The Beauty Tax on Nigeria’s Poorest Women

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April/May 2025Nigeria
Beauty

Photo Illustration by Ezinne Osueke / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: Pexels.

THE MINISTRY OF GENDER X SEXUALITY

The Beauty Tax on Nigeria’s Poorest Women

When it comes to beauty standards and how women defy or succumb to them, the discourse takes on a new meaning for Nigerian women on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. For them, attaining the ‘ideal’ appearance is a measure of beauty and class.
Beauty

Photo Illustration by Ezinne Osueke / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: Pexels.

THE MINISTRY OF GENDER X SEXUALITY

The Beauty Tax on Nigeria’s Poorest Women

When it comes to beauty standards and how women defy or succumb to them, the discourse takes on a new meaning for Nigerian women on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. For them, attaining the ‘ideal’ appearance is a measure of beauty and class.

A perfect illustration of how beauty standards and economic class affect Nigerian women would be the unprovoked, misogynistic classification of Nigerian women into ‘baddies’, ‘civilians’, and ‘amotekuns’ on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) in 2023. Women were yet again pigeonholed under the male gaze, this time, their financial status was evaluated via an arbitrary and sexist standard that conflated physical ‘attractiveness’ with wealth. The interpretation of the term ‘amotekun’, which is the lowest rung on that hierarchy, holds contempt directed toward women perceived to be low earners or from low-income households. It also directly implies that because these women supposedly have neither the money to spend on themselves, nor the socially ideal ‘refinement’, they are opportunistic and always on the prowl for spenders.  

In a 2016 TedTalk, Stanford Business School graduate, Chika Okoro, speaks of a similar classification. After watching Straight Outta Compton three times, Okoro combed through the internet for all the information she could find about the film and discovered its casting call which contained a ranking of female characters based on the actors required for each role. It started with the A-girls, the most desirable, described as the ‘hottest of the hottest, and models’. At the bottom of the list were the D-girls who were described as African-American, ‘poor, not in good shape, and must have a darker skin tone’.  

While Okoro shared this story in the context of colourism, what stands out to me is how these attributes that describe the D-girl are associated with being poor. This means that, according to these standards, a Black woman that does not qualify as ‘in good shape or light skinned’ must be inhibited by poverty. She must not have the financial capacity to venture into skin lightening, hit the gym to get ‘in good shape’ or hire trainers to squeeze into sample sizes. 

This classification of beauty for women and its implications of their economic status or class are problematic, as the resulting definitions do not fit everyone. Unfortunately, they have been able to keep women engaged in efforts to be neatly contained in these fickle yet domineering boxes. This categorization is also backed by patriarchal norms, since beautification is largely tied to femininity and sustains the kind of culture that is preoccupied with exerting societal control over women’s bodies and demanding their obedience. 

Among Nigerian women, there have been victors; disobedient ones who decentre the male gaze. However, when considering women for whom bodily autonomy remains an unfamiliar concept, it is important to explore how these beauty standards and class dynamics specifically impact women of the lower socio-economic class. 

POVERTY AND BEAUTY IDEALS: INSTRUMENTS OF NIGERIAN WOMAN’S TORTURE

Financial hardship cannot entirely prevent someone from improving their appearance, though it may limit the quality of grooming accessible. In fact, economic powerlessness, like other hardships that afflict humans, may often intensify the desire for feel-good activities such as beautifying oneself. This effort to care for one’s body and control how it appears, which is an exercise of choice, can certainly be a source of genuine satisfaction even amid poverty. 

Poverty is not new to Nigerian women. The country has over two thirds of its population sinking in financial hardship. The disparities in job types, income levels, access to opportunities, and the unpaid labour that goes into household responsibilities further make women experience increased levels of poverty. In ‘The Feminisation of Poverty in Nigerian Cities’, Nigerian academic, Adunola Adepoju, finds that the understanding of poverty varies from woman to woman with their baseline being the inability to meet one’s basic needs, especially food. This leads to poorer health resulting from the pressure of working harder as primary caregivers in the home, feelings of inferiority, and reduced self-worth. For women in this condition who yearn to achieve what has been deemed the ideal appearance, beauty becomes a commodity tied to money that is not readily accessible.  

In the paper, ‘Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power’, feminist philosopher and professor, Sandra Lee Bartky, illustrates how disciplinary policing by ‘everyone and no one in particular’ is imposed on women as though they are in prisons, not only through the male gaze but through their own as well. For the Nigerian woman on the lowest part of the socio-economic ladder, this prison is twofold: what signifies a higher level of beauty by patriarchal standards and how appearance signifies the higher social standing to which they aspire. 

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My earliest introduction to how beauty ideals intersect with socio-economic class within these prisons came from women who ranked lower on the ladder in my neighbourhood and among my relatives. From them, I witnessed bodily insecurities and comparisons that were formed using women from higher economic classes as models. All these often pooled into the conclusion that beauty is money—that the women they looked up to appeared a certain way which reflected their upwardly mobile status of good living, and that it was possible to look like them. Among this class, there was a shared understanding that factors like stress levels, nutrition and skincare routines influenced appearance, with certain combinations either enhancing or diminishing one’s look. Of course, all these factors ultimately tied back to financial resources. 

