Afrocentric beauty: The proliferation of ‘Texturist' and ‘Colorist' beliefs among young women in Kenya
Downloads
The beauty ideals of a Eurocentric nature have been promulgated among African communities for decades dating back to the colonial era. The beauty ideal posits lighter or brown skin tone as prettier and straight hair as attractive. The study aimed to identify ways in which families and peers have perpetuated this common beauty ideal within the home and school settings and how these have influenced how young women view themselves. There were 20 young women of different skin tones ranging from light, medium (brown) to dark participated in two focus group discussions. Thematic analysis was used whereby three main themes (familial influence, peer socialization and self-perceptions) and four sub-themes were identified (general opinion, teasing, family disassociation and preferential vs. unfair treatment). Findings revealed that family member and peers knowingly and unknowingly augmented ‘colorist' and ‘texturist' beliefs by ridiculing both dark-skinned and light-skinned women. Most of them treated dark skinned people unfairly. The research findings suggested that future research should investigate how body features represent attractiveness within the African communities.
Abrams JA, Belgrave FZ, Williams CD, & Maxwell ML (2020) African American adolescent girls' beliefs about skin tone and colorism. Journal of Black Psychology 46 (2-3):169-194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798420928194.
Adams EA, Kurtz-Costes BE, & Hoffman AJ (2016) Skin tone bias among African Americans: Antecedents and consequences across the life span. Developmental Review 40: 93-114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2016.03.002.
Allan K (2006) Contemporary Social and Sociological Theory: Visualizing Social worlds. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press, Sage Publications.
Awad GH, Norwood C, Taylor DS, Martinez M, McClain S, Jones B, Holman A, & Chapman-Hilliard C (2014) Beauty and body image concerns among African American college women. Journal of Black Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798414550864
Banks I (2000) Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women's Consciousness. New York: New York University Press.
Bond L & Cash T (1992) Black beauty: Skin color and body images among African- American College women. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 22 (11):874-888. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1992.tb00930.x.
Charles J (2021) Colorism and the Afro-Latinx experience: A review of the literature. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1177/07399863211027378.
Coardz SI, Breland AM, & Raskin P (2001) Perceptions of and preferences for skin color, black racial identity, and self-esteem among African Americans. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 31 (11):2256-2274. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2001.
Corso J (2014) Manifestations of colorism in interpersonal relationship preferences of black men. Thesis, Georgia State University, Atlanta. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/aas_theses/24.
Craig ML (2002) Ain't I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
De Souza MM (2008) The concept of skin bleaching in Africa and its devastating health implications. Clinics in Dermatology 26 (1):27-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clindermatol.2007.10.005.
Dixon & Telles (2017) Skin color and colorism: Global research, concepts, and measurement. The Annual Review of Sociology 43. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053315.
Eley LN (2017) Black Body Politics in College: Deconstructing Colorism and Hairism toward Black Women's Healing. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Ferris K & Stein J (2018) The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology 6th Edition. New York: WW Norton & Company.
Gautier SW (2021) Black beauty: Womanist consciousness as a protective factor in black women's body image satisfaction. Journal of Black Psychology 47 (8):631-656. https://doi.org/10.1177/00957984211034960.
Giddens A, Duneler M, Applebaum R, & Carr D (2018) Introduction to Sociology 11th Edition. New York: WW Norton & Company.
Goins MR (2022) Afro love: Counter-literacies in Brazilian natural hair communities, African and black diaspora. An International Journal 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/17528631.2022.2091378.
Gordon LE (2020) Real Research: Research Methods Sociology Students Can Use, Second Edition. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications.
Hall JC (2017) No Longer Invisible: Understanding the Psychosocial Impact of Skin Color Stratification in the Lives of African American Women. Health & Social Work 42 (2):71-78. https://doi.org/10.1093/hsw/hlx001.
Harvey RD, LaBeach N, Pridgen E, & Gocial TM (2005) The Intragroup Stigmatization of Skin Tone among Black Americans. Journal of Black Psychology 31 (3):237-253. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798405278192.
Harvey RD, Tennial RE, & Kira Hudson Banks KH (2017) The development and validation of a colorism scale. Journal of Black Psychology 43 (7):740-764. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798417690054.
Hersch J (2011) Skin color, physical appearance, and perceived discriminatory treatment. The Journal of Socio-Economics 40 (5):671-678. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2011.05.006.
Hughes M & Hertel BR (1990) The significance of color remains: A study of life chances, mate selection, and ethnic consciousness among black Americans. Social Forces 68 (4):1105-1120. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/68.4.1105.
Hunter M (2007) The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Skin Tone, Status, and Inequality. Hoboken, New Jersey: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Jablonski NG (2012) Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color. Oakland: University of California Press.
