May 16, 2019

"Take some time to peruse your medicine cabinet or the health and beauty aisles at a local store. Write a poem, short story, or journal entry inspired by a product label."

___________________________________

I did not have to think much to start ranting - it is the 'fairness' creams that abound in the stores  - the most famous being 'Fair and Lovely'. The idea is neither lovely and frankly the ideology it promotes is downright unfair not to mention discriminatory.

There have been ads in the past (I am not sure if the trend still continues this day) where a woman / girl did not have any self confidence in herself to achieve anything - be it studies, job or a marriage proposal. And all she needed was a tube of a fairness cream to bestow those qualities on her. Apart from the obvious impracticality and the impossibility of any cream to do so, does anyone stop to think the message it sends out?

That women who are not fair are not achievers. That they are incapable of attaining success because their skin contains more than the acceptable levels of melanin hence they are dark and therefore of a lesser class. And that all they need is a tube of whitening cream.

It is UNFAIR - to every woman out there, irrespective of her skin tone. We do not need a white skin to be a woman, we need a big heart (and the blood is the same colour) and an open mind.

The need of the hour is to be colour blind - who cares what the colour of your skin is? 

I do not, and this is not because I am not of the 'fair kind', it is because I have been brought up to being blind to the skin colour by a very fair woman, both in skin and in mind.