Editing Eurocentrism (section)

== Beauty standards and the cosmetic industry==
[[File:Amalie von Schintling.jpg|thumb|220px|Amalie von Schintling in a painting for the ''[[Gallery of Beauties]]'' in 1826.]]
Due to colonialism, Eurocentric beauty ideals have had varying degrees of impact on the cultures of non-Western countries. The influence on beauty ideals across the globe varies by region, with Eurocentric ideals having a relatively strong impact in South Asia but little to no impact in East Asia.<ref>{{cite book|title=Across the Spectrum of Socioeconomics: Issue II |date=28 December 2020 |publisher=International Socioeconomics Laboratory |page=33 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pkEREAAAQBAJ&dq=european+beauty+standard+asia&pg=PA33}}</ref> However, Eurocentric beauty ideals have also been on the decline in the United States, especially with the success of Asian female models, which may be signaling a breakdown in the hegemony of White American beauty ideals.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hune |first1=Shirley |last2=Nomura |first2=Gail M. |title=Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: A Historical Anthology |date=August 2003 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-0-8147-3633-3 |page=201 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XD1BR4NppWcC&dq=european+beauty+standard+asia&pg=PA201}} "The dawning of the new millennium may signal a shift in the cultural importance of racialized gendered bodies. On October 14, 2000, a  Filipina American, Miss Hawaii Angela Perez Baraquio, was crowned Miss America for 2001. A few years earlier another Miss Hawaii, a mixed-race part-Asian American woman named Brook Antoinette Mahealani Lee, won not only the Miss USA competition but the title of 1997 Miss Universe. Such victories do not necessarily mean full acceptance for Asian Americans into the American body politic. However they do signal a breakdown in the hegemony of European-American cultural standards of beauty."</ref> In Vietnam, Eurocentric beauty ideals have been openly rejected, as local women consider Western women's ideal of beauty as being overweight, masculine and unattractive.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Drury |first1=Benjamin |title=SAGE Readings for Social Problems |date=2 February 2021 |publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=978-1-0718-4163-1 |page=58 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZBYZEAAAQBAJ&dq=european+beauty+standard+asia&pg=PA58}} "In fact, the women made it very clear to me that they considered Western and ''Viet Kieu'' (overseas Vietnamese) women's ideals of beauty unattractive, overweight and masculine." "Dai describes a regional standard of beauty that is much more nuanced than a simple aspiration to Western ideals. Indeed, the tone of Dai's comments illustrates how sex workers use distinctly Asian standards of beauty to resist the ideals of the West. Women's deliberate rejection of Western standards illustrates how local, regional, and global ideals converge in their practices."</ref>

Another study questioning the impact of Eurocentric beauty ideals in South Asia noted that Indian women won a relatively high number of international beauty pageants, and that Indian media tends to use mostly Indian female models. The authors cite the dominance of the [[Bollywood]] film industry in India, which tends to minimize the impact of Western ideals.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Li |first1=Eric P. H. |last2=Min |first2=Hyun Jeong |last3=Belk |first3=Russell W. |title=Skin Lightening and Beauty in Four Asian Cultures |publisher=Association for Consumer Research|location=Duluth, Minnesota|journal=Advances in Consumer Research|issn=0098-9258|date=2008 |volume=35|pages=444–449|url=http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/13415/volumes/v35/NA-35 |access-date=28 July 2018 |archive-date=30 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190530123905/http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/13415/volumes/v35/NA-35 |url-status=dead }} "One reason for this may be the recent globalization of Indian beauty as affirmed by a number of Indian winners of such global beauty contests as Miss World and Miss Universe. From 1990–2006 Indian models won 11 of these titles. The dominance of Bollywood film in India also diminishes the impact of Hollywood ideologies in Indian culture. Indian celebrities appear to be the dominant body ideals for Indian women."</ref>

=== Clark doll experiment ===
{{main|Kenneth and Mamie Clark#Doll experiments}}
In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted experiments called "the doll tests" to examine the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children. They tested children by presenting them with four dolls, identical in all but skin tone. The children were instructed to choose which doll they preferred and were asked the race of the doll. Most of the children chose the white doll. The Clarks stated in their results that the perceptions of the African-American children had been altered by the discrimination they faced.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.naacpldf.org/brown-at-60-the-doll-test|title=Brown at 60: The Doll Test {{!}} NAACP LDF|website=naacpldf.org|access-date=2018-07-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180913054647/http://www.naacpldf.org/brown-at-60-the-doll-test|archive-date=13 September 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref> The tested children also labelled the white dolls with positive descriptions.

