Julia Roberts playing a famous actor in the film Notting Hill, confesses in a scene that she had to almost starve all her life to conform to the numbers that constitute the beauty standards of the film industry; the numbers that make up the size of her bust, hips and waistline. She spoke up for all the film stars including herself and all other men and women who have to live by the unwritten numbers on the sizes of the different parts of the body, in a passive submission to the culture of their profession.
An Indigenous Australian writer and former model Sasha Sarago gave a Ted talk where she spoke on how beauty has been colonised over the centuries. Indians, who earned their independence from British rule little more than seventy years ago, however cannot ignore the reality that the discrimination by skin colour
is weaved deep into the socio-economic fabric of the society since very long. While for the aboriginals, whose identity was and still is in peril due to their systematic exclusion from positions of power, wealth, clout, etc, for many of us, the politics of skin colour is a reality we have to encounter regularly.
The society has brutally tried to establish supremacy for those whose skin colour is fairer. There are proverbs in support of that perhaps in all languages. In Bengali, we have heard “ সর্ব দোষ হরে গোরা” meaning “ If you are fair, your faults can be overlooked. In Hindi we have this proverb “ পহলে দর্শনধারী পিছে গুণবিচারী”..which means man is judged by his looks first and then by his virtues.
While time will eat away at the beauty, vitality and strength from a body, the unnecessary stress on its short -lived stay with humans often proves to be dangerous to their mental well-being.
Health matters and so does fitness. A fit body is expected to be more healthy.
But to judge a person by the skin-colour, sizes of body parts, height, weight is not only wrong, it can be dangerous for it leads to irreversible effects on the mental health. Anorexia nervosa, Bilumia nervosa are serious eating disorders which have roots in one’s insecurities with their body image.
In an environment not conducive for children to grow right mentally, there are brutal comments, behaviour, comparisons with other people on things external. Parents, careless of the psychological well-being of their wards often comment on their being too fat, thin, dark etc.
It is not uncommon for children to grow up so unsure of their looks, that their insecurities
get reflected in their relationships and also in their work place.
Not unusual either to read news of children committing suicide being victims of body shaming by their peers.
How do we cope with this insensitivity hurled at us by family, friends, peers and society at large?
‘Acceptance’can be a key word in this matter.
Accepting our own selves for however we look can be the first step towards the turn around with the feeling of doom. If we are comfortable in our skins , we go a long way to be dismissive of uncalled for criticisms. Confidence is what we need to wear. Also the belief in the thought that we are not our looks, be it good or bad, can be helpful too. Confidence like any good virtue has a ripple effect in the society. One can inspire others in having it.
For this , the role of the family and society cannot be disregarded. Each member needs to know and believe that sizes and colour do not make a man or a woman. It is mostly what lies within the skull, those grey cells that determine how the person would be. And if we must separate beauty from the brains let us always remember while beauty will be of some use for few days in this life, waning off with time; the brains will serve us till the end. Honing it with proper knowledge will make it a powerful tool for us to navigate through this tough world.
The relentless propaganda of the media of all things flimsy is another deterrent to healthy understanding of our body. Body shaming is much of their creation with advertisements of fairness creams going on in rampant to make this point that fair is better. The stress should only be on good health and the media cannot shirk off its responsibility regarding shaping people’s opinions on this.
Though it is not an easy thought to rest upon but we can ruminate on this line written by the thirteenth century poet Rumi, “ Everything that is fair and lovely and a thing of beauty is made for the eyes who see it.” We probably need to improve upon the art of seeing deep inside the person’s mind in order to know beauty in its true form.
Our books on spirituality have tried to run home the theory for us that we are not our bodies. Maybe in the healthy dissociation between our real selves and our bodies , lies the wisdom or the coping strategy to body politics.
This article first appeared on DifferentTruths.com on August 4th 2021
https://www.differenttruths.com/relationship-lifestyle/health/mental-health-and-the-politics-of-skin-colour/
