 Welcome to The Advocate, your Sunday reminder that important conversations are among the necessary tools for a saner society. My myth today is on the standard of beauty amongst women. Is it really beauty or obsession? Victor is saying today that passion is not enough for success. Juliet labels helplessness as the evil genius in our mind. And finally, Elijah talks about realigning the educational system for global relevance. As always, your panellists are here to share ideas aimed at provoking thoughts with no holds barred. Stay with us. Beauty standard. Is it really beauty? Today I'm going to sound like an old person, yeah. The topic I want to bring to light is the current warped standard of beauty. The reigning thing is to see women in all kinds of wigs, with makeup attuned to drag queens, face colour very different to the skin tone of the rest of the body, and in practical nails that are more like claws. Who sets these standards? Why are women obsessed with them? Who is this all for? Let's look at the hair. Weaves and wigs are far from new and even go back as far as antiquity. However, in this current day we see all kinds of wigs on ladies' heads that look nothing like what comes out from the head naturally. I understand the functionality of wigs as a protective style, as a fashion item for convenience, but what I don't understand is putting something on your head that looks clearly fake. I am not against wigs as a practical necessity, but why put something so fake on the head that would never grow naturally from a black person's head? Then let's talk face. Studio production makeup, it seems, has become standard for everyday wear. Foundation colour that is shades lighter so that the woman's face is phanta and her arms are coca-cola. Eyebrows that I'm still confused about. Is it one eyebrow or two? What are the whites around the brow? White lines and highlighter on the nose and cheek that make me think of battle marks of war. The overall appearance is similar to a drag queen. In fact, our standard of beauty today as women is actually a man, but brisky when I think of it seems to be the aesthetic most women are going for these days here in Nigeria. Then add the skin bleaching on top and you know we have a problem with who we are. Whilst this topic can be amusing on the surface to discuss, it actually goes to the root of how deep our disdain for ourselves is, something that the colonial master did a good job of doing. Beauty was that of a blonde, fair skinned, blue-eyed, European woman and we are still dealing with the ramifications of that as the antithesis was the dark-skinned African woman and this was shamelessly directly used in advertising. Use this soap and you'll go from a dark negro to a fair Caucasian. This narrative is absolutely and completely false. Think of the beauty in the versatility of our hair, the beauty in our unique features and the beauty in the many shades of our brown skin. There's nothing wrong with enhancing what we have, but why are so many women going to the extreme? If you ask men, they prefer a more natural woman. Is it that we women are doing this to compete with other women? All I know is that those of us with daughters need to instill in them from an early age that they are beautiful as they are. Teach them to love their natural hair, to love their features and to love the color of their skin. Decolonize the mind and we can decolonize our bodies. It's a very sensitive topic, so it's very sensitive, it's age-long. And the decolonization you're talking about should start from the home. However, the home is just a tiny fraction of the entire world. And the cosmetic industry, the mindset passed down by the colonial masters is so, so big in our hearts and in our minds that it's difficult to actually override this natural beauty thing. But what we know is that there are some upsides of this artificial beauty enhancers, if you like, they help some women's confidence. Some people actually would actually hate themselves if not for these hair aesthetics, facial aesthetics, skin aesthetics. But you're right, we don't need these things to be beautiful. Beauty is supposed to come from within and shine out and men claim they like us natural, but when we see the kind of girls they hang around with, it's the other kind of girls and it puts pressure on us women. I don't think if the world was populated by women alone, we would bother. I don't think, maybe we would, but I don't think we would. So we do it for you guys. And you guys, we see the choices you make when you go out and there's pressure for us to be accepted by you guys, just when you guys go around and do stuff about money, so we can accept it. So it's a good one to decolonize, but it's going to be a long one. What do you think, Victor? Yeah, I think we're struggling with self-identity and self-esteem, but it starts with self-identity. I mean, the essence of life begins as identifying who you really are. And then get a bit neurological. There was a certain horse that was tied to a very strong iron. It was blue in color. So the owner took the horse after like one year and then took the horse home and then tied it to a blue chair, like a very weightless chair. Maybe a plastic blue chair. Plastic blue chair. And the horse couldn't leave that location for another year. It's called Lend Herplessness. I'm going to talk about that today. It's what smart people learn. Lend Herplessness is in the mind. So this, it's a very, it looks like a funny thought, but it's a very interesting topic. Very deep. Beauty begins in the mind. Why do we ascribe whites good? Black. The lighter the rider. You get so. Naturally, people just believe that if something is white or if something is fair, you know, that is how, that's it's good. It's beauty. Then if it's dark, if it's black, it is. It's imperial. Maybe you do the data. I don't, I don't have the data. But if you do the data, lots of people want to change from becoming black to becoming. And now I don't have an issue with people wanting to look. Yeah, who look better and enhance their thing. If you make some money, you want to enhance, you know, and all of that. But again, at the basics of that, why are you, why do you want to change your skin? Because of you guys. No, no, no. So I actually disagree with that. But Elijah Felix