The Gender/Race Transition

 The social significance of human skin color has to be understood in light of the range of complexions that people normally see. For most of our early history and prehistory, this color spectrum encompassed primarily the difference in complexion between the sexes and secondarily the minor variability that exists among individuals. Differences between neighboring ethnic groups were negligible. As van den Berghe (1983) has pointed out:

The typical situation is that ethnies which have been neighbors for a while also look alike on the average. More precisely, genetic variation within each group is typically much larger in virtually every phenotype than mean differences between groups. Therefore, racism, in the majority of cases, is no good at all in discriminating between neighbors. Racism would do a much better job of discriminating between distant groups, but, unless they meet, distant groups are seldom interested in discriminating between themselves; indeed, they are often not even aware of each other's existence.

Given a narrower range of observable variability, a lack of ethnic connotations, and a stronger sexual significance, one would not expect human skin color to be understood in the same way as it is today. This older pattern of meaning may be characterized in three ways:

(a) Relativism

The Ancient Greeks described their skin as melas or leukos, literally "black" or "white." Ulysses, for example, regained the "black" complexion of his youth when Athena touched him with her golden wand (Odyssey XVI: 172-176). More.

Among the pre-Islamic Arabs, Lewis (1970:7-8) likewise notes a more relativistic color terminology, centered more on the individual than on the group:

These terms are usually used in a personal rather than ethnic sense, and would correspond to such words as swarthy, sallow, blonde or ruddy in our own modern usage more than to words like black and white. Sometimes they are used ethnically, but even then in a relative rather than absolute sense. The Arabs, for example, sometimes describe themselves as black in contrast to the Persians who are red, but at other times as red (or even white) in contrast to the Africans who are black.

This older, more relative sense has been noted in other culture areas. The Japanese once used the terms shiroi (white) and kuroi (black) to describe their skin and its gradations of color (Wagatsuma 1967). The Ibos of Nigeria employed ocha (white) and ojii (black) in the same way, so that nwoko ocha (white man) simply meant an Ibo with a yellowish or reddish complexion (Ardener 1954). In French Canada, the older generation still refers to a swarthy Canadien as noir.

Vestiges of this older usage persist in family names. Mr. White, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Black were individuals within the normal color spectrum of English people. Ditto for Leblanc, Lebrun, and Lenoir among the French or Weiss, Braün, and Schwartz among the Germans.

(b) Color sensitivity

Among the Lesu of Melanesia, Powdermaker (1933:229) mentions an acute sensitivity to slight differences in skin color we would now deem unimportant:

... the Lesu man says that what he considers most desirable in a woman is youth, firm, well-developed breasts, and a light-coloured skin. To a woman the desirable qualities in a woman are also youth, light-coloured skin, and she prefers men with small eyes and without beards. The natives are keen to discern varying shades of skin colour and they notice slight variations in shade more sharply than the average white person.

Similarly, in pre-Islamic Arabic literature, Lewis (1970:7) states that "[t]he early poets used a number of different words to describe human colours, a much wider range than is customary at the present time."

(c) Gender consciousness

Skin color was seen as a sexual characteristic: fair skin incarnated femininity; dark skin, masculinity. Awareness of this duality was already present in simple hunting and gathering societies, as may be seen in this quote from a Hopi amerindian: "We often talked of the types of women we liked best … I preferred a light complexion for we say that a woman with a dark skin may be half man." (Talayesva 1942:281). Skin color as a criterion of sexual identity is found across a wide range of culture areas. In a survey of the main anthropological data bank, the Human Relations Area Files (Category 832, "Sexual Stimulation, Ideals of Erotic Beauty and Sexual Attraction"), 47 of the 51 societies with relevant information showed an asymmetric preference for lighter skin in women (van den Berghe & Frost 1986).

