Black Women and Beauty: the Perception of Personal

Attractiveness and the Influence of the Media

Heather Kroes
Oxford College of Emory University

In this paper I have attempted to discuss the various reasons behind the

traditional and modern aesthetic beauty standards held by Black women in

America and Brazil. In both countries there is a correlation between the personal

and political value of skin color, the relative lightness or darkness of a Black

women’s skin, hair, the political and social upheaval caused by the Black

woman’s Afro, body weight and personal attractiveness, and the role the media

plays throughout all of these facets of personal appearance. I also identify and

explain the different stereotypes that the media, particularly the Western media,

use to encapsulate Black women of all cultures.

KEY WORDS: Black women, Brazil, urbanization, beauty standards, personal

appearance, Afro

INTRODUCTION

The world today is obsessed with personal appearance. We are constantly

bombarded with images associated with the body and beauty. While there is a surge of

new media attention given to male attractiveness, beauty like housework is almost

exclusively associated with women. Beauty is the elusive variable that both binds and
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segregates females. But what is beautiful? Who defines it? And how does a definition

of something inherently ambiguous impact an entire sex so completely? The truth is one

cannot ascertain an unconditional definition of beauty. It simply does not exist and it

would be haphazard to even attempt to define the abstract concept of physical

attractiveness. The old adage, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” is as close as we

shall ever come.

Black women and Caucasian women have different definitions of beauty; but

what is really significant is the different beauty standards held by different black women.

Black women, as a whole, have perceptions of beauty that are more variable than whites

[Molloy 1998]. It is the media that tells a young, middle class, white girl that she must be

thin, blonde, and blue-eyed in order to be desirable to the opposite sex. What then, does

it tell young, black females? Despite the overall advancements of the twentieth and

twenty-first centuries, there remains a “pervasiveness of Eurocentric standards of beauty”

[Hill 2002] that is rampant in today’s media-driven world. But as black women’s socio-

economic status improves and they move up the social ladder, they become more exposed

to the media, i.e. white middle class partialities about the lightness of skin tone, hair,

weight, and overall beauty standards and become more homogenous in their beliefs about

personal appearance [Molloy 1998]. In this paper I will attempt to discern America’s,

particularly white America’s, influence on African American women and what role the

eye of the media plays in determining what is deemed necessary for a Black woman to be

beautiful. I will also compare the different standards of ideal beauty that are found

throughout Black cultures in other countries and see how the media affects or does not

affect their beliefs on ideal beauty.

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SKIN COLOR

To understand how the media affects black women and what role the white world

plays within that view, it is first imperative to look at distinctive differences and trends

among black women in America and those abroad. The most basic place to begin is with

skin color, for it is the notion of “colorism” [Hill, 2002] that categorizes these women in

the first place. Throughout the world there is a general notion that the whiter an

individual is the better they are and the more pleasing they are to the eye [Molloy 1998,

Hill 2002, Ansariyah-Grace 1995]. One reason behind black women’s want of paler skin

is much like white women’s desire to be thin: social status. Even in this century, skin

color is a major factor affecting social status and people’s perception and judgments [Hill

2002]. Numerous studies have proven that blacks with lighter skin are given more

opportunities than those that are noticeably darker. As a black child rather frankly stated

during a study that used dolls to determine children’s take on the idea of preferred skin

color, “I don’t like being black. I will be rich if I am like the white doll” [Hill, 2002].

The notion that white is right originates almost entirely from America’s history of

chattel slavery. Slaveholders, to justify slavery and instill the notion of white supremacy,

claimed that the darkness of enslaved Africans made them more evil and subsequently

inferior to whites [Ansariyah-Grace, 2006]. Even in the antebellum era, slaves who had

lighter skin were given better treatment than those who were noticeably darker [Hill

2002], as skin color, intellect, and morality became more and more intertwined [Rooks

1996]. Therefore, white skin became synonymous with beauty and piety, while black

skin became associated with evil and ignorance [Hill, 2002].

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Even into the twentieth-century with the advent of widespread media coverage,

the concept of beauty is delineated by the widespread notion of white superiority upheld

by advertisements. Advertisements imply that black women, in particular, must alter

their phenotypes in order to ascertain higher social status [Rooks 1996]. The pursuit of

fairer skin is not solely a quest of upward social mobility however. The desire for

paleness also stems from the widely held notion that black males are more sexually

attracted to women with lighter skin [Hill, 2002]. Whiteness equaled femininity. The

media sends rather direct messages that confirm and maintain the link between fair skin

and the feminine ideal. The National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA) conducted a

study in which researchers attempted to determine the role skin color played in

determining physical beauty and just how reaching skin color’s influence is [Hill 2002].

