Africa, a continent of 54 states, boasts a rich tapestry of cultures, each with its own unique and vibrant beauty ideals shaped over centuries. These standards often emphasize natural features, highlighting a sense of community and unity.
Traditional African beauty standards value attributes such as dark skin, fuller figures, unique hairstyles, intricate body art, and distinctive facial features. However, the infiltration of Western beauty ideals has caused a shift in perception, leading to the marginalization of these indigenous standards.
It is important to note that Africa is divided into five regions: Eastern, Western, Central, Northern, and Southern Africa. Since Africa is not entirely made up of only ‘Black people’ (in terms of dark skin), the beauty standards range from one extreme to another.
The Northern region of Africa is mainly made up of Arabian descendants, whose skin tones vary from lighter shades to white. In general, the African beauty standard places a woman with curvy features, wide hips, and an attractive face on a pedestal.
For men, the gauge of handsomeness emphasizes a fit athletic body or a muscled physique. African women tend to admire the proverbial dark, tall, and handsome African man. When it comes to skin tone, dark-skinned men are often preferred compared to light skin tones. However, for women, light and dark-skinned women receive equal attention.
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Concerning women’s body size, being skinny may lead friends or family to think you are either sick or not financially stable. Mothers in Africa are fond of telling their children to eat and add meat to their frames to avoid illness and fit into clothes. Women often prefer a curvy body shape, seeing it as an ideal body type.
An attractive feminine face includes thick lips, beautiful eyes, and a medium-sized nose. The facial structure of African women doesn’t matter to men as much as in other parts of the world.
The Influence of Western Beauty Standards
The Western beauty industry, driven by media, advertising, and entertainment, has significantly impacted global perceptions of beauty. This influence has perpetuated a narrow and unrealistic standard that often excludes and devalues the unique beauty of African individuals.
Features such as lighter skin tones, narrow facial structures, and slim figures have been disproportionately glorified, leading to the promotion of harmful practices such as skin bleaching, dieting, and excessive cosmetic surgeries. The pervasive influence of Western beauty standards on Africa has resulted in damaging consequences for self-esteem and self-acceptance.
Many African individuals, particularly women and young girls, face pressure to conform to these Western ideals, often at the cost of their own cultural heritage and personal well-being. This pressure can lead to feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, and a distorted sense of self-worth.
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The urban youths (females) tend to swing more towards Eurocentric beauty ideals such as a thin body, narrow nose, light skin, straight or curly (mixed type hair), and thin lips. The effects of western beauty are still being seen by the increasing number of men and women who lighten their skin to feel beautiful.
The need to have straight hair and the negative view towards natural African hair is evidence of how much western beauty is slowly eroding traditional beauty in African society. Some African women go to great lengths to achieve the straight and flowy look of Asian and Caucasian hair.
Others worship mixed-descent women because of their non-African features, leading some to marry non-African foreigners in the hope of having mixed children with "good hair" and non-black features.
The Rise of Cultural Renaissance
Despite the dominance of Western beauty standards, there is a growing movement in Africa to reclaim and celebrate indigenous beauty ideals. Across the continent, individuals, organizations, and communities are promoting self-love, body positivity, and cultural authenticity.
The natural hair movement, for instance, has gained momentum, encouraging individuals to embrace their natural hair textures and styles, rejecting the notion that only straight or European-influenced hair is beautiful.
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One of the reasons fueling these self-hating decisions is wanting mixed kids with good hair and non-black features. Despite the half-and-half arrangement, certain traits can break the rule and be expressed dominantly rather than equally.
If you expect an obvious chance that your child will come out in-between or look more white/Asian /Hispanic than black, then you are mistaken. Genetics can go to the extremes, and there is no guarantee that your child will have the non-black traits you desire. That dark skin and wide nose you hate - or kinky hair you dislike - has a chance of being dominantly expressed in your child despite the fifty-fifty inheritance rule.
