From: aen@cs.brown.edu (Ann Nicholson)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: to tan or not to tan (Was Re: Lipstick)
Date: 9 Sep 1992 15:09:34 GMT
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <18igonINNe89@agate.berkeley.edu> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:

>P.S.  I may not be wearing any makeup, but I do expect everyone in
>soc.feminism to ooh and ahh over the lovely golden tan I just got in
>Hawaii.  And I want to hear y'all say, "And your HAIR!  Can that
>startling gold-white blonde really be *natural*?"

In the days when tanned skin implied that a woman worked outside,
probably in the fields, untanned skin (ie pink/"white") was considered
appropriate for a "lady", showing that she didnt do such manual labour. 
Somewhere along the way, a pallid look became the result of indoor
labour, in factories, in offices. A tanned look meant that you had the
leisure to lie around in the sun, and often the money to go to places
were there is such sun. Of course people didnt *say* this. It used to
be that white skin with a pink tinge was supposedly how you looked healthy.
Now it is a "healthy looking tan". 

I am Australian and I certainly grew up thinking that looking tanned meant 
looking better. Partly because of the climate and the lifestyle it was quite 
difficult *not* to get quite brown, especially face and arms. So maybe it 
made sense for that to become the accepted look. Except that for pink/white 
skinned people, sunshine isnt really that good for you. Australia has one of 
the highest rates of skin cancer in the world - I think that one in 3 people 
get some form of skin cancer at some stage of their lives. This is the
result of the combination of pink/white skinned people living in a country
with lots of strong sunlight and having a lifestyle that often involves
hours and hours of lying baking in the sun (and in Australia it is called
"sunbaking" not sunbathing or suntanning), to get that all-over golden/deep
tan. Over the last few years there has been a very big campaign to make
people aware of the dangers of overexposure to the sun - the "slip, slop,
slap" campaign (to do with putting on suncream). I think it is having
an affect, on my last couple of visits home I noticed a big difference in 
general attitude to tanning, wearing hats in the sun, putting on decent 
sunscreen (15+), etc. And I have spent the last 4 years telling myself that 
I actually look ok with the pink/white skin colour that is my natural colour 
when living in England. For me it is the same issue as to whether I think
I look better with make-up on or not. Or whether I should shave my body
hair. Except that it is a very important health issue as well.

This is also a thing on which women in particular just cant win. If you do
spend 30 years (ages 15-45) carefully cultivating a tan every summer, you
end up with skin that looks rather "leathery", dried, wrinkled, etc - ie
you end up looking older sooner. And women who look old arent attractive right?
So they have to buy lots of creams and moisturisers and have face lifts and...

Ann Nicholson


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