It is an unfortunate fact that people in India often put unreasonable stock in skin tones. From the eternal strive towards fairer skin to selecting a spouse based on their skin colour -- the trend often seen in the country.
Now, to be fair, this is not true of every Indian. Neither is it limited to India as a country. With the grass on the other side often being greener, many --across the world -- have aspired for features or a skin colour that is different from their own. Keeping this in mind, if one opts to find a partner based purely on statistics and data, it is perhaps easier to comprehend why they would stipulate that skin colour be a filtering criteria.
Shaadi.com which touts itself as being one of the world's biggest "social networking sites specialising in matchmaking" has now come under the scanner for permitting this. As per a BBC report, facing backlash, the site has now removed the skin tone filter.
What exactly is the skin tone filter? As per a survey conducted by the company some years ago, 49% of men had sought a fair woman while 65% of women has claimed that the skin tone did not matter much. "In fact, even in 2004, the survey showed that 41% of men wanted a fair bride," the study notes. This was incidentally done using a sample of about 150,000 people who are using the site in 300 Indian towns and cities, as well as other countries including the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
To cater to the same, the site had allowed people to filter their prospects based on their skin colour. To do this, users had had to classify their own skin colour while setting up an account.
The issues of racism and bias due to skin colour has recently come under scrutiny after the death of George Floyd. As per the BBC report, the issue was called out by Hetal Lakhani in USA's Dallas who questioned the filter after speaking to another user. Reportedly, Lakhani had started a petition to get the option removed.
As their Change.org petition reads: "Shaadi.com has a colour filter that asks users to indicate the colour of their skin using descriptors like “Fair”, “Wheatish”, and “Dark” and allows users the ability to search for potential partners on the basis of their skin colour."
While their efforts have now succeeded in removing the filter, Shaadi.com has also noted that the filter did not work as it ought to -- meaning the search would still show all skin tone matches. The company had reportedly said that it was "not serving any purpose".
The BBC article quotes the duo who spearheaded the initiative as saying that the company had responded to them stating that it was a "blindspot" -- one that was removed overnight.