All those negative words and statements you said about dark-skinned women or African features can come back to you rolled up in one offspring regardless of the interracial marriage. Learn to love the unlovable. The flaws or what you think deserves the label should be appreciated despite what standards dictate. Besides, all features -African, Asian, Caucasian, Oceanic, Aboriginal, and Mixed- are beautiful.
There is a reason why nature doesn’t have one type of fauna and flora. A lion, cheetah, leopard, tiger, domestic cat, and lynx are all felines, but their species are different. And these divergences are what make animals beautiful. Their variations and differences are beautiful in themselves.
Therefore, why should a lion feel less of a feline just because it doesn’t have the stripes of a tiger? Likewise, why should you feel inferior or ugly just because your skin isn’t as white, tanned, dark, or light as that of the other person? If you haven’t noticed, it is our imperfections and differences that make us stunning.
Beauty is a function of consensus. To determine that something possesses beauty, it must align with socially-accepted criteria for beauty. Institutionalised beauty caters to the desires and appetites of the male gaze. Women who epitomise the ideal feminine beauty are bestowed with “pretty privileges” that give them an advantage over women who fall short of the conventional beauty in the patriarchal societies in which they navigate.
Our idea of beauty turned on its head in the wake of cultural imperialism. Black people began adopting the white version of beauty. The boom and boon enjoyed by the bleaching and hair-relaxing cream industry in Africa testify to this.
Pre-colonial beauty mostly lay in a woman’s ability to bear healthy children. She needed to have wide hips. Fat was not an issue at the time. Young women were sent to the fattening room in some African societies.
The Science Behind Attractiveness in African Faces
Little is known about mate choice preferences outside Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies, even though these Western populations may be particularly unrepresentative of human populations. Research shows that youthfulness, skin color, skin homogeneity, and facial adiposity significantly and independently predict attractiveness in female African faces.
Younger, thinner women with a lighter, yellower skin color and a more homogenous skin tone are considered more attractive. Facial adiposity plays an important role in attractiveness judgements, serving as a robust cue to health. A lighter skin color might serve as an indicator of fertility, as skin darkens with age, as well as in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle and during pregnancy.
Enhanced yellowness in human skin has primarily been attributed to an increase in carotenoids, which are yellow and red skin pigments obtained from fruit and vegetables that are deposited in the skin. A slightly redder skin tone serves as a cue to increased skin blood perfusion and oxygenation.
Homogenous (smooth) skin-particularly a homogenous skin color distribution-positively contributes to attractiveness judgements. Youthfulness serves as a valuable cue to fecundity in sexually mature women because women have a relatively small ‘reproductive window’ compared to men who stay fertile throughout most of their adult lifespan.
Attractiveness preferences for female faces can change facultatively in response to a variety of factors, including environmental and conditional factors such as health, fertility, and resource availability.
South Africa, with its higher disease burden and different socio-economic conditions, offers a unique context for studying attractiveness preferences. Modern African female fashion models in South Africa are significantly thinner than their white counterparts, which might indicate a shift to a new African body ideal closely aligned to Western ideals.
A lighter, yellower, and redder skin color is also considered more attractive in traditional African society even before colonial occupation.
The aim of one study was to test the combined role of facial adiposity, skin color, skin homogeneity, and youthfulness-four facial features previously found to affect attractiveness in WEIRD populations- in African attractiveness judgements of unmanipulated African female faces. To the knowledge of the researchers, this was the first study to test the relationship between these facial features and female attractiveness in a native African population.
The study found that younger, thinner women with higher values for the skin color component (lighter, yellower, and redder skin color) and lower values for the skin heterogeneity component (more homogenous skin) were considered significantly more attractive than their counterparts.
The study concluded that judgements of attractiveness and health are closely correlated.
Beauty in African Art
When judging African art, see where there are overlaps or differences from your own preconceived notions, Petridis suggests. Always keep in mind that African art should always be viewed through the language and vocabulary of the culture it comes from.
