Critique II

Buchanan, Taneisha S.; Fischer, Ann R.; Tokar, David M.; Yoder, Janice D. Testing a Culture-Specific Extension of Objectification Theory Regarding African American Women's Body Image. The Counseling Psychologist, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 697-718, July 2008.

The authors discuss in their article that body image dissatisfaction in African American women is actually reported less then in White and Latina women. They say that African American women tend to “endorse an ideal body image that is close to what they considered to be a healthy weight”(Buchanan). Their studies have brought them to believe that the objectification theory needed to be modified to handle a study on African American women, focusing on their particular ethgendered experiences, for example having their appearance evaluated in terms of skin tone, hair texture and facial features, along with body size and shape. The authors focused their study and article on the “salient physical attribute for African American women: skin tone.”

They found studies from the 80’s stating that when looking at educational level, occupational level and family income of Black Americans the results were stratified by skin tone. The higher educational attainment, greater participation in professional and technical careers, and higher income were associated with lighter skin tone. The data also concluded that lighter skin tone predicted higher self-esteem, even after variables such as education, income and marital status. This data, even though dated, still shows that at one time skin tone had important social implications for African Americans. Using this data and other empirical research, the authors found that African American women seem to have been more affected by preferences for lighter skin tone than African American men, possibley because of the societal importance of attractiveness for women in general. The authors found that “women are constrained to meet the standards of beauty of the dominant culture, and their appearance may affect their access to social and economic opportunities.” The researcher argued that beauty serves as social capital, so in theory light skin may equal beauty, thus, lighter skin tone may lead to social and economic rewards for African American women, which means that skin tone may be viewed as a body –image variable, just like body shape and size. So their study is to find out how self-objectification is linked between habitual body monitoring and body dissatisfaction.

The authors used 117 African American women, ages 18 – 59, from a large public university in the Midwestern U.S., contacted by email and given online surveys. They collected data on self-objectification, body dissatisfaction focusing on two kinds of appearance concerns: a culturally specific version involving skin tone and the more common body shame regarding shape and size. Their results were that African American women’s surveillance of their own body shape and size predicted body shame, with the pattern extending to skin tone.

This study brings to light that one’s body image is not just about the size and shape but can also deal with skin tone. This is something that would affect all minority women, because most minority women do not have the creamy white European skin of the dominant culture. The authors did a great job bringing about their research and their study, they even modified their study to factor in their age ranges in their participants. They show in their results data that with age women have less skin ton dissatisfaction then the college age participants.

This study was very interdisciplinary because the authors fused the disciplines of gender, culture and experiences to figure out that African American women have more than just their body shape and size to be dissatisfied over. The authors were able to effortlessly seam everything together as if that has always been the way to see this study and research. This article fits right in with my project because it adds a body image problem that well affect most of minority women and it is something that the media can expose and exploit. Just with the data that lighter skin tone African Americans have great social and economic success would be worth the article but to also have the data result in body shame extending to skin tone was the topper.