A new student-teacher podcast examines how toxic beauty products and unrealistic beauty expectations have led to injustices
December 21, 2022 – Maintaining society’s expected beauty standards can come at a high cost, financial, health and personal, and those costs fall more often on marginalized groups, according to a new podcast from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
Beauty + Justice looks at the history and context surrounding beauty-related injustices, the potential health impacts from asthma to early menstruation to breast cancer, and the sometimes painful emotional toll of trying to achieve a certain standard of beauty. The podcast features guests from healthcare, academia, nonprofits, and clean beauty companies to discuss, as student host Lissah Johnson puts it in the series trailer, “what it takes to create a future of cleaner and more equitable beauty for all”. Released in November, there were three episodes as of mid-December, with plans for about 10 more in the coming months.
The podcast team includes Johnson, a PhD candidate in the Biological Sciences in Public Health program working in the lab of Kristopher Sarosiek studying how cell death is dysregulated in ovarian cancer; Marissa Chan, a PhD candidate in the Department of Environmental Health studying community and neighborhood level drivers of hair product use among black women; and Tamarra James-Todd, the Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Reproductive Epidemiology and director of the Environmental Reproductive Justice Laboratory.
The idea for a podcast came from a desire to translate research results in a way that is useful to individuals and policymakers. “There is a lot of talk about environmental justice and health equity, but we really need to get the science into the hands of the community members who are most affected, and also those in power who can influence in change,” James-Todd said.
The podcast, she added, highlights the connection between racism and how beauty products are marketed, sold and used. “The cost is not just our health,” she said. “It is also an economic cost. People of color are paying more money, a ridiculously high amount, to try to achieve Eurocentric beauty standards. Basically, we are paying more money to get sicker.”
Experts featured in the podcast series delve into various aspects of beauty injustice. Guests included Lori Tharps, author, storyteller, and educator best known for a book she co-authored, “Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America”; Tamara Gilkes Borr, US politics correspondent for The Economist, who wrote a May 2021 article about some of the hidden costs of having and keeping black hair; Robin Dodson, associate director of research operations and research scientist at the Silent Spring Institute; and Blair Wylie, director of obstetrics at Region 1 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit and founding director of The Collaborative for Women’s Environmental Health in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. A planned Spring 2023 episode will explore the role of big business in beauty justice with Boma Brown-West, former EDF+Business Director for the Environmental Defense Fund and currently Director of Growth for the Healthy Building Network.
A tool for ‘otherness’
In the trailer for the series, Johnson says: “The fact is that beauty is not harmless, nor frivolous, nor just superficial. It is also a source of toxic environmental exposures and a tool to differentiate and exclude specific groups of people.”
The episode with Dodson focused on the types of chemicals people are exposed to from beauty products and ways to prevent those exposures. Dodson has been involved in research that has shown that most women use fragranced products, which can have hundreds of different types of chemicals, and she recommended that people choose fragrance-free products. Other chemicals to watch out for, she said, include phthalates, parabens and UV filters like benzophenone-3, which are endocrine disruptors that affect people’s hormone systems. She also noted that levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals tend to be higher in products marketed to and used by black women than in products for white women.
“Most people don’t realize that chemicals don’t need to be thoroughly tested for safety before using them in products you would use every day,” Dodson said. “I think people should… start making noise and drawing as much attention as possible to these issues so that things start to change.” She suggested speaking up in support of more transparency around products, or calling her favorite brand to complain about unsafe ingredients.
Borr discussed the social consequences of being perceived as less than beautiful. For example, she noted, a 2020 study “found that black women with natural hair, with curly hair, were perceived as less professional and less competent than black women with straight hair and white women with curly or straight hair.”
And while many women spend a lot of money to make their appearance meet societal standards, black women face even greater obstacles. “Black women buy nine times more products than white women,” Borr said, noting that the black hair industry generated $2.5 billion in revenue in 2017. “And you also have to think about the fact that women make less money than men, and on top of that, black women make much less money than white women, and they’re spending much more money to show up and go to work, to make their hair work-appropriate, work-appropriate. It’s really mind-blowing and a little twisted when you really think about it.”
Chan said that he found the episode with Borr very powerful. “She highlighted… that we have not yet reached the point where Black women or Black people can simply walk out the door without considering the impact of institutional and interpersonal racism in regards to their appearance and Eurocentric beauty standards,” she said. she. Johnson agreed, noting that the episode made her think about how much time it takes for her to prepare to leave the house “so as not to get negative feedback.” She talked about what black women call “wash day,” the entire day it takes to wash, detangle, and treat hair. “You lose time for a lot of other things, like being with friends and family,” she said. “And as a PhD student, I don’t have seven hours to spend each week making my hair look its natural state according to Eurocentric standards of beauty and professionalism.”
James-Todd opened up about his own struggles regarding his hair. Sometimes, he said, he has been concerned with wearing his hair in a natural style. “I recognize that there are perceptions of what a black woman looks like with her hair in its natural state, one of which is to be perceived as militant or to be perceived as not particularly attractive,” he said. “And that has implications for whether or not they take me seriously.”
Borr said one way to move the needle on social standards surrounding black hair is legislation that prohibits discrimination based on someone’s hair texture and hairstyle. In September, Alaska became the 19th state to pass such legislation, known as the CROWN (Creating an Open and Respectful World for Natural Hair) Act. Media images of women with naturally black hair can also help, she said.
Learning experience
For Chan, working on the podcast highlighted the importance of framing research towards solutions. “I think a lot of times in environmental justice and environmental health there is a tendency to document disparities or differences in the use of products, which is important. But it’s also important to ask: What can people do about it, and what is the way forward in terms of achieving beauty justice? We’re really driving that point through the podcast.”
Johnson, a bank scientist, said the podcast has taught her how to be a better science communicator. “I am a basic scientist. I am very steeped in the use of technical language and scientific jargon,” she said. “But the reason what I study matters to me is how people in a community are affected. So really being able to explain… to a diverse audience about the research [regarding beauty injustices] it has been really helpful and really powerful. It’s turning me into the scientist I want to be.”
–Karen Feldscher
Photo courtesy of Tamarra James-Todd
Source: news.google.com