to it? In one of the advertisements it implies if you use this fairness cream only then you will find a prince charming. In another it narrates as if all women want is fairness. Do all girls only dream to get married as soon as possible? and after using the whitening cream, soap or facewash the next thing that happens is “Baraat”. By the way even in the advertisements of household electronics or anything else all married women are always fair skinned. Thanks! But no thanks!

We live in Pakistan and we are always after the slogans of nationalism, patriotism, etc. We love to say we don’t want to be influenced by foreign culture. We claim our own culture is rich enough.  We never hesitate saying we got independence from British Colonialism and this has proved to the world that we do not accept any kind of slavery. But I am sorry to acknowledge this white skin craze is a result of colonized mindset. Looking down to our own skin color to me is something like looking down to my own identity. This skin color phenomena particularly among women has created a ridiculous hierarchy of beauty- a hierarchy that places the white skin at the top and dark at the bottom. A hierarchy that makes girls feel superior/inferior on the bases of something that is not even achieved or earned, something that is totally granted to them by nature and is not even permanent. I am sorry but please stop objectifying me in one way or the other.

On the other day a brother of two sisters was sitting in my office talking to me about how tough it is becoming now days for families of tradition to find suitable boys for their girls. He has tears in his eyes when he said my sisters are highly qualified, they are working and they are pious. Then at once he said “madam why didn’t you get married”… I could not think of another answer and I wanted to make him feel little better so I simply said “I didn’t get to know about the fairness creams and soaps in time”. Later on I thought this is not merely a joke rather there lies a truth somewhere in this statement. I agree this is not always the reason of girls being rejected for a marriage proposal, but believe me this is the top most reason in many cases around us.

We all keep telling our kids on the bases of religious, moral, ethical and all values that color does not matter. All the people around the world are equal and the only thing that makes one superior than other is good deeds and piousness (that also is subjectively defined by many of us but that’s beside the point). Coming back to the concept of equality, why can’t we simply let people live with at least this confidence that no matter how they look, they will get what they deserve? It is one of the basic ideas of human rights. No cast, religion, gender, race, ethnicity or color can redefine our right to live. If we keep strengthening such narratives as “…cream laganey se pehley mein thi yahan aur  ab hoon yahan”; “…whitening soap lagao aur chha jao” through our electronic and other media resources, and if we do not campaign to stop it believe me it will strengthen the warfare of “fairness”. I wish we had some formula in market to bring fairness to our life and to our behaviors instead of our skin.