Last week I was talking to my friend Katherine who had the privilege of visiting Tanzania, Africa for three weeks for an observational study. She shared some of her experiences with me, and expressed how excited she was for me to live in Ghana. One of the things she related was simple yet thought-provoking. She said I would be surprised how much I would stop thinking about my external image, my clothing, my body shape, etc. I do not believe she meant at all that I would not care about being physically healthy. More she meant that with the absence of Western media saturation and the affects this takes on young minds in relation to body image, I would not worry so much about how my physicality was being perceived. This led into a conversation about the detrimental affects of American media shaping the way youth, and especially women, think about their bodies. Girls think they must conform to a certain body type/skin type/hair type/dress style etc, an impossibility for many, which leads to eating disorders and low self-esteem. Boys think that a certain body type/skin type/hair type/dress style is the epitome of beauty or should dictate attraction. I told Katherine about how I had felt the affects of this here at BYU, being one of the few students of African descent, I simply cannot fit in with many of the mainstream traits esteemed as beautiful in Provo culture. Even if I was as healthy as I possibly could be, I will never be as stick thin as some others of a different ethnicity. My genes give me irreversible curves and thickness. My facial features include a wider nose, and fuller lips. My hair is extremely curvy, and my skin is dark. Maybe I am overly sensitive, but I have often felt almost ashamed of some of my differences in relation to my homogenous surroundings, especially since the media glorifies the beauty of tall, white, stick-thin women, and I can see the affects of this on the way beauty is perceived in my own community.
I wonder how this will change in Ghana. How will beauty be perceived differently due to a very different racial and ethnic majority, as well as due to the lesser prevalence of Western media influences? How do these differences affect the way females in particular view themselves, and how do they affect courtship and attraction? This is something I would be interested in observing although my project does not address these issues.
There is definitely a lot to think about when you realize that beauty and attraction are so relative, that just by moving to another location you could be viewed as either less or more attractive according to cultural influences.
Here is a somewhat harsh site that really brings up some relevant issues about the recent onslaught of white indie culture in the U.S. that has pushed the prevalence of rail thin, retro white girls - think the type of girls you would see the majority of the time in Urban Outfitters advertising -
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