Why do you assume this is the case? I neither proffered my own preference nor suggested anything "universal." That aside, it's hardly a novel idea.
I was just musing and asking a question, Athiudisc. It wasn't an accusation of any kind. I obviously wasn't clear enough.
I just think "sexual selection" is a theory some researchers throw out when they don't really know the cause for a change of phenotype. These researchers also rarely define what they mean by it, and yes, I think there's a certain assumption that attractiveness is not relative, but rather that "European style fairness" has some sort of absolute worth. It's ironic in a time where people pride themselves on not believing in absolutes.
As I've said before, I do think certain characteristics are rather hard-wired to be considered attractive because they signal health in both partners, perhaps strength in men, and fertility in women. So, thick, shiny hair, clear skin, lustrous eyes, a certain body type, a certain regularity of feature will be considered sexually attractive.
It doesn't seem to me that a certain hair and eye color and skin color are in that category. "Ethnic" groups tend, I think, to prize their own coloring. There are a lot of "fables" that show that like the Native American stories about how they were left in the oven the exact right amount of time, or from writings from the Greeks, for example, where they congratulate themselves that they're not as dark as the Ethiopians or as "fair" as the Scythians.
That does change if an elite group with a different phenotype takes control of an area, imo. Humans being humans, that "elite" phenotype will very shortly become the preferred, more sexually attractive one. So, I would indeed think that males with the power to choose based on appearance might favor women with this "elite" phenotype. Men being men, however, they obviously spread their favors more widely, or that phenotype wouldn't spread downwards to the lower orders. Perhaps if the society was very patriarchal there weren't enough women with the right phenotypes for males who had more than one mate . Women never had any ability to choose on any basis, far less this one.
I guess you could say that within these parameters "sexual selection" may indeed have had some effect, although hardly to the degree that it used to be proposed. The other factors, such as latitude, diet, and migration have more effect, I think, but that's just my speculation.
There's an interesting work of fiction by John Hersey called "White Lotus" which explores this idea in the context of a Chinese take over of the west. There's soon a large plastic surgery industry to give women "Asian" eyes and flatter noses.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1495461.White_Lotus