Tawse Choudhury
Meet Tawse. As someone passionate about health care, rabbits and gaming, Tawse’s day to day life is filled with a little bit of everything. She is extremely focused on her goal of becoming a doctor one day, so she can eventually help as many people as she can through the powers of healing while also giving back to her community. Growing up in a Bengali household, she has seen her fair share of issues with skin lightening. This is her story.
Light To Dark
I have had problems with my skin. Growing up, my family and close family friend’s have always mentioned how I used to be lighter as a baby and now that I’m older I’ve gotten darker. It’s usually one of the first things in the conversation. “Hello Tawse. How are you? Oh look at you! You’ve gotten so much darker.” Seriously? This made me grow up thinking that there is something wrong with my skin tone and that I should have lighter skin.
Who Wins?
Beauty standards are different throughout the world of course. In South Asian culture, it seems as if the lighter you are the prettier you are. On the other hand, in America and other European countries, women get tans to get darker. But who really wins? The women of color sure don’t. The lighter skinned women don’t either. It’s the skin lightening or tanning businesses that win. They shouldn’t. Ever.
The Bengali in Me
I have seen commercials on South Asian TV channels with ads for fairness creams such as Fair and Lovely. Growing up I didn’t really realize what they meant. It was just another product that someone was trying to sell me. Now, I understand what the advertisement is trying to tell me. It’s saying that I’m not light enough and that means I’m not beautiful enough. It’s truly just sad. I want my culture to promote self love. So many of us are darker skinned. We need to support each other, instead of bringing us down. That kind of effect lasts forever.
Learning to Love
It can be hard to learn to love your skin. It wasn’t easy for me. The off handed comments, the Fair and Lovely creams and lack of media representation will probably always be there. I’ve had to learn to listen to myself and my heart instead. I am comfortable with my skin now. I’ve learned that it’s perfect the way it is. It don’t let it affect my ideas and perceptions of beauty.
Dear Little Tawse
All I can say is stay true to yourself and cancel out the rest. It’s not that important, but you are. Take care of yourself and know that in the end everything will be okay.
