In Cambodia, lighter skin tones are traditionally associated with fortune, virtue, superiority, and good luck. These associations have a spiritual component due to how Buddhist beliefs around karma are interpreted locally. Skin tone – along with other traits such as class, health, and gender – are believed to have been determined by the individual’s accumulation of karma in their previous lives. People with lighter skin tones are believed to have more merit due to having accumulated positive karma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week we were in Thailand for regional meetings. While we were there we were told that all good sons spend some time as Buddhist monks in order to earn karma for their mothers. Good Thai sons do this to help their mothers accumulate enough merit to be reincarnated as men. I’ll write more on this another time but traditional Khmer gender roles – in which women held economic, social, religious, and political influence – have been significantly eroded by outside influence in recent centuries. In 1837, the Code of Conduct for Women outlined in great detail how women must be passive and obedient to male authority, yet are also responsible for male behavior and excess. This treatise was actually based on gender roles that were popular in the Siamese court, not traditional Khmer gender roles. The French destroyed traditional community power structures that included women – dismissing them as backwards – and replaced them with male dominated systems based on those in France. The French also enshrined the Code of Conduct on Women as the definition of traditional Khmer gender roles, despite it being written less than 30 years prior to the colonial period. In recent decades, globalism and consumerism have further eroded away at traditional female power and authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regional beliefs on skin tone are rooted in ancient classism. The lower class were engaged in manual labor outdoors under the sun and thus had darker skin tones. The upper class spent more time indoors and subsequently had lighter skin tones. Today there is a spectrum of racism based on skin tone, not just between the Khmer and other ethnic groups, but also within the Khmer ethnic majority themselves. Each individual is judging their own skin tone, as well as those of the people around them, in order to determine how they fit into the social hierarchy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n