Cultural fetishism - the sexualization of white skin

I often laugh and joke about how “well appreciated” I am in Latin America. But really, cultural fetishism is no laughing matter.

The last few weeks, I have been running every morning. I get catcalls, whistles, and honks. You can follow my progress through my barrio by listening for cries of “guapa” and “la princesa.” It’s so extreme, once I caught a man behind the wheel of a moving pickup truck taking a photo of me.

I'm a young white woman who is often alone. I have naturally blond hair that is only getting blonder from the Costa Rican sun and the slightly chlorinated tap water coming out of my shower head.

Apparently, I'm just the right type.

One of the things I love about Costa Rica is the women. Ticas are proud of being women. They dress how they want and carry their heads high. This is not a culture where women are suppressed and hidden and expected to fade into the background. These ladies are tough and strong, or at least they outwardly project an illusion of strength. I think part of the reason is because they have to be. They’ve grown up in a machismo culture and instead of bowing to it, they stood up even taller. They are bright and smart and interesting and funny and kind. Not to mention how many are drop-dead gorgeous.

So why do men here desire extranjeras, foreigners, instead of these awesome women who are right in front of them?

Cultural fetishism is harmful not only to the people being fetishized, but also to the group being ignored.

Costa Rica is not as jammed and littered with billboards and advertisements as the United States, but where you do see ads, if a woman is pictured, she is almost always light-skinned or white, with light colored hair. These ads set up a cultural standard for beauty that is unachievable, because the majority of women here are born with lush, beautiful black hair and lovely complexion in various shades of light tan to brown. These advertisements encourage the fetishism of light-skinned women and send a message to the others that they are not desirable.

I want to rip down those billboards every time I see them.

This cultural trend (perpetuated by beauty and personal product corporate conglomerates which are usually foreign-owned themselves) is extremely unhealthy to the women and girls who live here. I went to a cosmetics store the other day and bought mascara and soap. My purchase qualified me for a free gift and I hardly paid attention to what it was until I got home. Then I realized I had been given skin whitener. I was horrified. Why does skin whitener even exist? Because we make women with dark skin feel they are not beautiful.

Fetishism also hurts the person being fetishized—in this case, people who look like me. I cannot go a single day without at least one person leering and catcalling. I am openly and brazenly objectified. I changed my walking route to work because of a creepy security guard who absolutely will not shut up when I walk by him, the entire time I am within sight. When I was visiting Nicaragua, men literally barked like dogs at me as I walked down the street. I am called out, hypersexualized, and constantly have to deal with unwanted attention.

I usually laugh it off and try to take it as a compliment. But it would be nice to be genuinely complimented rather than shouted or honked at. It would be even nicer to have someone interested in my mind rather than my physical appearance.

I wish marketers would present women of all shapes and sizes and colors as beautiful. And I wish men wouldn’t be so stupid as to swallow the current messaging out there.

Come on, guys. You’re getting egg on the faces of good Latin American men.