Gender concepts with regard to skin colour: Young Japanese women’s wording for skin lightness and hue and their relation with perceptions of beauty

Abstract

　A previous study examined Japanese female students’ wording assigned to the skin colour of men and women as well as their own skin (Yamada, 2017) and revealed that the participants tended to perceive the skin colour of women as fairer than that of men. However, the differences between the two genders in assessing skin colour were significantly ambiguous.

　The additional study was designed to examine Japanese women’s views on skin hue and lightness more accurately by employing a new method. The participants included 97 young Japanese female students. Our results concurred with those of the previous study concerning skin lightness. Furthermore, the participants tended to describe men’s skin as more yellowish than that of women. In addition, these ideal features were clearer than the real images of each gender. Our results were in accordance with those of the previous study also regarding the student’s word choices for the lightness of skin colours; this suggests that young Japanese female students have stable word patterns. Furthermore, it was revealed that the word patterns distinguished the values of fair or fine skin as a concept of beauty.