=== Mexican doll experiment ===
In 2012, Mexicans recreated the doll test. Mexico's [[National Council to Prevent Discrimination]] presented a video where children had to pick the "good doll", and the doll that looks like them. By doing this experiment, the researchers sought to analyse the degree to which Mexican children are influenced by modern-day media accessible to them.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://thegrio.com/2012/01/06/mexicans-recreate-black-doll-white-doll-experiment-to-measure-skin-color-preference-south-of-the-bor/|title=Mexicans recreate 'black doll-white doll' experiment to measure skin color preference south of the border – theGrio|date=2012-01-06|work=theGrio|access-date=2018-07-28}}</ref> Most of the children chose the white doll; they also stated that it looked like them. The people who carried out the study noted that Eurocentrism is deeply rooted in different cultures, including Latin cultures.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://rollingout.com/2012/01/03/mexicans-recreate-black-doll-white-doll-experiment-to-measure-skin-color-preference-south-of-the-border/|title=Mexicans Recreate 'Black Doll-White Doll' Experiment to Measure Skin Color Preference South of the Border|website=rollingout.com|date=3 January 2012|access-date=2018-07-28}}</ref>

=== Skin lightening ===
[[Skin whitening|Skin lightening]] has become a common practice in some countries. A 2011 study found that, in [[Tanzania]], motivation for the use of skin lightening products is to look more 'European'.<ref name="Lewis2011">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1177/0361684310392356| issn = 0361-6843| volume = 35| issue = 1| pages = 29–37| last1 = Lewis| first1 = Kelly M.| last2 = Robkin| first2 = Navit| last3 = Gaska| first3 = Karie| last4 = Njoki| first4 = Lillian Carol| title = Investigating Motivations for Women's Skin Bleaching in Tanzania|journal=[[Psychology of Women Quarterly]]| date = 2011-03-01| s2cid = 71613149}}</ref> However, in East Asia, the practice began long before exposure to Europeans – tan skin was associated with lower-class field work, and thus constant exposure to sun, while having pale skin signified belonging to the upper-class.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-02-14|title=Why Do East Asians Want Pale Skin? It Has Nothing to Do with Western Beauty Standards|url=https://nextshark.com/east-asian-pale-skin-beauty-standard/|access-date=2021-04-19|website=NextShark}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Yeung|first=Evelyn|date=2021-04-19|title=White and Beautiful: An Examination of Skin Whitening Practices and Female Empowerment in China|url=https://onourterms.barnard.edu/article/white-and-beautiful?article=white-and-beautiful&post_type=article&name=white-and-beautiful|journal=On Our Terms|volume=3|issue=2015|doi=10.7916/D82N51DW}}{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Skin bleaching can have negative health effects.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Olumide |first1=Yetunde M. |last2=Akinkugbe |first2=Ayesha O. |last3=Altraide |first3=Dan |last4=Mohammed |first4=Tahir |last5=Ahamefule |first5=Ngozi |last6=Ayanlowo |first6=Shola |last7=Onyekonwu |first7=Chinwe |last8=Essen |first8=Nyomudim |title=Complications of chronic use of skin lightening cosmetics |journal=[[International Journal of Dermatology]]|date=April 2008 |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=344–353 |doi=10.1111/j.1365-4632.2008.02719.x |pmid=18377596 |s2cid=8159382 }}</ref> One study observed that, among the female population of [[Senegal]] in West Africa, 26% of women were using skin lightening creams at the time. The most common products used were hydroquinone and corticosteroids. 75% of women who used these creams showed adverse cutaneous effects, mainly [[acne]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=del Giudice |first1=Pascal |last2=Yves |first2=Pinier |title=The widespread use of skin lightening creams in Senegal: a persistent public health problem in West Africa |journal=[[International Journal of Dermatology]]|date=February 2002 |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=69–72 |doi=10.1046/j.1365-4362.2002.01335.x |pmid=11982639 |s2cid=37891827 }}</ref>

