For the April 2017 issue of Allure, we asked 41 women of color to open up about diversity, inclusion, and the politics of skin color in beauty. Here Jessica Alba, actress and founder of the Honest Company and Honest Beauty, shares her thoughts on Hollywood's slow but steady evolution.
“The dialogue is very different these days about someone who is a person of color than it was 20 years ago when I was starting in entertainment. There is a lot more diversity that is celebrated instead of pretending like it doesn’t exist, which is kind of how I felt before. It just wasn’t a topic. It wasn't in pop culture. You really just saw Caucasian women represented as leading ladies and beautiful, desirable people. You didn’t necessarily see that same thing with other people of color being represented through the aspiration lens.
"I certainly think an African-American president and First Lady really helped. I think the emergence of more women in business, in politics, and even in entertainment [helped] — having multiple women, and not just Meg Ryan or one kind of person, to look up to. You’ve got Jennifer Lopez, Kerry Washington, Shonda Rhimes — there are a lot of women in pop culture today that are aspirational. It’s just a different conversation these days. Having more women have a seat at the table has opened up the dialogue on inclusion and diversity. We all should be celebrated. We all deserve a seat at the table.
"It’s important for me [my daughters] to know that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and colors, to celebrate diversity, and point out people who have [a] different tone, or they’re covered in beautiful freckles, or they have tight curls or long waves. All of it’s beautiful.
"And what makes someone beautiful is the power of owning who they are and confidence, and being kind, and having compassion. Those types of themes are what I really try to nail into my girls’ heads, and reiterate over and over again — I feel like a drill sergeant sometimes. The only way that any of us are going to advance is if we have a generation of people who aren’t living with any sort of prejudices about standards of beauty or how we need to fit into a box.”
Reporting by Lindsy Van Gelder
A version of this article originally appeared in the April 2017 issue of Allure. To get your copy, head to newsstands or subscribe now.
Love Jessica Alba as much as we do? Check out some of her top beauty moments below:
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