If we look at why sun-bathed skin became a white beauty standard, we get some medical science developments yes, but also a heaping helping of SPF classism. Doesn’t make sense because SPF protects you from things, classism doesn’t. Analogy fail. Queue the American tanning timeline. At the turn of the century, porcelain skin was in to the point that women who could afford it would buy all sorts of skin-bleaching products in an attempt to erase any kinds of freckles or signs of tanning because at the time, the more moneyed, marriageable and even moral a woman was considered. But then with the Industrial Revolution, working class people migrated from outside in the fields to inside on the factory floor. In the early 20th century scientists were also starting to figure out the potential therapeutic benefits of sunlight and its connection to vitamin D production. So by the 1910s and 20s being super pasty white wasn’t quite alright. Back then the wealthier Great Gastby-esque leisure class was also traveling more and possibly to a preventarium, where patients were prescribed sunlight in order to cure all sorts of things like rickets, ulcers and just run-of-the-mill rich person depression. Combined with the rise of recreational activities like baseball, tennis, swimming and just hanging out in parks, suddenly being in the great outdoors was a sign that you kind of had it going on. It’s little surprise then that in 1929 Coco Chanel famously told Vogue magazine, ‘The 1929 girl must be tanned because a golden tan is the index of chik.’ And with that bold declaration, white women tanning arguably became one of the hottest beauty trends for white women in the entire 20th century. And still today with all we know about how sun tanning is very much related to skin cancer, among younger people in particular and I’m assuming white younger people in particular the perception remains that tanner skin makes you more attractive and more popular. And the thing is people sunbathe, go to tanning beds and get spray tans for all sorts of personal reasons, whether it’s evening out skin tone or diminishing the appearance of wrinkles or cellulite or just because it feels good. But our tanning tradition exists because it is essentially a performance of white classism. Yeah, I just got deep. Historically we tan so that everyone else knows that we are well-off and have a higher standard of living than the working class. Not to mention the fact that this is a beauty standard created to be achievable exclusively for white people. So not only are we better than our fellow white people we are also very much removed from people of color who a lot of people think can’t even tan. Or don’t have the white privilege of acceptably tanning because why on earth would they want to make their skin any darker? So does that mean then that getting a tan is bad or racist or classist? No but our tanning tradition is complicated and has caused a lot of skin cancer.