Between Society and Self: The Socio-Cultural Construction of the Black Female Body and Beauty in South Africa

Abstract

Interested in the socio-cultural construction of the body and beauty, this study investigates the embodied experience of Black African women in South Africa. The Black female body has been problematically positioned in the discourses of beauty. In the dominant, Westernized imagery, the physical markers of blackness such as dark skin and kinky hair have been aesthetically devalued. In the African traditionalist discourses, these body features have been celebrated as beautiful and invoked as the signifiers of cultural pride. This, however, has also been considered as a form of cultural imperative that holds women accountable for how they embody their relationship with their race and ethnicity. Most recently, cultural critics notice the aesthetic revaluation of Black female beauty and ascribe it to the global popularity of the African-American hip-hop culture. In this study, we explore how the socio-cultural complexity of Black female beauty affects the ways in which individuals make sense of their bodies.

The effect of online customer reviews and celebrity endorsement on young female consumers’ purchase intentions

“…However, Western views still strongly influence how South African women perceive their natural beauty and body image. It is the foresight of Thulare Monareng, Simphiwe Dana, Lerato Moloi, Terry Pheto and others who are working to regain the uniqueness of African beauty and to embrace the natural physical morphology of traditionally decorated women (Glapka and Majali, 2017). Globally, the retail portion of the gross domestic product of South Africa’s cosmetics sector is estimated to be about R25.3bn (Cvetkovska, 2019).…”