===East Asia===
In East Asia, the impact of Eurocentrism in beauty advertisements has been minimal. Anti-European undercurrents in local advertisements for female-oriented products are quite common. European models are hired for around half of advertisements made by European brands such as [[The Estée Lauder Companies|Estée Lauder]] and [[L'Oréal]], while local Japanese cosmetics brands tend to use exclusively East Asian female models.{{sfn|Li|Min|Belk|2008}}

In Singapore, a country with a large population of [[Chinese people]]. European women are ranked below Chinese women in the female beauty hierarchy. According to the author, the blonde hair of Swedish women reduced their femininity, because it was racialized as a Western trait. The authors also noted that these women's Swedish husbands were highly attracted to local East Asian women, which further reduced the self-esteem of the blonde Swedish women living in Singapore.<ref>{{cite book | last=Lundström | first=C. | title=White Migrations: Gender, Whiteness and Privilege in Transnational Migration | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK | series=Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship | year=2014 | isbn=978-1-137-28919-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MHGEAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT112}}</ref>

The use of European female models has actually declined within Japan, and some Japanese skincare companies have discontinued the use of Western female models entirely, while others have even portrayed white women as explicitly inferior to Asian women, on the basis of their lighter hair color.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Geoffrey |title=Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry |date=25 February 2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-160961-9 |page=314 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rqc6YQnSQzcC&dq=%22asience&pg=PA314}} "Pola discontinued the use of foreign models in 2000. Kao undertook a successful launch of Asience shampoo with television advertisements of Zhang Ziya, who became the first Chinese Miss World in 2007, showing off her long black hair to the jealous gasps of Western women. In 2007 Shisedo launched the blockbuster shampoo brand Tsubaki with a $40 million advertising campaign which featured famous Japanese women and the slogan 'Japanese women are beautiful'."</ref> There is a widespread belief in Japan that Japanese women's skin color is "better" than white women's,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mire |first1=Amina |title=Wellness in Whiteness: Biomedicalization and the Promotion of Whiteness and Youth among Women |date=4 September 2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-23412-2 |page=114 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3TKtDwAAQBAJ&dq=white+skin+japan+symbolizes&pg=PT114}} "My informants, mainly women insisted that Japanese skin was superior to Caucasian skin. Although many of my informants had little personal contact with Westerners, they all made more or less identical negative comments about Caucasian women's skin, saying, for example, that it was rough, aged quickly and had too many spots. Ashikari (2005) p. 82"{{incomplete short citation|date=August 2024}} ... "When my informants look at a beautiful young Caucasian model in an advertisement with a slogan, such as, 'for making your skin beautiful and young', they can simply see 'young' and 'beauty' in the model's face. They are looking at a beautiful woman in the advertisement, but not particularly a beautiful Caucasian woman. p. 82"</ref> and the placement of European female models in local advertisements does not reflect any special status of white women within Japan.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bonnett |first1=Alastair |title=White Identities: An Historical & International Introduction |date=8 October 2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-88037-0 |page=74 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pCapDwAAQBAJ&dq=japanese+skin+advertisements&pg=PA74}} "The partial dethroning of European-heritage people as representatives of a superior 'white race' does not necessarily imply the abandonment of whiteness as an ideal or model in Japan." ...  "The ugliness of European whiteness as compared with Japanese whiteness was mentioned by several of his informants. More specifically it was argued that 'European-heritage people do not possess white skin but transparent skin.'&thinsp;" "Three respondents' views are cited below: This may be completely unscientific but I feel that when I look at the skin of a Japanese woman I see the whiteness of her skin. When I observe Caucasian skin, what I see is the whiteness of the fat underneath the skin, not the whiteness of the skin itself." I have seen Caucasians closely only a few times but my impression is that their skin is very thin, almost transparent, while our skin is thicker and more resilient. The Caucasian skin is something like the surface of a pork sausage, while the skin of a Japanese resembles the outside of 'kamaboko' [a white, spongy fish cake] (cited by Wagatsuma, 1968, pp. 142–143)"{{incomplete short citation|date=August 2024}}</ref>