As NSBA investigators thought, the relative blackness of an individual “[influenced] the

attractiveness ratings assigned to black women in a compelling, monotonic manner”[Hill

2002]. For black women, then, having fair skin translates into being a more feminine

woman and a more desirous partner.

BRAZILIAN RACE POLITICS

This preference for light skin is still prevalent today, even though America has

experienced the Civil Rights and “Black is Beautiful” movement of the 1960s and 70s

[Ansariyah-Grace 1995]. The same is true in other countries; Brazil, for example, places

high value on fair skin found within the mulata race [Caldwell, 2003]. In the lyrics of a

popular song, “Your Hair Gives You Away,” it is clear that the skin had by the mixing of

Black and White ethnicities is highly valued. “You are mulata in color…/Mulata, I want
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your love” [Caldwell, 2003]. This song reflects the views of popular culture; in Brazil

being mulata is identified as being the quintessential Brazilian and is thus very prized.

Even though Brazil’s historical ties to colonialism have created ambiguous feelings about

race in general, the wording of the song, particularly the line that the woman’s hair

reveals her African heritage, shows that there is still a racial demarcation in Brazil, like in

the United States. [Telles, 1992]. Being Black or having some trace characterizations is

not, if given the choice, desirable and certainly has parallels to social class and projected

upward social mobility. Research, for example, on racial segregation throughout

districts, housing projects, and neighborhoods revealed this same trend. While researches

emphasized the relationship between skin color and class, material still suggested that

dark skinned blacks and mulatas lived in the poorer neighborhood and were considered

less desirable as neighbors to whites than lighter skin mulatas or blacks. Even given the

extent of Brazil’s diverse racial composition, whites and blacks are still segregated based

on their skin; in terms of social mobility being a prime reason behind the advent of skin

lightening products, it is clear that there is some research evidence that provides concrete

correlation between socioeconomic class and skin tone [Telles, 1992].

HAIR: PERSONAL OR POLITICAL STATEMENT?

What is sometimes not thought of as a contributing factor determining a woman’s

overall perception of her beauty is her hair. Because it is a visible characteristic that

helps to shape society’s view of our personal identity, hair is both a sign of public,

political identity and one’s racial identity [Rooks, 1996]. Hair, especially for black

women, has been a battleground where hot irons and cornrows determine one’s
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commitment to one’s ethnic identity and to the betterment of the black race. In most

black families and indeed most of black culture, “natural” hair styles are highly valued

because they symbolize a black woman’s outward declaration of her internalized pride in

her blackness and her rejection of the incessant attacks on her heritage by the dominate

white middle class [Ansanriyah-Grace, 1995]. It was also a determinant of social class:

author Noliwe Rooks recalls that when she wanted to straighten her hair, it was her

middle class grandmother who disregarded Rooks’ mother’s view of ethnic pride and

took her to the beauty parlor. Rooks notes that, “For my grandmother, hair spoke of

acceptance from a certain class of African Americans.” The hair straightening craze, like

all attempts by whites to systematically trap blacks into emotional and psychological

slavery, began during the antebellum era. Popular culture, which translates into white

culture, advised black women even as early as the 1830s that they were inherently

unattractive because their hair was curly, thus ugly, and not fine, smooth, or straight like

the hair of their white counterparts. It was during that century that black women were

first subjected to the commercialization of hair care products that aimed to bring them

closer to the white standard of beauty that their female mistresses embodied [Rooks,

1996].

PROTEST WITH AN AFRO

Hair care, particularly hair straightening, is an area of much contention within the

overall black community. In one case, a woman from Brazil named Gislene came into

contact with the racism that formed the basis of hair discord. She claimed that at an early

age she had wanted to become a ballerina but was not ever put on center stage. She
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claimed that that spot was reserved for the prettiest girls in the class; girls, Gislene said,

were “White, with straight hair… Preferably with light colored hair” [Caldwell 2003].

This was not an isolated incident, however. Regina, also a Black female from Brazil,

claimed that when she was growing up and developing a self, it was difficult to develop a

sense of racial identity and pride because she did not have “cabelo liso” which was

straight hair that would presumably move in the wind. During a research interview she

talked solely about her want of straight hair that would blow in the wind like the hair of a

young white girl that she had seen once on a school bus [Caldwell, 2003].

