Why do Filipino women want a very fair or white complexion, spending so much money just to be white?

Question

Boutiques in the Philippines carry a lot of these whitening products, from soap, lotion, and even drugs promising Filipinos to become white in due time. I understand that brown skin protect people in the equator against the harsh of sunlight but why still join the whitening bandwagon? Aren't Filipinos meant to be brown, the same way that African are really meant to become black - a required complexion where you're born.

Answer 1

They want to be fairer in colour because the white skin was marketed/advertised as a symbol of status by white people and their accomplishments that the world was witnessing. Who can forget those ladies sitting around a table with their legs crossed, puffing away on a cigarette and looking up in the clouds with their eyes behind a pair of sun glasses, while some one with slightly or much darker skin circulated the tables serving drinks and eats. In the mean time images were being shown of the darker people as well. The darker the people were, the lesser their achievements or contributions to society were. Moreover many darker people were found living closer to nature and this among others was a sign of primitiveness. Nature was below man and had to be tamed. Fair skin was equated to status and everything that went with it, and darker skin stood for the opposite of everything fair skin meant. These were the pictures the whole world was seeing and these images were internalised - by the weaker ones to be more precise. What the world didn't know was that something else was happening. The fair of skin, as they travelled the world, began to develope a liking for tanned skin and so skin tanning has been on the rise in the Western world/"western civilisation". But because social changes are very slow (mainly due to the fact that things that have become deeply ingrained in people are hard to change over a short period of time), those who are weak amongst the darker people continue to strive to earn themselves some status by bleaching their skin because it is the fastest way to achieve that goal.

Answerer below me, your observations may be true in many parts of the world but this is not the case in Africa. The cse of South Africa is unique in that it was the apartheid system that enabled light/white peole to acquire status and success and the blacks to be at the bottom of the ladder. The coloured were in between.

Answer 2

This is happening all over: Africa, South America, Haiti, India, etc. White or at the least, light skin is considered to be beautiful. Beauty is a tool. Beauty is used to gain acceptance, wealth, kindness, a foothold on the ladder of success because of the effect it has on people. In these countries, you may have noticed that most of the people in positions of power, wealth, and authority are white or light skinned people. These people think that by becoming white/light, they will be guaranteed success in their lives. And in many cases it is true, because those particular societies do foster racism against the darker skinned people (India's caste system). It's a sick circle of self hatred.

Answer 3

I think that when the Spanish colonized there they were made to feel inferior because of their skin color and features. The same as in Latin America. Unfortunately, the racism has probably stuck with them.

Answer 4

where are you from? USA? UK? Europe? why do we all want to be tanned? if, like me you live in the UK, and are white, then there is no way that your going to look anything but pale, yet we still want to fake it, spending hours sunbathing or on a sunbed or slathing on tanning lotion. it's just fashion.

Answer 5

The same reason us white spend hours in the sun or money for tanning booths to be brown!

Answer 6

Let people choose what products they want to use for themselves. I'm sure they aren't trying to be "white". It's a personal choice and we're not to judge. Good luck. 2D

Answer 7

I know a Filipina chick.


And she tries soooo hard to be white.

It's very sad.

And a lot of their women marry white men too.