To avoid imposing your own tastes and preferences on art objects, you have to be open to learn and read about the culture in which they function, and what meanings and purposes they convey. And that new understanding is a thing of beauty.
In many African cultures, the concept of beauty is closely tied to morality and ethics. This is reflected in the use of a single word to describe both beauty and goodness.
Ugliness is tied to nature, the wilderness, and animals, whereas beauty is connected to humans, the village, and community. Idealized beauty is always presumed to be of human origin, associated with the realm of the village and society.
At the other end of the spectrum, ugliness correlates with the wild and untamed realm of the jungle outside the boundaries of the village. Artists who intend to instill fear through their objects may represent ugliness by mimicking or referencing animals, especially powerful and fearsome ones.
Some art has elements of both beauty and ugliness and is meant to astonish. This is referred to as “awesome art,” what Westerners might call the sublime.
Evolution of beauty standards in Africa. Kenyan edition
African-American Beauty
African-American beauty encompasses the diverse cultural, historical, and aesthetic traditions that shape beauty standards and practices within the African-American community. Rooted in African heritage and influenced by the social and political landscape of the United States, African-American beauty has evolved through hairstyles, skincare, and cosmetics that celebrate Black identity.
The history of African-American beauty is deeply intertwined with the experiences of Black people in the United States, reflecting both cultural resilience and societal challenges. Enslaved Africans brought traditional grooming practices and hairstyles, such as braids and twists, which carried cultural and spiritual significance.
During slavery and segregation, Eurocentric beauty standards were imposed, leading many Black individuals to alter their hair and skin to conform to mainstream ideals. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s sparked the natural hair movement, with Afros becoming a symbol of Black pride and resistance.
For much of American history, lighter skin, straighter hair, and Eurocentric features were promoted as the beauty norm, influencing how Black individuals navigated personal and professional spaces. Movements like Black Is Beautiful in the 1960s and the rise of the natural hair movement have challenged these standards, celebrating Afro-textured hair, dark skin, and traditional African aesthetics.
Hair has been a central aspect of African-American beauty, serving as both a form of self-expression and a reflection of cultural identity. Rooted in African traditions, styles like braids, twists, and locs have carried deep historical and spiritual significance. However, for much of American history, Eurocentric beauty standards pressured many Black individuals to straighten their hair to conform to societal norms.
The natural hair movement, gaining momentum in the 1960s and resurging in the 2000s, has encouraged the celebration of Afro-textured hair in its natural state.
The dominance of Eurocentric beauty standards has historically impacted the self-esteem, identity, and social experiences of African Americans. Many Black individuals have felt pressure to conform by altering their hair, skin tone, or features to be deemed acceptable in professional and social spaces. This has led to the widespread use of skin-lightening products, hair relaxers, and other cosmetic changes.
Media has played a powerful role in shaping and challenging African-American beauty standards. For much of the 20th century, mainstream media promoted Eurocentric ideals, often marginalizing darker skin tones, Afro-textured hair, and Black facial features. However, the rise of Black representation in film, television, and fashion has helped redefine beauty norms.
Icons like Diana Ross, Naomi Campbell, and Lupita Nyong’o have influenced global beauty trends, while platforms like Essence, BET, and social media have amplified diverse Black beauty.
Conclusion
Africa’s beauty is diverse, multifaceted, and deeply rooted in its cultural heritage. It is essential to recognize the irony of using Western standards as a yardstick for beauty in Africa and to challenge the narrow definition of beauty imposed by external influences.
By appreciating and celebrating Africa’s unique features, individuals can foster a sense of empowerment, strengthen cultural pride, and pave the way for a more inclusive and diverse understanding of beauty.
To address the irony of beauty standards in Africa, it is crucial to promote education, awareness, and inclusivity. Media representation plays a pivotal role in reshaping perceptions, so it is important to amplify African voices and showcase diverse representations of beauty.