The sex difference in complexion is attested in the visual arts of many peoples. Thus, the Egyptians depicted their women as yellow and their men as red-brown. The Etruscans and Greeks followed a similar pattern, with women in rosy white and men in brick red. This convention also appears in Aztec, Chinese, Japanese, Roman, medieval European, and even modern art. Another attestation may be found in the authors of antiquity, such as Aristotle:

Speaking generally, this [vaginal discharge] happens in fair-skinned women who are typically feminine, and not in dark women of a masculine appearance.

Aristotle Generation of Animals 1: 20

Beyond sexual identity per se, human complexion was associated with a number of personal qualities, derived at least in part from notions of femininity and masculinity. In the writings of Ancient Greece, the white skin of a woman incarnated not only her beauty but also her weakness and need for protection. The dark skin of a man evoked his virility and ardor in combat. Although a woman would feel flattered if complimented on her white complexion, a man would take the same remark as an insinuation of effeminacy, impotence, or cowardice. Many expressions associate darkness with virility: a brave, strong man had a 'black rump' whereas a coward had a white one. This dichotomy was projected onto the internal organs and, by extension, onto the soul itself. A 'black heart' signified strong emotions; a 'white heart', indifference (Irwin 1974).

A similar pattern came up during my fieldwork on Île aux Coudres, a small French-Canadian community. The local inhabitants associated a ruddy-brown complexion with a hard (dur), quick-tempered (prompt), proud (orgueilleux), and malicious (malin) temperament; by contrast, they identified paleness with a soft (doux) and accommodating (facile) one. Similarly, among the Berti, a Sudanese people, "men and women affirm without any hesitation that men are black, hot and hard and women are white, cold and soft" (Holy 1988). A word-association test on Navajo and Anglo-American subjects found that "BLACK tends to be the more potent and masculine but WHITE the more active and feminine" (Osgood 1960). In general, lighter skin suggested a soft, weak, calm, or inoffensive person. Darker skin evoked someone who was hard, strong, emotional, or ominous. Depending on the context, each of these qualities might be positive or negative. Whiteness could signify peaceful serenity or cowardly indifference. Blackness could refer to any strong emotion — anger, indignation, sadness, hate — however justified or malicious. Overall, a light complexion was not judged to be superior to a dark one. Everything depended on the context, within which the most important variable was gender.

The 'fair woman, dark man' motif appears in artwork throughout the world. This woodcut, Les Vieux, is from the province of Québec, Canada. (Musée historique de Vaudreuil, photographed by Jean-Claude Dupont). A ruddy-brown complexion (often called "rougeaud") was traditionally considered to be a sign of male vigour.

Racialization of skin color

People consciously linked skin color to gender only as long as other sources of pigmentary variability remained minimal. This linkage weakened as smaller, mono-ethnic societies gave way to larger, multi-ethnic ones. The transition occurred gradually and unevenly, at first perhaps in certain zones of interethnic contact on the Indian subcontinent. Other zones of contact opened up as the slave trade brought blacks into areas outside sub-Saharan Africa: Pharaonic Egypt from the second millenium B.C. onward; the eastern Mediterranean basin of Late Antiquity; and the Middle East and North Africa after the great Islamic conquests.

In the post-conquest Islamic world, Lewis (1971:9) lists a number of changes in the perception of skin color:

... [There was a] narrowing, specialization, and fixing of colour terms applied to human beings. In time almost all disappear apart from black, red, and white, and these become ethnic and absolute instead of personal and relative. Black, overwhelmingly, means the natives of Africa south of the Sahara and their offspring. White - or occasionally (light) red - means the Arabs, Persians, Greeks, Turks, Slavs, and other peoples to the north and to the east of the black lands.

A similar change occurred in the Hellenic world. After the Homeric Age (700 B.C), men were increasingly reluctant to call themselves "black" although women continued to be "white":

... is he not generous in his proportions and pleasing in his complexion, neither dark nor fair of skin; for the one befits a woman, and the other a slave. Lucian of Samosata [125-180 A.D.] The Parasite 41

 

Those who are too swarthy are cowardly; this applies to Egyptians and Ethiopians. But the excessively fair are also cowardly; witness women.

