Beauty Standards among Modern Egyptians and Their Contradiction with the Appearance of the Ancient Egyptians

[Cali Maxamed]

Throughout their history, the Arabs have had specific standards of beauty. Whoever possessed them—no matter how unattractive their features originally were—was seen as beautiful. And whoever lacked them—no matter how beautiful they were—was considered ugly and faced prejudice.

• The core standards: straight hair and fair skin.
• Secondary features: large eyes, a straight nose, and thin lips.

Because of this, they used to dislike—and many still do—the person with dark skin and curly hair, even if they had other desirable features such as a straight nose or wide eyes.

These standards are not exclusive to the Arabs. They are also found among modern Egyptians and the Amazigh, who share similar cultural and social tastes. These standards have had a strong impact on their collective consciousness and social behavior. Their harshness, however, tends to soften among those who are truly religious (a minority), due to the influence of Islam.

Examples of how deeply rooted this culture is in Arab thought include:

• The insult: “May God blacken your face.”
• The praise: “May God whiten your face.”
• And expressions such as: “a white day” (a good day) and “a black day” (a bad day).

The Ancient Egyptians, however, were for the most part dark-skinned with curly hair. This makes the claim of modern Egyptians—that they are their descendants or that they revere them—deeply contradictory. If they faced the truth without distortion, they would likely reject such ancestry and perhaps even look down upon it, since their current taste in beauty is the very opposite of the traits of their Nile Valley ancestors.

They cling to this illusion for two main reasons:

• Because the state promotes it, and people usually follow their rulers.
• Because it provides an alternative identity that some secularists adopt as a counter to the Arab identity, which they see as an Islamic one.

But this arrangement is fragile. If a Muslim ruler were to openly denounce the Pharaohs, or if the secular influence in the media were to decline, this illusion would quickly fade, and the preference for blindness would vanish.