But Black women were not content to assimilate into white culture. They

counteracted white hair dominance by transforming the connotations associated with their

natural hair. During the tumultuous and revolutionary 1960s and 70s wearing an Afro

became the ultimate embodiment of social revolution; women wearing one were showing

their contempt of white societal pressures outwardly [Rooks 1996]. The Afro meant

black pride, black power in political activism and social revolution. The notion of natural

hair as symbolic of national identity and proof of racial pride became an intrinsic concept

during the Civil Right’s Movement, much like it has today [Rooks 1996]. In Brazil, it is

used similarly as an outward sign of inner Black pride. Again, a personal interview

provided significant insight into the concept of hair as a visible and perhaps more

powerful form of protest. Cleonice, a 51 year old woman from Brazil, discussed her

experiences with hair care. She claimed that she began straightening her hair after a child

at school said it looked like “arame” or wire. Cleonice said it was not until the 1970s

that she decided to put her straightener away and wear an Afro. It is during this time that
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Cleonice says she began to “me assumir como negra” or assume that she was in fact

Black [Caldwell, 2003].

HAIR AND THE MEDIA

Cleonice’s experience is telling; Black women in Brazil like those in America are

constantly bombarded with images that they can never aspire to imitate. Anti-Black

beauty aesthetics are just as prevalent in Brazil as they are in the United States. In many

other personal interviews, Black Brazilian women continually stated that they felt there

was not a sufficient number of pro-Black beauty ads shown by the media [Caldwell

2003]. Popular portrayal of natural Black hair or the Afro was to term it “cabelo black”

which combines the Brazilian word for hair cabelo with the Western word black. This

defining word is significant because it meshes both cultures’ languages. Like in Brazil,

the American media was quick to latch onto black women’s insecurities and white

principles. Advertisements dating back to the Reconstruction Era were entrenched with

racial beauty slurs. Curl-I-Cure: A Cure For Curls, for example, was a company that

promised to transform clients’ curly, or the popular term nappy, locks into hair that was

long, silky, and straight. The product’s maker uses advertisement to imply that by

changing the hair’s texture, it will affect social status [Rooks 1996]. Like skin tone and

body weight, there is somewhat of a correlation between class and the notion of

“relaxing” or styling one’s hair [Ansariyah-Grace, 1995].

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WEIGHT AND BEAUTY

While skin color is one of the most prevailing predictors of a black woman’s level

of attractiveness, it is second to another variable: weight. Women, in particular, use their

bodies to project their inner thoughts on morals, politics, and social norms [Lovejoy,

2001]. In several studies conducted, it was found that women who were considered

slightly plumper than those deemed slightly thin were also thought to be more attractive

[Hill, 2002]. The obsession over body weight is practically an epidemic in the United

States. And the idea of a correlation between thinness and beauty may also be endemic

to the United States. In the histories of most European and African nations, the weight of

a woman was directly linked to the economic prosperity of her husband. If a woman was

what the American media would deem heavy, it meant she was well fed, which

subsequently meant her husband was financially secure. A weightier woman had a

higher social status because her family was wealthier. In today’s America, it is quite the

opposite: a thinner woman is generally thought to be wealthier because she would have

more access to plastic surgery, nutritionists, gyms, personal trainers, etc [Ansanriyah-

Grace, 1995].

The notion that a black woman’s weight, her thinness, contributes to her overall

beauty also stems from slavery days. During the Antebellum period, both sexes needed

to be equally as hardened in order to keep up with the pace set for them by slave owners

and even after they were free, women still had to find work that required them to have a

bulkier body shape than the frail white women around them [Hill, 2002]. But the idea of

weight management and thinness is not as homogenous of an issue as the lightness of

skin tone. Investigators have found that black women’s ideal body weight is subject to
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the idea that black men find heavier builds more attractive. Because black women in

America and Brazil base their notions of feminine body ideals on what their male

counterparts deem attractive [Molloy, 1998], they view their weight on a different level

of reference than their female white counterparts. Black women in these countries are

more likely to be physically heavier and desire to maintain this chunkiness because of the

perceived preference by black males. In one study, in fact, forty percent of black female

participants who were medically overweight think that their bodies are more aesthetically

pleasing [Molloy, 1998, Lovejoy, 2001]. Like the matter of skin tone, black women

strive to embody what they and the general society believes black men find more sexually

attractive.

While women in America have a skewed view of normal eating which includes

dieting on an almost daily basis [Molloy 1998], black women as a whole are not as

predisposed to being infatuated with what their scales say as white women. In fact

researchers have found that on average female black women and adolescents are more

likely to be pleased with their phonotypical appearances. Black women tend to be less

prone to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia than their white, female counterparts.

