Ivory Coast
Via BBC’s excellent slideshow highlighting “Natural African Beauty,” one beauty pageant in Côte d’Ivoire strikes back against the dangerous processing of skin bleaching and its underlying doctrine: that only Caucasian is beautiful.
A song was commissioned for the competition: “African women, don’t lighten your skin. It’s a gift from God.”
South Korea
Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s second most widely read newspaper, covered the story of the first trans contestant in S.K.’s Top Model equivalent. Not only did Chosun used female pronouns in the story, but the network airing the show, Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) said this:
"If we disqualify a person who is recognized by the state as woman on the grounds that she is a transgender individual, we would view that as a violation of human rights."
China
On June 16 in China, a waitress was freed from jail after killing a Communist Party official who “demanded sex” and battered her. Found guilty of excessive force but not manslaughter, the court found she acted in self-defense and released her. China fired two of the man’s coworkers, and its state-sponsored news agency openly admitted it was a “sexual assault.”
This may not seem like good news. China has a poor history of prosecuting and reporting rape- six bloggers in Fujian province were jailed in 2008 for defamation after reporting a death from rape. But the 25% of China’s population that has internet access- lawyers, women’s groups, academics, and citizens- flooded blogs and state-sponsored forums in her defense, influencing the court’s decision. This was a victory not only in precedent, but in public opinion.
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On the Ivory Coast pageant: it poses an interesting intersection. Beauty pageants have long been a symbol of sexism in action and, ultimately, these women are still being judged on their appearance. Yet celebrating natural, unbleached skin color is a very powerful and positive act. Personally, I think the pageant is brilliant. If someone is looking for a good topic for a gender studies class, this story is ripe with analytical opportunities.
Another detail I noticed in the BBC coverage was that the pageant admins didn't draw a line somewhere on the skin color spectrum: "Only women with natural, untreated skin - confirmed by skin experts - can enter the competition which goes by the name, Miss Authentica." This makes sense, especially since someone whose skin is very dark naturally could bleach and still end up with darker skin than someone else whose skin happens to be lighter.
BTW, did this remind anyone else of other pageants for people outside conventional norms of female beauty? The one that came to my mind was the Miss Landmine pageant in Angola (see http://www.miss-landmine.org/ ).
Yay for natural skin and trans-inclusive TV shows!
Boo for China's continued lack of respect for women and human rights in general. :-(
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Re the African pageant: I am really glad this is going on. What also made me glad is that a lot of the women in the pageant seem to have natural hair. Some of them seem to straighten or relax or whatever, but enough are natural to make me smile.
Re trans acceptance in South Korea: To me, models are caricatures of what society considers to be sexy in women, as in overly tall, overly thin, with overly prominent cheekbones. Individuals are free to make their own choices, and transpeople ought to be accepted by society no matter what, but I don't know if having a trans individual play that caricature is necessarily the best way to improve the way society as a whole perceives them.