The inspiring movement pushing women of color to speak out against unfair beauty standards

Say hello to the product that seems to have been the bane of many South Asian women’s existence for decades: Fair & Lovely, a vitamin B-3 skin lightening cream that claims to have “given hope” to women around the world “about how it made them feel about themselves and how it allowed the world to see them.

Now meet the women who are fiercely challenging this racist message: dark-skinned South Asians and other women of color who are “exercising their melanin,” as Colorlines puts it, by posting proud photos with the trending hashtag. #UnfairAndLoving.

“I tried many skin lightening creams and bleaches just to feel prettier,” one woman, Divya, said on Instagram. “But with the help of this movement, I am starting to love my skin color and the beautiful culture and history behind it.”

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It all started last month, when University of Texas student Pax Jones created a photo series aimed at combating the global obsession with fair skin. She called it “Unfair and Lovely” – a double entender of the name of the 40-year-old skin lightening cream – and featured beautiful images of her classmates, South Asian sisters Mirusha and Yanusha Yogarajah (above). The series inspired the hashtag movement on Twitter and Instagram, joining forces with another empowering hashtag. #RecoverTheBindi, which opposes cultural appropriation. And the week of March 8 to 14 is declared #UnfairAndLovelyWeek.

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Women around the world participate enthusiastically.

“India is a country obsessed with fair skin,” notes a PRI article on the hashtag trend. “From a young age, girls are told not to go out in the sun, taught to use masks with lightening properties, and asked to avoid drinking tea because “it makes the skin darker.” .

But the hashtag campaign is aimed at almost everyone who feels at home there. “#UnfairAndLovely is for dark-skinned people of color. #UnfairAndLovely is meant to be an inclusive space,” Jones told The Huffington Post. “It’s for queer, trans, genderqueer, non-binary, poor, fat and differently-abled people of color.”