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Is skin bleaching a moral wrong? An African bioethical perspective

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Abstract

Focusing on black communities in Africa, in this paper, I attempt an African bioethico-aesthetic deconstruction of the falsehood in colorist definitions of beauty purveyed by the migration of non-surgical cosmetics to Africa. I provide a novel ethical evaluation of the act of skin bleaching using principles of the African ethic of communion. I argue that skin bleaching is morally wrong to the extent that it promotes disharmonious relations and false identity in the beauty industry in Africa. Drawing on scientific studies that link toxic ingredients in many skin-bleaching products to adverse health effects, I discuss the public health impact of bleaching cosmetics and other problems occasioned by their strategic expansion into African markets. I propose that there is an urgent need for a relational ethic of polycentric governance that would harmoniously regulate the production and distribution of cosmetic products across regions in order to avoid the exploitation of consumers in black African societies, while also protecting consumers’ right to make informed choices through education.

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Notes

  1. Cosmetics, as used in this paper, encompasses any organic or non-organic product applied to the skin that is capable of changing the skin’s basic structure for the purpose of improving users’ appearance.

  2. In order to avoid the racial presuppositions and tautology conjured by use of the common phrase sub-Saharan Africa, I employ the term South Sahara in reference to the geographical region comprising West Africa, North Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and Central Africa.

  3. To give a sense of the pervasiveness of this phenomenon, empirical studies of the use of skin-bleaching products have found prevalence rates of 77.3% among traders in Lagos, Nigeria [2]; 58.9% among women in Togo [3]; 52.7% among women in Dakar, Senegal [4]; 35.5% in Pretoria, South Africa [5]; 35% among women in Kigali, Rwanda [6]; and 43.6% among female traders in Yaoundé, Cameroon [7].

  4. In this paper, I use the terms skin lightening and skin bleaching interchangeably in reference to the act of changing the structure of one’s skin such that darker skin becomes lighter.

  5. Skin bleaching is not an exclusively feminine practice. The focus on women is due to their being more affected by the relationship between skin color and beauty. In many African societies, females’ worth, in comparison to males’ worth, is premised on physical appearance more so than on other forms of capital such as education and wealth.

  6. A popular instance of a white person’s wanting to be black (skin-wise) is offered in the case of Martina Big, a German glamour model who willingly took melanin tanning injections that turned her skin black.

  7. Light-skinned models are often used to advertise skin-bleaching products in some South-Saharan African states. Some of the patronizing advertisements found on skin-bleaching products include comparative predicates such as healthier, brighter, younger, enhanced, clearer, and more natural; as well as imperative exhortations such as “experience perfect radiance,” “unveil perfect skin,” “be as beautiful as you can be,” “let your skin do the talking,” and so forth.

  8. For instance, many celebrities in Nollyhood (e.g., Iyabo Ojo, Sikiratu Sindodo, Toyin Aimakhu) and Gollyhood (e.g., Mariam Abdul Rauf) as well as South African superstar actresses and models Khanyi Mbau and Kelly Khumalo have bleached skin.

  9. Godfrey Tangwa’s eco-bio-communitarian account is an example of another orientation in African bioethics; see [55, p. 192, 56].

  10. To the extent that a high percentage of skin-bleaching products originate in Europe and other places outside of Africa, the arguments grounding the international sales and migration of skin lighteners to Africa as either morally unjustified or not might differ depending on the framework employed. For instance, in the light of the prevalence of principlism in the Western bioethical literature, arguments that would be justifying the morality or otherwise of migration of skin lighteners to Africa might contrast or overlap with those evaluating it from an African bioethic of communion framework. A comparative evaluation of moral arguments from different bioethical traditions is a task for future studies.

  11. This question is fundamental as skin bleaching is driven by racial prejudice, among other salient factors, and not patronized on the basis of cutaneous disorder. A consideration of this question is the focus of another paper.

  12. Commodity racism captures the intertwined relation between race and commodity whereby the former is expressed through the latter.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Thaddeus Metz, two anonymous reviewers, and Katelyn MacDougald, the copyeditor of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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  1. University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Ademola Kazeem Fayemi

  2. University of Lagos, Akoka, Nigeria

    Ademola Kazeem Fayemi

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Fayemi, A.K. Is skin bleaching a moral wrong? An African bioethical perspective. Theor Med Bioeth 41, 1–22 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-020-09520-1

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