as a man, please let's get your opinion because I disagree with Juliette on that. Yes, I actually do it to some extent because it's not because of me. Because even if the men were out of the equation, some women will still do it because of jealousy. Competition, I think. Competition, jealousy. Now let me give you a practical scenario. I was, I told you earlier, when we were sitting at the lounge, that two or five years ago, there was this Chinese journalist, a journalist from China. She hails from China in the U.S. and she was bullied online, mostly by chauvinists. I guess white chauvinists in the U.S. And they were telling her that she looks quite ugly. She doesn't fit into the system also. She had to go for a cosmetic surgery to look like one of them. And it went south. I'll give you another situation. There is another one that's been trending on social media. If it's not, if I'm not mistaken, two years ago, a woman that went there to go for is it booty enhancement or something? Yeah, we don't know. It went south. That's what I mean. Eventually, she got one of them. Enhancing the gluteal. So a woman is as beautiful as what she thinks she is. So I don't think we need enhancement. You cannot be busy in your beauty and confident in something that is temporal. So let's tell women the truth. Let me interrupt. But don't be busy on beauty or something that is temporal. Thank you. Thank you so much. We see your choices and it influences us. I'm speaking for most women. Actually, I've gotten to a level of awareness as a person that I am. You tell us our choices. We're talking about women. No, I'm telling you, because we see. That's what I was describing. I'm not going to describe, but you get what I mean. So if you guys start a campaign and make the natural ones look beautiful, what do you think will happen to us? No, no. But if you do that, that's a responsibility. No, so this is the... What I said that was, you've got to accept yourself by yourself. I agree. I don't need to accept you. I agree. You're putting pressure on the man. No, no, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying. I agree with you, Juliette, now. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that. It takes a lot of level of awareness to accept yourself for who you are. Yeah, and self-reflection. So that's why a lot of you do stop to make money. No, no, Juliette. I actually want to try that. So no, Juliette, it's actually... Fair point in that it also does actually seep into the male psyche because you are told what a beautiful woman is. Exactly. So if I... And I had an argument with a friend. Unfortunately, she's passed away now and we always used to debate these funny things and she never understood when I explained to her there's something that I have an advantage of in this country just like in America's white-skinned privilege or white privilege. Here, I have light-skinned privilege. And I was explaining to her that... and explaining scenarios that it exists and I'm very conscious of it. I don't feel it's right and I really feel, for me, I think dark skin, brown skin is beautiful. My husband is dark. Fair skin is beautiful. But we need to see that variety of aesthetic in our advertising, in our media and stop pushing this just one form of beauty. Beauty has many forms. But it does this... For example, I'm just picking the light-skinned thing because I'm light-skinned and everybody who's watching this will see that. It does exist. I can look absolutely terrible, right? And be standing next to a darker-skinned young lady and she's dressed nicely and the guy will always pick me. Because you're fair. Because he's not even seeing... He's not even seeing me. He's just seeing... You're seeing me. You're following my skin. It has to be better for you to be lighter-skinned. And it doesn't mean that he doesn't find that other one attractive. It's just we've been programmed so deeply by colonisation that anything that is closer to the white man is better. Tonya, let me even tell you something. Not that I'm dark-skinned. Let me start to... You're not dark-skinned. Why are you talking about dark-skinned? You're not dark-skinned. Okay, compared to Tonya... I'm darker than you. I'm darker. Not that I'm not so-so light. If I start to tone... That's what they call it. If I start to bleach my skin... You will see the line of... Tonya, you know what it annoys me. Okay, bleach. Because you see the line of men. If I was having two men having trust in me, not that I'm like this. Once I start to use the right colour of hair, I mean those colours of hair, those make-up, the queue extends. I'm not saying this is one of the influences. But if you check some of those men, their wives and their sisters... It's just that when you guys have money, you'll see that the queue of women increases. It puts pressure on you guys to have money and buy fancy cars. If you don't care about the cars and the watches you buy. Look, I think you bring up something really important because you go to the supermarket and all you see is Tonya. The brightness is getting brighter. So I have to be really conscious about what I'm talking about. It's business. But I think in this case, this is where advocacy comes in. The relevant government authority. I'm going to go back now, but I want to say something. The relevant government agencies should make sure those people that are building cosmetics, cosmetology or whatever, they should make sure they do things that are real. Let me give you a message. So maybe post something on social media. I've forgotten the country. Where the person is edited image says better than this. I think the government has to force that particular point. They have to force the person to take it off social media because you are going to put pressure on people. That's the way you are. Why are you projecting? Why are you not? So that's where regulation comes in. Yes, I do. You bring up good points about regulation. But I think it's something that we just also have to be conscious as citizens. Some people don't are not conscious. You have to spark them with consciousness. I don't have to go without consciousness. Alright, I think that was a lively discussion. I wish we could go on and on because I really enjoyed it. So after the break, Victor talks to us about passion and success.