For a brown girl.
Ignorance really is bliss. Growing up in a predominantly white area, little old me never realised she stuck out amongst her traditionally beautiful Caucasian friends. I was funny, smart, and ‘cool enough’. Even ‘pretty — for a brown girl’. Told I didn’t look like the other brown girls. Constantly asked if I was sure I wasn’t mixed. Complimented for being so ‘exotic’. How exactly am I the exotic one? Considering white people make up just 10–12% of the global population, and South Asians clock in at 24–25% — Indians alone at 17–18% — statistically, I’m the default. We’re literally everywhere. So, in a world where there are 2 brown girls for every 1 white, how am I made to feel like the other?
I played along. Followed trends, straightened what was curly, plucked what was bushy, bleached what was visible. Fixed parts of myself that did not align with the narrow Eurocentric beauty mould, that I thought were not attractive. All in the efforts I would become more palatable and closer to white. Somehow every single beauty standard revolves around having petite cutesy European features and fair and lovely skin. The thick curls, the bushy brows, the tan skin, the curves — everything I was taught to be ashamed of — was never considered truly feminine, never quite beautiful. And still, I was never seen as equal. Just attractive, despite my race.
But all those features are beautiful — just not on us. On the likes of the Kardashians and celebrity trendsetters who can pick and choose which ethnic features they want as if they’re accessories. We don’t have that luxury — we can’t wash our tan off. While they spray it on, wear our hair as extensions, plump their lips, and borrow our heritage (I see you, Scandinavian scarves), they’re praised. We’re penalised. women of colour are ridiculed, sexualised, and mocked for our bodies, hair types, and skin colour. They’re “ethnically ambiguous.” We’re “too much.”
And despite the recent trends of inclusivity in media, it can’t be denied that the foundation of racism and Eurocentric beauty standards remains firm. It stings when someone else benefits from and profits off the same thing you have been made to feel insecure about. So not only do non-European features need to celebrated and showcased, but to truly remove the inherited insecurities we need to recognise that beauty is subjective, diverse, and from various backgrounds and cultures. As opposed to labelling ethnicities as exotic and making them into fleeting trends.
The orientalist fantasy still thrives. We are fetishised and othered, our worth and acceptance into society worth reduced to how palatable our appearance is to the white gaze. Women of colour that fall closer to the ‘standard’ European features are celebrated for their difference and sexualised as exotic. And those of us further along the spectrum, discriminated against. And so you can’t blame us for aestheticizing our culture, simmering it down to a level that is tolerable for the western world. Grouped together and treated as a monolith, south Asian women are held to the same standard of ‘brown beauty’ deemed acceptable by white people. “Brown beauty” that we’re expected to grow into — the kind defined by a glow-up that tames our hair, lightens our skin, erases our monobrows, and strips away our peach fuzz.
The internalisation of euro-centric beauty standards is evident in the ‘brown girl up’ tik toks making the rounds on social media. A masterclass in internalised white supremacy. Keep the long lashes and nose ring — ditch the rest. Lighter skin, sleeker nose, straighter hair. As if carrying the faces and genes of our ancestors is something to be ashamed of and tamed.
The detachment I’ve felt from my heritage can be attributed less to the microaggressions from white people and more from our own society. The side-eyes and backhanded comments from aunties for being too dark. Suggestions I should spend less time outside doing the things I love, that my hair looks better straightened not curly and unruly. The praise and compliments that came only when I looked less like myself. Let’s not even start on the multi-million industry built on the insecurities they sowed into us, I see you fair and lovely.
With arms too hairy, hair too frizzy, skin too dark, a name too bizarre, the self-contempt I felt to my brownness made me resent my Indian heritage. I’ve worked hard to unlearn it. And yet, compliments still feel suspicious. Conditional. I’m beautiful — for a brown girl. Compliments feel like traps — I brace for the “but,” unsure if it’s pity or performance. Some patterns sink too deep to unlearn.
So deeply ingrained are the psychological impacts that that when a white man called me “hot” the other week, I felt a 10-year-old version of myself light up. The giddy feeling that was following by a boatload of guilt. I should know better. I do know better. Yet why does approval from the white gaze still feel like a prize — something utterly unfathomable to receive?
Telling us we’re the exception — because we fit the beauty standards you created — isn’t a compliment, no matter your good intention. The message that anything outside the cookie cutter is somehow less, or not beautiful, is more damaging than flattering. More than that, it perpetuates the age-old tale created by colonisers that divided our communities, stripped us of our culture, and left a legacy of self-hate for our physical exterior, with a constant yearning to be the ‘fairest of them all’.
When we dismiss the beauty of women from South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, the Pacific — we erase entire histories of aesthetic expression. And although beauty standards in of itself can be harmful, considering beauty goal posts are constantly shifting, from body shape to facial proportions, to height, and weight. They do govern us. It is undeniable that white European women have been and continue to be the pinnacle of beauty. Through colonialisation, these standards have become the global norm. Today, over 80% of girls without Eurocentric features or pale skin are shoved beneath the shadow of the whitewashed “ideal.” Simply expanding the narrow parameters for what is feminine and beautiful outside of euro-centric ideals can be the first small step.
