Beauty is … an 18-year-old girl in pink stilettos, walking to the sound of her own confident giggle. A native of Krugersdorp, Beauty Ramoroka exudes self-assurance and exuberance. She doesn’t subscribe to the popular concept of beauty that condemns plump, dark-skinned women.
Ramoroka talks about a male friend who unfavourably compares her to the ”it” girls who are ”thin and fair-skinned … every guy’s dream of beauty”. But she is unfazed by this prejudice and says: ”I’m me, and to be me is phenomenal.”
Ramoroka is part of a growing South African phenomenon of women liberating themselves from feelings of inadequacy often generated by conventional ideas of beauty. These women are comfortable in their own skins.
”I think South Africans have come a long way in accepting and embracing African beauty,” says veteran model and fashion journalist, Leigh Toselli. ”We’re starting to see a strong sense of ethnic identity … Our models are starting to realise that they don’t have to have hair extensions and blue contact lenses to be beautiful.”
Sadly, this is not the case with many women worldwide. In a 10-country survey conducted last year by Dove, a United States cosmetic company, a mere 2% of women said they felt beautiful. ”The study does not suggest that women are self-loathing or in despair … but they do not feel the power and pride of beauty,” wrote Dr Nancy Etcoff of Harvard University, a co-director of the study.
The survey did not interview any women in African countries, but South African women say they accept what they have been given and make the best of it.
Portia Gumede, who plays the part of the big and beautiful Dinky Dube in the local television series Hard Copy, says there is no need for South Africans to celebrate beauty. ”We don’t have anything to prove. We have beautiful people.”
Gumede believes the true definition of beauty is confidence. ”I’m not intimidated by skinny girls. I have something to bring to the mix and I’m going to walk the walk.”
Donna Smith, director of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, a support agency for black lesbians, says the Afrocentric hairstyles and fashions that many women wear in South Africa would be publicly condemned in her home country of Jamaica. ”There’s a higher level of comfort in South Africa because people seem to appreciate natural beauty.”
Reclaiming and redefining African beauty is surely in order. Last October Dove launched a ”campaign for real beauty”, to counter the onslaught of not-so-realistic beauty images in the media, and because ”for too long, beauty has been defined by narrow, unattainable stereotypes”.
So Dove began photographing ”real women” for its campaign ads: a 96-year-old African-American with a tagline reading ”wrinkled or wonderful?”; a picture of a freckled 20-something that asks ”flawed or flawless?”; and a plus-size woman with a tagline reading ”oversized or outstanding?”
Many thought the campaign missed the point, and had offered up the female body once again for objectification.
But the campaign has sparked discussion and raises important questions about African beauty. Especially because now, more than ever, what it means to be African and beautiful no longer depends on how well African women mimic Western ideals of beauty.