FAIR AND LOVELY: a very famous product in South Asia that promises consumers to lighten their skin. The advertisement’s promises consumer a better life with a better complexion. If you are fair, you automatically have better opportunities in the world. Better opportunities in work, marriage, society, etc. Yes, this is a popular brand in South Asia that is telling people indirectly that they're not good enough because their complexion is not light.
In this day and age where women all over the world suffer from serious low self-esteem from body image to appearance issues- such brands instigate the matter with their prejudicial and superficial endorsement.
Is this right? Should this even be legally promoted? The brand itself is not essentially an issue but the way it’s promoted is simply not right. Advertisements that show that life is a misery when you have dark skin are promotion at its worst. They play with the consumer’s self-esteem.
This is a moral injustice that makes people feel bad about their self-image. To sell their products by claiming you will only possess "maximum impression with maximum fairness" is atrocious. One's beauty should not be judged with such classifications.
This needs to be stopped and it needs to be stopped now!
Spot on, from a moral point of view! However, if you start thinking like an economist, you can't help but speak against the idea of forcefully stopping its sales. In a place like South Asia, looking fair skinned, in fact, does give you an advantage over the other girls as it helps you attract Asian men better. It puts you ahead of the other ladies you compete with. But this gets the other girls to use it too, as they need to use it to stay with the pack, and not fall behind. Therefore, you might argue that it leads to an inefficient arms race and a wasteful expenditure cascade with the end product being men choosing the same women as before (experiments show that relative prettiness matters a lot more than absolute beauty)!
ReplyDeleteIf it were banned or if all the South Asian women came to an agreement that they would stop using the product (A cartel of women, perhaps?), most Asian men would still be more attracted to the most fair skinned of the lot and everyone would be the same as they were when they were using the fairness products. What this will do is encourage cheating. A black market might form (which is why I propose the legalisation of drugs with a high indirect tax rate) and companies might be more deceptive and relabel their products and find loopholes.
Perhaps the best solution to this is a high indirect tax rate? What I do know is that banning it would do no good!
- Keith Khan (Prospective economist)
I completely agree with letting the brand exist as people do consume the product but their endorsement needs to be changed. The way they are endorsing it now is a moral injustice and should not be allowed. The product in it merits has the qualities to exist due to the fact is people in South Asia cherish such products. However, they should not be marketed on saying your life will be only better once your fair.
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