Black women are however much more likely to be obese and engage in overeating or

binge eating [Lovejoy, 2001]. Social and economic class also play key roles in black

women’s want or lack of desire to be deemed “thin” by mainstream America. Research

shows that black women of lower economic class were larger and thought larger body

sizes were more attractive than women in the middle and upper classes. This is because

the higher the social status, the more exposure black women have to white middle class

preferences of an ideal body size. During a personal interview with a woman named
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Chinake, she expressed the common American and Brazilian belief that “If you are fat,

you are not beautiful, you are ugly” [Ansariyah-Grace, 1995]. Even though Black

women in Brazil prize physical slimness, like their Black counterparts in America, they

have a comparatively greater range of acceptance of different body shapes and types and

at the same time they think that they themselves are physically thinner. The result is a

collectively higher degree of self acceptance and positive body image in terms of weight

[Lovejoy, 2001].

MEDIA STIGMAS

Black women have a unique status in our country: they are women and they are

black. With those two distinctions comes a plethora of restrictions placed on them by

members of their own race, members of the white race, and most noticeably by the

media. Black women, when shown by the mainstream media, are most often portrayed in

a harmful and/or hackneyed fashion. Researchers have designated four categories in

which black women are most often placed: “the mammy, the matriarch, the sexual siren,

and the welfare mother” [Woodard 2005]. In an attempt to control the intellectual, social,

and political potential of black women, the media has created stereotypes that feed into

white misconceptions and ignorance. In the first category, black women are

characterized as the domestic servant who is always jovial and enjoys taking care of her

white master, mistress, and their children. The media had little difficulty finding

historical references on which to base this interpretation of a black woman. Because of

its historical context, the Black women presented in the servant role are considered the

norm and are used as the standard when describing or defining Black women, their
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societal roles, and their sexuality. The next representation often portrayed through the

media is that of the black woman as a matriarch or black working mother. This black

woman is dictating and often busy outside of the home. Showing black women in this

light gives the dominant culture, i.e. the White culture in Brazil and America, the ability

to hold Black women accountable for the accomplishments and failures of their children,

particularly their male children. The third stereotype projected by the media is that of the

sexual siren who is concerned only with what she can get sexually. This representation

of a black woman also stems from the antebellum period; black women shown as

sexually promiscuous is vital to the beliefs held by upper-class White men about black

womanhood: attempts at controlling black women’s sexuality lies at the heart of their

emotional and physical oppression. The fourth media image created to subjugate black

women is the welfare mother which, like the other images, has its roots in slavery times

as well. Here black women are seen as out-of-work and constantly pregnant [Woodard

2005]. Brazil’s image of Black women is rather congruent to those portrayed by the

American media in part because of the extensive colonization and urbanization of that

area before and after the slave trade [Ansariyah-Grace 1995]. The media’s portrayal of

black women as docile servants, harsh working mothers, exotic prostitutes, or welfare

mothers serves to validate and rationalize white culture’s attempts at controlling and

containing the power and identity of Black women in America and their Brazilian

counterparts [Lovejoy, 2001].

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CONCLUSION

Black women have had to carve a name of their own, overcoming the obstacles of

white supremacy that stem from the antebellum era and are even internalized within their

own African heritage. Black women have always served to foster a sense of culture all

the while being systematically abused and stigmatized by the media. By their ability to

adapt to and resist portions of the dominant white culture, Black women fought back

against media and Western culture to try to obtain and maintain their own sense of racial

identity [Rooks 1996]. It is important for Black women from Brazil and America to look

to the press because Western standards of beauty have, in general, disregarded the Black

population. In Brazil, although popular television characters like Xuxa, who is a white

blonde, are stil preferred by white and black Brazilians, black actors, actresses, and

models are gaining notoriety. Regardless, the mere presence of mulata, Black, and other

non-White stars in the Brazilian media do offer young women in that area a different

model of aesthetic beauty to mimic [Caldwell, 2003]. By staying in tune with themselves

and their own cultural; racial; and, most importantly, feminine identity, black women

have “recontextualized” their scripted role in society and have created new aesthetic

beauty identities within the Black culture in America and Brazil as well as the white

culture at large [Rooks, 1996].

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the researchers mentioned throughout my paper for lending

me their expertise. I would like to thank Dr. Wendy Dirks (Oxford College of Emory
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University) who assigned this research paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous

reviewers that will be reading and criticizing this paper.

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