Anon. [300-200 B.C.] Physiognomonica 6: 812

By the Christian era, dark skin had become firmly identified with Egyptians and, even more so, "Ethiopians" - the term then used for Black Africans. Associated color meanings were also changing. Blackness was becoming increasingly pejorative, a trend apparent in both Greek and Latin. The term 'black heart' lost its broader sense of 'emotional' and was left with its narrower one of 'wicked.' In the writings of the early Church fathers, most references to dark skin fall within the realm of demonology, i.e., descriptions of demons or the Devil as being Ethiopian in appearance.

Several reasons may explain this change. First, there had arisen a leisure class of men who cultivated a fair complexion and other aspects of physical beauty even at the risk of seeming effeminate. Second, with urbanization the relative pallor of many town dwellers became more and more acceptable. In a play by Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae [62-64], this urban/rural duality clashes with the earlier woman/man one. The opening act features a group of women who wish to pass for men; they oil themselves, let their body hair grow and stay all day in the sun to make their skin as brown as possible. Although their ruse is successful, one observer is left wondering. Surely, these "men" must exercise a profession where one is seldom in the sun:

There gathered such a crowd about the Pnyx, you never saw the like; such pale-faced fellows; just like shoemakers, we all declared; and strange it was to see how pallid-packed the whole Assembly looked.

Aristophanes [450-385 B.C.] Ecclesiazusae 385-387

Finally, skin color had become a mark of both foreignness and low social status. With the Pax Romana, fewer prisoners of war were being taken and new slaves had to be purchased from outside the Empire, including a significant number from sub-Saharan Africa. Some evidence points to a growing Black presence in Greco-Roman society, particularly during Late Antiquity. In one osteological study, 4% of human remains from early Christian Corinth were identified as Black African (Angel 1972). It may be significant that early Christian descriptions of the Devil as being black or Ethiopian come largely from the eastern regions of the Roman empire, especially Egypt, where Black slaves would have been more numerous (Devisse & Mollat. 1979:9-31)..

Late Antiquity ended with the collapse of Greco-Roman civilization. The decline of trade and the ensuing Islamic conquests of the Middle East and North Africa eroded the political and commercial links between Europe and Africa. Artwork depicted Black Africans poorly, suggesting that the artist had never seen such men and women in the flesh.

By the Middle Ages, skin color was defined primarily along the gender axis. A brown complexion was much esteemed in a knight; many were called "the broun" and the tenth token of a knight of "stronge Corage" was that he should be of "broune coloure in al the body." Darker shades, however, were considered more threatening than virile. A review of Middle English literature states that "if there is any doubt as to the beauty or ugliness of brown persons, it is certain that those who are black are decidedly ugly and sometimes hideous" (Curry 1916:80). This was the color of devils, giants, wicked men, and opponents of Christianity. Color meanings were thus less symmetric than in earlier times, possibly because the negative connotations of blackness were being reinforced by Christian discourse and symbolism.

In medieval Europe, the only ethnic boundaries along which color prejudice could crystallize were those involving the Saracens, the Tatars, and the Jews. In all three cases, as we shall see, differences of color contributed to the formation of negative stereotypes.

Medieval literature often identifies the Saracens (now called Muslims) by their darker skin, to the point of making it a mark of infamy. The treacherous Abisme is as "black as molten pitch" in the Chanson de Roland. "Blacker than pitch or ink" are the Turks in the Chanson d'Aspremont. "Black," "loathely," and "swart as pitch" are the Saracen giants in Rouland and Vernagu and in Ferumbras. More.

