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Anonymous.
AnonymousWhile gathering information for my lesson plan power point which was on body image and begins with an introduction using a history lesson on the Chinese practice of foot binding, I found multiple articles and sites talking about Asian's undergoing surgeries to become more Caucasian in appearance with the hope of getting better job prospects. Here are a couple of links which include videos also:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/omar-shahid/south-koreas-weird-obsess_b_888523.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/23/asian-patients-seek-plastic-surgery-western-look_n_865627.html
edited by dsciarrotta on 1/15/2013
AnonymousAs an English teacher, one of the things I enjoy teaching about is varying perspectives. This is especially important at the junior high level, or actually at any level. I haven't specifically taught "What's Beautiful" in my classroom, although I have enjoyed the show by Jessica Simposon called The Price of Beauty presented by VHI where she traveled around the world and experienced all the "beauty" that there is. Beauty is defined differently in every country. Jessica Simpson was on this show to learn that beauty is not physical attractive, but what's really beautiful in the inside. She wanted to feel empowered. I thought that the show had a great message especially for young girls. Right now, in my 7th grade ELA class, I'm teaching "What's Success?" When we teach our young students, we shouldn't put a price on success and what society values as success which could be materialistically. I teach at a low-income school, so I wanted my students to learn that success can be helping your parents with household chores. Success is coming to school every day even when they have to get up at 5am to catch the bus. Success can be seen through ordinary people who feel empowered by extraordinary things that they have done. This is definitely teaching perspective. As much as perspective is important in the ELA classroom, perspective is extremely important in teaching History.
AnonymousI find the topic of light skin preference very interesting. The topic seems to transcend racial boundaries. As a Latina, I can attest to the fact that there is some concern about this in our culture, especially with the older generations. Therefore, I'm not surprised that light skin is preferred among some Asian groups.
The link below if for an article that focuses on Nigerian women's pursuit of lighter skin. According to the article, 77% of Nigerian women admit to using some form of lightening product. It also mentions the pursuit of groups from other cultures to lighten their skin, including the Chinese.
AnonymousOscar Winner Lupita Nyong'o's Speech On Beauty That Left An Entire Audience Speechless
AnonymousThere is a documentary Hue: A Matter of Colour by Vic Sarin that investigates color preferences in several cultures around the world including the history, effects, and social issues of colorism. I have not seen this movie but watched the trailer at: http://www.sepiafilms.com/productions/completed/hue/hue.html
AnonymousI read a book called Sex in History by a British writer and historian, Reay Tannahill.The Chapter about China was very interesting because it discusses the sexual appeal of bound feet.I think that more than anything it is the desire of males to control the female .Parents want to enhance her chances of having a successful marriage where the virtues are resilience, patience, and truth be said, the ability to put up with abuse from the husband and the mother in law.Men find the small steps and the swaying gate extremely erotic.(to be continued0.
AnonymousI am just now seeing this discussion on footbinding. This is a topic that I have covered every year in my AP World History course and I struggle to get it into the curriculum for my regular World History class since we focus more on modern history. Even with that being said though, just last year I had a Chinese student in class that told me his grandmother had her feet bound. His grandfather was a diplomat of some sort in China and he grandmother basically had little to no mobility as a result. It was a real slap back into reality for many of my students who thought this was an issue waaayyy too far back in history to affect any of us today.
Generally with the presentation I show I also discuss women's rights world wide and have a discussion comparing treatment of women in the past and also women in Egypt that have female circumcision or genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East (just youtube that if you are unaware). I know that footbinding by comparison is for an entirely different purpose, but really how different are these topics when it comes down to women's rights?
AnonymousThe desire for lighter skin is not limited to China, but most of Asia. Taiwan, India, Korea, are [font=Times]among many Asian countries where the business of “skin whitening” includes more than [/font]protection against the sun. In Tawain, pills are provded to impede melanin production, in India [font=Times]there are whitening regimes that include transamine, a chemical found in face creams to lighten [/font][font=Times]one’s skin pigment (Xi). In India, skin pigmentation has both a colonial and caste legacy; the darker the skin, the lower caste, the lighter, the higher. This hierarchy is also found in other Asian countries as well (Hoskins. In Korea, laborers who tilled the fields whose skin darkened in the sun were seen to be the working class while individuals whose skin was light, thus not toiling under the sun, were seen as the governing class. Though this is no longer true, the social ramifications of dark skin remain. According to Zhang Xi’s 2011 article from The Economic Times, skin whitening stems back to ancient China. And this obsession with whiteness has not faded over time. In fact, Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, Clinique, Shisedo, among other cosmetic companies earn [/font][font=Times]over $1 billion euro in annual sales -- each (Xi). Sadly this infatuation has caused women, whose adherence to this social belief, to suffer disfiguration and illness caused by the noxious chemicals found in these so-called beauty products.[/font]
Sources below:
Xi, Zhang. “ Chinese consumers obsessed with white skin bring profits for cosmetics companies.” The Economic Times. 20 Nov 2011. Web. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-11-20/news/30419789_1_skin-care-skin-colour-skin-whitening
Hoskins, Tansy. “Skin-whitening creams reveal the dark side of the beauty industry”. The Guardian. 10 Feb 2014. Web. <http://www.pri.org/stories/2009-03-30/skin-whitening-big-business-asia>
edited by crhude on 12/18/2015
AnonymousWhat a fascinating topic! Very interesting to see the different historical trends that have fed this concept of beauty, and to see how this plays across other cultures. I just spent a few moments finding commercials for these "skin whitening" solutions on youtube, and found many other examples from countries outside of China and Japan. Similarly, I stumbled upon a couple of sites that show you American ads featuring famous actresses and models with darker skin tones and how their image is photoshopped to make their skin lighter for ads and promotional materials. These images and videos could be great starters for conversations about cultural norms, beauty standards, and the historical precedents and oppression that help create both.
AnonymousThis thread caught my eye because I recently saw a friend post a relevant link to social media. As mentioned by ladams in a previous post, there is a lot of information on the Internet recently that allows you to see how people are photoshopped in different countries to meet different standards for beauty. The article (http://www.lifebuzz.com/world-beauty/) shows the different ways that freelancers in 21 countries photoshopped an image of a woman. Of course, the images are heavily based on the subjective interpretations of beauty of one individual in a country, and the article might carry more weight if there were many images collected from each of the 21 countries. However, I think it is an interesting piece to look at, especially when taken with some of the articles posted above. I could definitely see these images being used in a classroom to spark a discussion between students about the different ideals of beauty in different countries. Then, topics such as foot-binding could be introduced.
clay dubeThere's considerable evidence from nature that signals about reproductive capacity and fitness play a big role in judgments of attractiveness or desirability. At the same time, history and literature offer evidence that beauty is culturally-determined. Students will certainly enjoy exploring how notions of beauty vary from culture to culture and within a culture how they vary from time to time and place to place.
Standards police might ask how exploring this topic satisfies social studies, language arts, art, or health/science standards. How might a teacher respond? And what sorts of primary and secondary sources might one utilize to teach about this?
How have discussions of beauty or desirability come up in your classes? How does it fit? What skills can be developed while examining this topic?
(For your reference, some standards are listed here:
http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=2073 )