[Gendergap] Black skins

[Sarah]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 06:06, Arnaud HERVE <arnaudherve at x-mail.net> wrote:
> On 17/09/2011 22:40, Emily Monroe wrote:
>> I remember accessing Wikipedia several times throughout my teenaged
>> years; we cannot expect all of our readers to be an adult with a
>> better understanding of anatomy.
>
> Just a quick note here : I've been talking to a dermatologist and she
> tells me one of the main issues is black women taking all sorts of meds
> to lighten their skin.
>
> It is often detrimental to health, and also it leads to considerable
> money loss in impoverished families, and unnecessary sorrow.
>
> I just thought Wikipedia should be aware of that. Here (fr)
> dermatologist are recruiting black women in the medical sector to lead
> campaigns against that.
>
> I guess one of the ways would be to show dark black women pictures more
> often, not just light brown.
>
> Arnaud
>
Good point, Arnaud. I've become very conscious recently of the way
Wikipedia is being used to portray people in certain ways, which other
people then assume is the norm. I've been focused on women's
genitalia. We had an image on the [[Labia minora]] article that had
the caption (and the title) "large" labia, whereas in fact they were
well within the normal range. The same goes for photographs of black
women, or any other. It goes back to Carol's point about how we need
images that show diversity as normal.

Sarah