All is fair

Don’t get me wrong.

I happened to see this article on color preferences of men and women and the controversies it has created. Men often do not talk about it openly, but can guess their attitude.

From what I have seen, my own feeling is that men, in general seem to  prefer fair skinned women. Not just between blacks and whites, but even among the light skinned Asians. The sale of fairness creams in Asian countries is sky rocketing. It is as if fair is all lovely. Don’t we have clear examples in our choice of actresses? Bollywood imports fair skinned girls from abroad, as if we don’t have enough of them here. And they act with the dark skinned men, no problems. Fairer the better. Even in the south, most of the actresses are light skinned. There are very few dark skinned heroines.

In the marriage market, the demand is for the light skinned. It is common to see marriage ads, “very fair… good looking “and so on. I know of many marriage proposals for girls in our own family did not materialize, simply because the girls were on the darker side of complexion. Fantasies linger around fair skinned women. Is it so?

An article posted online last week by ‘Psychology Today’ provoked controversy and cries of racism. The title of evolutionary psychologist Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa's piece: "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women ?"

Though the article compared the blacks from Africa to the whites, I think it is equally applicable to men and women across the world.

His argument is that there is a set of data, which shows black women to be "objectively" less attractive than white, Asian or Native American women, but that the same data does not find black men less attractive than men of other races. Kanazawa accepts this data and then tries to explain why it is the case. He suggests that black people have more testosterone than other races, and so possess "more masculine features." He states too that women are "objectively" more attractive than men, so if black women have more masculine features, this explains why they are rated less attractive.

Now, in the tagline to his Psychology Today blog, Kanazawa warns, "If what I say is wrong (because it is illogical or lacks credible scientific evidence), then it is my problem. If what I say offends you, it is your problem."

Following outraged responses, Psychology Today changed the article's title to "Why Are Black Women Rated Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" and then, took it down altogether.

“Men have been conditioned into thinking that white skin is mankind’s anthropological model and so the desirable trait. The truth of the matter is  that probably, white skin is a genetic defect! They're more prone to skin cancer, aging wrinkly skin and skin infections compared to blacks who don't get that stuff. All human life came from Africa and black skin is the original skin color . Whites and Asians are pale skinned mutated versions of black people caught up in the last ice age some 60,000 years ago”. This was the response of a young black woman.


Gentlemen do not just prefer blondes, but lighter-skinned women in general, another study has suggested. Scientists looking into attractiveness in men and woman suggest that men from all races find fairer-skinned woman most alluring, while women are the polar opposite and favor darker, brooding men.

Academics at the University of Toronto in Canada say their study proves the fair maiden of myth has a basis in scientific reality.


They studied more than 2,000 advertising photographs - chosen on the basis the models featured were considered among the most attractive people of the races and sexes - and found that the skin of white women was 15.2 per cent lighter than the skin of white males, and the skin of black women 11.1 per cent lighter than the skin of black men.

Dr Shyon Baumann, a sociologist involved in the study, said: "What the research shows is that our aesthetic preferences operate to reflect moral preferences”.

Two years ago, research from St Andrews University in Fife found man's attraction to blondes could date back to the caveman era.

Researchers say, a rare mutation of light-colored hair heralded the arrival of the blue-eyed blonde 10,000 years ago.Until then, humans, who originated in Africa, tended to have dark hair and eyes, so blondes stood out from their brunette sisters.

According to anthropologist Peter Frost : "When an individual is faced with potential mates of equal value, it will tend to select the one that stands out from the crowd."

I said at the beginning, don’t get me wrong. This is not my personal view.But this is what we see. It is usual to ask, is beauty only skin deep and all the stuff. The real question is ,what really attracts you, on plain simple terms.