Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: News

Eastern alumna Jo Ellen Jacobs speaks Wednesday in Doudna Fine Arts Center Lecture Hall on the aesthetics of sun tanning. The lecture was co-sponsored by the Philosophy Club and the newly formed Women's Studies registered student organization.(Danny Damiani/The Daily Eastern News)

Jo Ellen Jacobs explored the question of why a particular color of skin is integral to the sense of beauty during her lecture of revisiting the Bronze Age.

"In every country on Earth and in nearly every period of history, women long for the palest skin possible," Jacobs said.

Jacobs said this fact is true for every culture except Europeans and European-Americans. They, instead, seek ways of becoming darker, while the rest of humanity increases efforts to become pale.

Jacobs said the biology of tanning could be viewed as a bias for paleness.

"Boys are naturally darker than girls when puberty is reached," she said.

At the turn of the century, American history started experiencing class bias by the color of skin.

"The lighter skin is better," she said. "The lighter you are, the better life will have."

Jacobs said throughout the years, the invention of lighting and darkening techniques has increased and are being used despite all the dangers and warnings.

"Both obsessions lead to a $2 billion industry devoted to changing skin color through artificial tanners, tanning beds, pills and whiteners," she said.

Jacobs said the long-awaited question people still ponder is why Caucasian women want to have a tan or glowing skin.

"The answer is simply women want to declare independence," Jacobs said.

In addition to spending money for lighting or darkening products, women are spending money to look beautiful at all costs mainly for men and male corporations, she said.

Jacobs said women should think of beauty as a practice and become more self-conscious and not do something because of what society believes is beautiful.

"Beauty is becoming the way of life," she said.

Jordan Palmgren, a junior elementary education major, said the lecture depicted how tanning and the traditions have evolved from generation to generation.

Palmgren said tanning and lightening of the skin is a personal choice, and women should think about all the risks and consequences before making a decision.

"I have never tanned, and I believe that a woman does not have to be tanned or lightened to be beautiful," she said.

Rashida Lyles-Cowan can be reached at 581-7942 or rnlylescowan@eiu.edu.

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