What is a Eurocentric World View? First we need to understand what is a world view. A world view refers to the lens through which we engage the world. Typically the lens is invisible, applied unconsciously and goes unrecognized by its users. Yet it influences everything that we observe and interact with. It carries with it certain assumptions and values that shape how we view reality. The key point here being that it is applied subconsciously and it's the underlying focus of many of the studies I reference in this video. Eurocentricism and its effects is a very broad and difficult topic that roots itself in enforcing systematic discrimination through more niche effects such as suppressing proper scientific accredation of non-European discoveries to the more sinister and widespread impact of implementing a dysmorphia of colorism. So what is Eurocentricism? Some may understand it to be Eurocentric beauty standards but that's only a small piece of the pie. The reality is European influence is far far more significant than simply beauty. The match you learn about in school comes from the works of European mathematicians such as Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton and Leonardo Euler. Conversely it implies non-European mathematicians weren't making considerable discoveries worth learning about. Which is kind of ridiculous when you consider how large of a population that is. My favourite example is with mathematical induction. It's a process of proving something holds true for every natural number. While Blaise Pascal was credited with discovering it first, the works of Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Kharaji, a Persian mathematician, utilized it to prove the binomial theorem a century before he even had a name. As an indirect result of suppressing non-European discoveries, we learn about European mathematicians regardless of where we live in the world but never the other way around. The same could be said for astronomy, medicine and engineering. The match analogy should help you better understand the roots of colonialism in relation to beauty. Much like maths, once a standard is set, we continue to use it without question because it's easier than questioning its origin, its agenda or context. British editorials have been highlighted as a key perpetrator of pushing Eurocentric beauty standards, of very fair skin, straight blonde hair, blue eyes, Nordic facial features, thin bodies, and ranks the beauty of other racial ethnic groups against its standard. Now, I want to make an aside that blue eyes and blonde hair are a European beauty standard, but having a forward jaw and a straight nose are universal beauty standards because they are indicators of healthy, cranial facial development. The 2014 research paper, Impact of Eurocentric Concepts of Beauty on the lives of African American women, suggests that the victims of these beauty standards become the enforcers of it themselves, denigrating the features about themselves that made them unique to fit in. What's interesting is that the historical study found that freed Africaners of post-solabery America enforced the same beauty standards that enslaved had themselves as it had become so deeply ingrained over time. I just want to clarify that this study is looking at the Dutch descendant Africans who were sold to the slave trade to America. A famous study called the 1940s Clark-Doll Experiment investigated differences in African American children in segregated schools, first-ows in integrated schools. Participants were presented with two identical dolls with the only difference being in skin color and hair color. The children were asked which doll they would play with, which one seemed nicer, etc, and found a very strong preference for the white doll with blonde hair over the brown doll with black hair. This preference was amplified in the children from segregated schools compared to those in the integrated schools. A similar test was conducted in Mexico 2012, where children were asked to pick the good doll with again the majority choosing the white one with no real explanation as to why. The researchers concluded Eurocentrism is deep rooted in different cultures, including Latin cultures. According to Alexander Edmund's book, Pretty Modern, Beauty, Sex and Plastic Surgery in Brazil, whiteness plays a role in Latin American, specifically Brazilian beauty standards, but it is not necessarily distinguished based on skin color. Edmund said the main ways to define whiteness in people in Brazil is by looking at their hair, nose and mouth before considering skin color. In Erika Lorraine Williams' sex tourism in Bahia and viguis entanglements, Williams' addresses have European and white beauty standards, have more privileges than darker skinned and black women in Brazil. William Sight's Alma Guilhermo Prieto, when she explains that there is a superiority given to light skinned women, over darker skinned black women, as light skinned women were considered more beautiful because they were improved with white blood. So in places such as Brazil, there is more of a focus on Caucasian features than simply skin color. Compared to places such as the Indian subcontinent, where plastic surgery is less common and skin whitening creams are preferred. So it's evidently clear Eurocentrism is the elephant in the beauty standard room. We're all aware of its effects from lighter skin providing greater social mobility to institutionalized racism from the top universities. When I quote research papers, I'm acutely aware of the influence of European ideals and Eurocentric beauty standards, but that's a world we live in and separating a subconscious influence so deeply ingrained into everyone is impossible to do. If you want to go into certain fields such as modeling, acting or even flight stewardess, these are the standards you're going to be held by, not the African beauty standard or the Chinese or the Korean one, because of how globalized our world is. Until Western media, with its widespread influence changes, certain features and skin tones will have the priority over others, and that's just a sad reality. The most prevalent at perpetuating Eurocentric standards are the large editorials and high fashion where non-European models are chosen for their tokenistic uniqueness, rather than looking like the average person of their race. Here, in practice, a token model allows a designer to avoid the accusation of racism and discrimination. In fashion, the differences in the token model could be overexcentuated to be seen as exotic or glamorous, indicators that emphasize the otherness that will distinguish her from her white counterpart. This is the best scene from Gau Kizen, where last week I highlighted the Chinese people's criticisms of Vogue, for choosing the model that had the most unique features over a more conventional one. Despite that, conventionally attractive Caucasian models are chosen for their average genesis, as they represent the standard and so the industry is disproportionately shifted towards them, wherever you are in the world. This vice documentary, I can't show it here because of copyright, is essentially about how Indian designers use ethnically ambiguous Ukrainian models for their shoots instead of Indian ones. High fashion pushes the idea of types, which avoids a baggage of racism by categorizing a look by stereotypes, where certain colors don't fit the all-American girl stereotype, even when that's no longer a proper representation of the actual American demographic. From Black model's matter, challenging the racism of aesthetics and the facade of inclusion in the fashion industry, a model's labor requires striving to meet the aesthetic expectations of the client. Often a Black model's aesthetic labor requires that she goes above and beyond to visually fit within the white standards of beauty. While colonialism did spread Eurocentrism, it's high fashion and editorial magazines that are enforcing its place as the stop beauty standard, because changing the status quo is much, much harder than just following it.