Another swarthy people known to Europeans were the Tatars, a Turkic people inhabiting the steppes north of the Black Sea. In a 14th-century romance, The King of Tars, the Christian wife of a Tatar Khan gives birth to a formless lump of flesh. After fruitless appeals to his heathen deities, the Khan consents to have the lump baptized, whereupon it becomes a handsome boy. Impressed, he converts to Christianity and his skin turns white in the baptismal water. Two other chronicles of the same period describe how a Tatar Khan's Christian concubine bears him a son white on one side and black on the other. When baptized, the child emerges from the water white on both sides.

Finally, a certain color consciousness pervaded medieval anti-Semitism, as seen in a 13th-century dialogue between a rabbi and an apostate Jew:

Apostate — You are uglier than all men that are on earth, while the people of our kind [Christians] are very beautiful.

R. Nathan — The wild plums that grow on the hedgerows [and are black], what flower do they come from?

Apostate — From a white flower

R. Nathan — Well, we Jews come from a pure, white source. That is why our faces are black; but you, you come from a red, impure source. That is why you have a fair and rosy complexion. But the truth is that we are in servitude.

In another text, a Christian reproaches a Jew for being "dark and ugly, and not at all white like the rest of mankind."

Such displays of color prejudice seem to have been localized or episodic until Europe emerged from its relative isolation in the 14th century. With the laboring classes decimated by the Black Death and with trade spurring economic growth, many states came to see foreign slaves as a solution, particularly the city-states of southern Europe that were accessible by sea. In 1363, Florence led the way by authorizing large-scale importation of Tatars and Slavs from the Black Sea region. Then, in 1453, the Muslim Turks captured Constantinople and closed the Black Sea markets. Europe had to turn to African sources.

The European world was expanding now. In its overseas colonies, skin color differed visibly between settlers, slaves, and natives. The unequal power relationships provided a new framework for a perception of human skin that was, originally, gender-based. Commenting on the genesis of American race relations, Jordan (1968) observed that "[w]hiteness, moreover, carried a special significance for Elizabethan Englishmen: it was, particularly when complemented by red, the color of perfect human beauty, especially female beauty. ... English discovery of black Africans came at a time when the accepted standard of ideal beauty was a fair complexion of rose and white. Negroes not only failed to fit this ideal but seemed the very picture of perverse negation."

In Latin America, the development of color prejudice took a less radical turn than it would further north. This difference is at least in part attributable to the scarcity of white women among the Portuguese and Spanish colonists; concubinage with Amerindian and Black women resulted in a large fluid mestizo class that acted as a conduit through which darker individuals could move up in society with help from useful contacts, ingenuity, and personal wealth. In time, such upward mobility would weaken skin color as an absolute social criterion (Boxer 1975; Fiehrer 1979; Saunders 1972).

North American race relations tended to approximate the Latin American model wherever the sex ratio was unbalanced among the European colonists. In the 18th century, Jamaica was the only English colony that had a chronic shortage of white women and it was also the only one to give mulattos rights and privileges normally reserved for whites (Jordan 1968:175-177). Aside from facilitating interracial unions, this shortage may also have subtly influenced attitudes towards non-whites. Van Kirk (1980: 201) refers to this factor and how it changed once white women began to arrive in Western Canada:

In various parts of the British Empire, a direct relationship can be traced between the growth of racial prejudice and the arrival of white women on the scene. With the appearance of women of their own race, the fur traders began to exhibit prejudices toward native females which had previously been dormant. In the words of James Hargrave, "this influx of white faces has cast a still deeper shade over the faces of our Brunettes in the eyes of many." In fact, the question of colour became an issue for the first time. Traditionally, native wives, apart from the European names often bestowed upon them, had been referred to as "my woman", "the mother of my children", "the old lady" or "the guid wife", terms which reveal no concern for their racial origin. Now the derogatory word "squaw" was increasingly applied to native wives, while (Governor) Simpson employed a variety of uncomplimentary terms which emphasized colour: "Brown Jug", "swarthy idol" and "bit of brown".

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Aztec men and women, Codex Magliabecchi