=== Brazil ===
The beauty ideal for females in Brazil is the {{lang|pt-BR|morena}}; a mixed-race brown woman who is supposed to represent the best characteristics of every racial group in Brazil.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Liebelt |first1=Claudia |last2=Böllinger |first2=Sarah |last3=Vierke |first3=Ulf |title=Beauty and the Norm: Debating Standardization in Bodily Appearance |date=24 August 2018 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-91174-8 |page=229 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MMFqDwAAQBAJ&dq=mixed+race+beauty+ideal+brazil&pg=PA229}} "In Brazil and Jamaica, national discourses of race mixture shaped alternative beauty ideals. For example, the ''morena'' (mixed race brown woman) is the quit-essential icon of a longstanding ideology of racial democracy in Brazil, portrayed in eroticized images of carnival, samba, and football. The ''morena'' supposedly embodies the positive characteristics of each race in Brazil."</ref> According to Alexander Edmond's book ''Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil'', whiteness plays a role in Latin American, specifically Brazilian, beauty standards, but it is not necessarily distinguished based on skin colour.<ref name="Edmonds 2010 142">{{Cite book|title=Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil|last=Edmonds|first=Alexander|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2010|page=142}}</ref> Edmonds said the main ways to define whiteness in people in Brazil is by looking at their hair, nose, then mouth before considering skin colour.<ref name="Edmonds 2010 142"/> Edmonds focuses on the popularity of plastic surgery in Brazilian culture. Plastic surgeons usually applaud and flatter mixtures when emulating aesthetics for performing surgery, and the more popular mixture is African and European.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil|last=Edmonds|first=Alexander|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2010|page=141}}</ref> This shapes beauty standards by racialising biological and popular beauty ideals to suggest that mixture with whiteness is better.<ref name="Edmonds 2010 142"/> Donna Goldstein's book ''Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown'' also addresses how whiteness influences beauty in Brazil. Goldstein notes that in Brazil, there is a hierarchy for beauty that places being mixed race at the top and pure, un-admixed black characteristics at the bottom, calling them ugly.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown|last=Goldstein|first=Donna|publisher=University of California Press|year=2013|page=133}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Vartabedian |first1=Julieta |title=Brazilian 'Travesti' Migrations: Gender, Sexualities and Embodiment Experiences |date=22 May 2018 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-77101-4 |page=77 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_rVcDwAAQBAJ&dq=white+women+unattractive+in+brazil&pg=PA77}} "A purely African appearance with no mixture of white characteristics is perceived as ugly in Brazil (Goldstein 2003; Wade 2009)."{{incomplete short citation|date=August 2024}}</ref>

In Erica Lorraine William's ''Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements'', Williams notes that there is no Eurocentric beauty ideal for women in Brazil.<ref name=":1">{{cite book | last=Williams | first=E. L.| title=Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements | publisher=University of Illinois Press | series=NWSA / UIP First Book Prize | year=2013 | isbn=978-0-252-09519-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cbYPBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA46 | access-date=2024-02-02 |pages=45–46|quote=Salvador's white Brazilian women are conscious that they are not foreign tourists' preferred object of desire. One white Brazilian woman commented, 'Gringos don't even look at me. They look at any black woman.' Fabiana, the white cofounder and lead organizer of Aprosba, told me that at the age of forty, she no longers does programas with tourists because 'they prefer younger women and Black and Mestiza women.' She also said that when she used to go with groups of sex workers to the ships that were docked at the port, there were around twenty mesticas and five white women, a ratio that indicates the preferred – though not exclusive – objects of desire for foreign ship workers.}}</ref> White Brazilian women are aware that foreign male sex tourists are not interested in them, and that they prefer brown and black women over white Brazilian women.<ref name=":1" /> One white woman in Brazil complained that she is not noticed by "[[Gringo|gringos]]" and that they prefer black and [[Mestiza]] women for sexual liaisons.<ref name=":1" />