Take body weight for instance. Agbani Darego’s Miss World win in 2001 shifted the perception of voluptuousness as the peak of a woman’s beauty among younger Nigerian women in the early 2000s. This ushered in the ‘lepa’ era—this is also captured in the Nollywood film Lepa Shandy—when being slim and trim became the defining attribute of beauty for the contemporary woman. Still, slimmer Nigerian women are often assailed with questions about what the hypothetical man would enjoy if they did not have the ‘pound of flesh’ deemed enough in certain proportions. The most common concern-trolling question directed at slim women is whether they are eating at all. While this is offensive on its own, I quickly realized as I grew older that it cuts deeper for women experiencing financial hardship that makes proper nutrition unaffordable. This question becomes an act of stripping bare: I can see that you are so poor that you cannot afford to eat to your fill. 

I observed that a distant relative would often scrutinize the bodies of married women in the family during events, always ready to spit out, ‘o rù o’ (you’ve become thinner). Almost always, it was followed by ‘ṣé ọkọ ẹ ò tọ́jú ẹ ni?’ (is your husband not taking good care of you?). Good care, I came to realize, was equated with having the means to feed so well that one fattens up. In seeking to understand my relative’s view, I realized that being visibly plump—which her slender stature and strenuous menial jobs could not afford her—represented a higher level of beauty that reflected a better economic situation for her. I also learnt of her notoriety for various kinds of steroids tablets touted as the cheapest solutions for weight gain.  

In light of bodily dissatisfaction tied to financial lack, I saw women like my relative seek solution in dexamethasone tablets called mawumawu and yodi, colloquially named so for enhancing body weight and the derrière respectively.  

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COSMETIC ENHANCEMENTS AS AN INSTRUMENT OF MASKING LIVING CONDITIONS

Around 77 per cent of women in Nigeria engage in skin lightening. It is glaring how this is a product of colourism and a society that regards women with lighter skin as more attractive, making it a standard of beauty for women to aspire to. However, as light skin is associated with beauty, so has it also become linked with the sign of being financially better off. One of the motivations for women bleaching their skins in Nigeria is to appear like they do not work under the sun as revealed in a piece by The Economist. A widespread notion I grew up with was that spending long hours under the bare rays of sunlight could cause the skin to darken. 

Unfortunately, one of the harsh realities for a lot of women who are far down the socio-economic ladder is having to earn their incomes in open spaces. This could mean hawking, working as labourers, or doing petty trading in markets. For these women, the desire to meet a mark of attractiveness is hindered by the ways they must make ends meet. Hence, achieving a lighter skin then goes beyond meeting the beauty standard, it must extend to erasing the traces of their economic realities on their skins. This helps one understand how fairer skin represents not just beauty but also a perceived better working condition that translates into a corresponding perception of one’s living standards. 

Skin bleaching is not limited to women from the lower socio-economic class. However, they are disadvantaged further because they rarely have the means to access safer options. Idayat Jinadu, the founder Hidden Gele, a publication that platforms the narratives of ordinary Nigerian women, mentions the particular popularity of Caro White—a widely used lightening lotion in Nigeria whose recall by the European Union for its high concentration of kojic acid was reiterated by National Agency for Food and Drug administration and Control (NAFDAC)—in her neighbourhood. ‘I know a lot of women in the market who use these creams and sell wares under the sun, damaging their skin. It is a very common thing here (in Ado-Ekiti),’ Jinadu says. She then explains that while beauty standards ultimately stem from the male gaze, which results in society imposing impossible beauty standards on women, poorer women suffer more than wealthier women because they lack the adequate means to consider safety, compounded by their literacy levels and understanding of the implications. ‘The bridge between the things they know, and they don’t know, the harmful things they do, and their consequences is poverty and its own consequences of the lack of proper education,’ Jinadu continues.  

While Nigerian women higher up the economic ladder with access to education may be able to unlearn social ideals and norms about their bodies, this is not an easy reality for poorer women, especially those denied education on financial grounds. For them, the prison of ideal femininity and beauty is much more torturous as they are constantly confronted with the inadequacies of both their bodies and financial states. Their income gap also continues to exclude them from safer options for body grooming.  

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THE ILLUSTRATION OF INCLUSION

Ironically, the most common source of dissuasion from body modification comes from religion. It is no strange sight to see a Christian or Muslim religious teacher directing sermons at women to stop altering the body God has given them, while these same religions paradoxically expect women to satisfy the male gaze. Moreso, these teachings are often laden with sanctimonious judgements. ‘There’s no better solution than feminist education,’ Jinadu explains. ‘Let them know that their bodies belong to them. This is an important message for every woman—to have just their own personal standards.’ 

As important as it is to note that religious teachings and moral admonitions bear little fruit because they do not acknowledge underlying triggers, it is equally important to understand that discussions surrounding the dismantling of the male gaze and beauty standards often exclude poor women and their specific contexts. In Nigeria today, feminist conversations are increasingly being platformed on social media, often by women with urban or middle-class experiences that may not align with the lived realities of poor women from low-income communities. This births a number of divides. Firstly, about two-thirds of Nigerian women do not have access to the internet to participate in these online conversations due to affordability issues. Secondly, even when they can access the internet, they are not prioritizing these internet discourses as these women’s interactions with social media are often limited to entertaining content. Thirdly, due to the low level of formal education, the language used within feminist discourses remains inaccessible to them.  

It is essential to seek relevant ways to empower these women to dismantle allies of body and class shaming. Doing this means weighing the consequences of the prisons in which they exist. It means reaching them physically and through language they can make meaning of, guiding them in making distinctions between inclusive self-care and the forms of beautification that accepts degradation of the woman’s body. It means urging them to pick a leaf from the traditional self-care practices in their lineages and communities that do not centre the male gaze. Most importantly, it is about remembering women from lower classes during conversations about beauty standards and figuring out how to reach them⎈

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