Kornblum W, Julian J, & Smith C (2012) Social Problems 14th Edition. New York: Pearson Education.
Kwiberry.com (2021) Afro store, afro comb. kwiberry.com. [Accessed 11 November 2022]. https://www.kwiberry.com/product/afro-comb/.
Landor MA & Smith MS (2019) Skin-Tone trauma: Historical and contemporary influences on the health and interpersonal outcomes of African Americans. Perspectives on Psychological Science 14 (5):797-815. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619851781.
Leavy P (2014) The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lincoln E (1967) Color and group identity in the United States. Daedalus 96 (2):527-541. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027051.
Lune H & Berg LB (2017) Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. New York: Pearson Education Limited.
Maddox BK & Gray AS (2002) Cognitive representations of black Americans: Reexploring the role of skin tone. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28 (2):250-259. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202282010.
Magee JC & Galinsky AD (2008) 8 social hierarchy: The self"reinforcing nature of power and status. Academy of Management Annals 2 (1):351-398. https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520802211628.
Maxwel ML (2013) Red bones and earth mothers: A contemporary exploration of colorism and its perception among African American female adolescents. Thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/3076.
Maxwell M, Brevard J, Abrams J, & Belgrave F (2015) What's color got to do with it? Skin color, skin color satisfaction, racial identity, and internalized racism among African American college students. Journal of Black Psychology 41 (5):438-461. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798414542299.
Neal A & Wilson M (1989) The role of skin color and features in the black community: Implications for black women and therapy. Clinical Psychology Review 9 (3):323-333. https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-7358(89)90060-3.
Norwood KJ (2014) Color matters: Skin tone bias and the myth of a postracial America. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Okango JK (2017) Fair and lovely: The concept of skin bleaching and body image politics in Kenya. Thesis, College of Bowling Green State University, Ohio. https://teatawhai.maori.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Whakatika-International-literature-review.pdf.
Puspitasari D & Suryadi Y (2020) Discourse on the shifting of local beauty: Concepts in an Easternization era. Masyarakat, Kebudayaan dan Politik 33 (1):36-46. https://doi.org/10.20473/mkp.V33I12020.36-46.
Putri RA, Graham-Davies S, & Artaria MD (2018) Traditional body care of women in Madura Island. Masyarakat, Kebudayaan dan Politik 31 (3):339-349. https://doi.org/10.20473/mkp.V31I32018.339-349.
Quarters C (2022) What is an afro comb? Beauty Answered. [Accessed 11 November 2022]. https://www.beautyanswered.com/what-is-an-afro-comb.htm.
Ryabov I (2013) Colorism and School-to-Work and School-to-College Transitions of African American Adolescents. Race and Social Problems 5 (1):15-27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-012-9081-7.
Stolley KS (2005) The Basics of Sociology. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Tekie F (2020) Colorism in Zanzibar: A qualitative field study on the effects of colorism on women's identity and ethnicity construction. Thesis, Malmö University, Malmö.
Thomas LM (2020) There's a complex history of skin lighteners in Africa and beyond. Quartz Africa, 10 March. [Accessed 11 November 2022]. https://qz.com/africa/1815572/skin-bleaching-skinlightening-in-africa-has-a-complex-history/.
Tischler HL (2011) Introduction to Sociology: Wadsworth. London: Cengage Learning.
Uzogara EE (2014) Color costs: Intersections of gendered skin tone discrimination, racial contexts, and well-being among black Americans. Dissertation, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/108952/ekeoma_1.pdf?sequence=1.
Vanderstoep SW & Johnston D (2009) Research Methods for Everyday Life: Blending Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
Vijaya MR & Bhullar N (2022) Colorism and employment bias in India: an experimental study in stratification economics. Review of Evolutionary Political Economy 3: 599-628. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43253-022-00073-8.
Wade J & Bielitz S (2005) Success of African Americans: The differential effect of skin color on attractiveness, personality evaluations, and perceived life. Journal of Black Psychology 31 (3):215-236. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798405278341.
Wallace RA & Wolf A (1995) Contemporary Sociological Theory: Continuing the Classical Tradition. Hoboken, New Jersey: Prentince-Hall Inc.
Copyright (c) 2023 Masyarakat, Kebudayaan dan Politik
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright of this journal is possession of Editorial Board and Journal Manager, by the knowledge of the author, while the moral right of the publication belongs to the author.
The formal legal aspect of journal publication accessibility refers to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA), implies that publication can be used for non-commercial purposes in its original form (cannot be modified).
Every publication (printed/electronic) are open access for educational purposes, research, and library. Other than the aims mentioned above, the editorial board is not responsible for copyright violation.
