The Arab World
Nada El-Yassir comments that "in certain areas in the Arab world; the lighter you are, the more beautiful you are considered." She also says that it is common that women in the upper classes dye their hair blond, and may use skin-lightening products, like in some tropical countries. In some countries the implications of this hierarchy go so far as to affect one's social class and job opportunities.
Iman Al-Jazairi says "Looking at Arabic poetry and novels, it is interesting to see that pre-Islamic poetry up until western colonization at the eighteenth century, women were always described as having long, wavy, black hair, brown skin, black eyes with the white of the eyes very white. The body proportions were also bigger. During the later part of the nineteenth century and until very recently, light skinned, blond women have usurped the beauty standard in modern Arabic literature.
Read more about this topic: Colonial Mentality
Famous quotes containing the words arab and/or world:
“As the Arab proverb says, “The dog barks and the caravan passes”. After having dropped this quotation, Mr. Norpois stopped to judge the effect it had on us. It was great; the proverb was known to us: it had been replaced that year among men of high worth by this other: “Whoever sows the wind reaps the storm”, which had needed some rest since it was not as indefatigable and hardy as, “Working for the King of Prussia”.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)