Have you seen the very infamous skin whitening cream advertisement where a girl is rejected based on her looks? But guess what she gets the job when her complexion is “fair”. We all cringed at this sort of portrayal of unhealthy standards of beauty. More than that we were confused about how can a person’s skin tone decide whether or not they are qualified for the job.
We thought degrees, experience, qualifications, skill set and likewise were the criteria to recruit people. And if you thought so too and dissed the advertisement at some point in your life- you’re bad. Because turns out that the advertisement was correct the whole time and now we realize that it may be under-appreciated in its time.
So, what is this actually all about?
The Curious Case of a Bengaluru Woman
Recently a Bengaluru woman took to her LinkedIn to post about a bizarre incident. She applied for a job at a company and after three rounds of interviews there, she got rejected. According to her, she got a mail that stated that although her skills and qualifications were a match for the company, her complexion was a little “too fair” and they apparently wanted color homogeneity.
This is What The Email Read:
“We found your profile relevant and all skills and qualifications match what we are looking for but we are an inclusive organization and believe in equal opportunity for all. Your skin tone is a little fair for the current team so we don’t want differences in our internal team, and we decided not to offer you.”
Netizens React to This News!
A tweet read, “A girl got rejected because she had a fair complexion. What a time to be alive.”
A girl got rejected because she had a fair complexion
What a time to be alive pic.twitter.com/bGNZISfp4c
— Aryan Trivedi (@AryanTrivedi_7) July 25, 2023
People were obviously shocked by this but more than that they found it hilarious.
But some had an altogether different reaction where they thought that this was a fake post as no company would in their right mind discriminate on the basis of color. People called it a publicity stunt and said this can’t be real.
That girl Pratiksha Jichkar is the biggest clickbait influencer of 2023 for sure.
— Prachet 🍀 (@BaeNgun_) July 25, 2023
It seems she is not married else she would have accused her husband for her failure…
— Amit Jain (@jainkumaramit) July 26, 2023
Never heard of any women not being selected because of their skin tone.
Such women fail to do any assignments given to them and then blame the whole organisation for their failure.
They only want money without any responsibility.
— Dhruv Singh 🇮🇳 🇫🇮 (@Dhruv_018) July 26, 2023
BS! She didn’t even offer any evidence for the allegation, hence I’m not buying this story!
Also, these women are fine when they get benefits from these diversity recruitments but get angry when this DEI doesn’t favor them over others!🙄
— Yodha (@yodha2218) July 26, 2023
That’s was a made thing done for publicity on LinkedIn
this is fake— Vastav Singh 🇮🇳 (@vastavsingh007) July 26, 2023
We do not know if this post was genuine or just a fake post to garner views but what we do know is that this is a commentary on the kind of society we are now creating. With being “inclusive” in every aspect, are we losing real talent? How can someone’s skin tone decide their qualifications? Are we bridging the gap by being inclusive or are we creating new ones? Where does this all stop?
Too many questions but only time can actually tell.