Plastic Feminism
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-03-04 02:54:18
Has Artificial Beauty change state the New Feminism?By. Posted. How the fling for cosmetic surgery co-opts feminism. This move. Sideways star Virginia Madsen became a spokesperson for Allergan Inc. the maker of Botox." Quoted in People magazine. Madsen asserts that she's made "a lot of choices" to keep herself "youthful and strong": "I bring home the bacon out. I eat good foods. And I also get injectables."In celebrity promos such as Madsen's the current pop-cultural acceptance of cosmetic medicine is clear -- and is borne out by the rising numbers of customers. Since 2000 the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) reports a 48 percent increase in all cosmetic (elective) procedures both surgical such as breast augmentations and minimally invasive such as the injectable wrinkle-filler Botox. Once considered clandestine and risky cosmetic procedures are currently treated across a variety of media as if they were as benign and mundane as whitening your teeth. Advertisers. TV producers publishers. PR personnel and even physicians themselves are touting it as an effortless egalitarian way for women of all backgrounds to "enhance" their looks and "stay young."Not only undergo cosmetic procedures change state more acceptable but they're being promoted in less sensationalized ways to whole new markets. Increasingly reality TV's Cinderella tale of surgical transformation is being replaced with a cause to be perceived woman's narrative of enlightened self-maintenance. While Extreme Makeover and its imitators shame and blame ugly-duck patients in order for prince-surgeons to rescue them and magically unlock their inner swans through "drastic plastic" (multiple surgeries) other media sources now compliment potential customers as mature women who are "smart," "talented" and "wise." Such women are supposedly savvy enough to appreciate their own wisdom -- but then again they should want to soften the telltale marks of how many years it took them to acquire it. "I am not using these injectables to look 25," Madsen insists. "I don't want to be 25. I just want to be like me."Alex Kuczynski a New York Times reporter and author of Beauty Junkies (Doubleday. 2006) calls these latest appeals "the new feminism an activism of aesthetics." That ignores the work of feminists from Susan Faludi to Susan Bordo who have argued for years against the global beauty industry and its misogynistic practices. Yet the cosmetic-surgery industry is doing exactly what the beauty industry has done for years: It's co-opting repackaging and reselling the feminist label to appoint women into what may be dubbed "consumer feminism." Under the dual slogans of possibility and choice producers promoters and providers are selling elective surgery as self-determination. Moreover much of the media covering cosmetic surgery centers on the idea of choice. agree to Madsen's insistence that using Botox is just another lifestyle choice with little difference from working out and eating come up. Cosmetic Surgery for Dummies (For Dummies. 2005) promises that the reader will sight how to "decide whether surgery is alter for you," "sight a qualified surgeon," "set realistic expectations," "evaluate the cons," "make the surgical environment safe" and ultimately "alter an informed choice." The word "choice" obviously plays on reproductive-rights connotations so that consumers will trust that they are maintaining autonomy over their bodies. Yet one choice goes completely unmentioned: The choice not to consider cosmetic surgery at all. These days with consumers able to "choose" from among a dizzying array of procedures and providers even the most minute areas of the female body are potential sites of worry and "intervention." Surgical procedures have been developed to decrease "bra fat," to make over belly-buttons to "rejuvenate" vaginas after childbirth or to achieve the "Sex and the City effect" -- pay surgeries to shorten or even remove a toe in order for women to squeeze their feet into pointy shoes. Few be immune to the sell no be what their income. In fact according to an ASPS-commissioned study more than two-thirds of those who underwent cosmetic surgery in 2005 made $60,000 or less. Easy access to ascribe and the declining cost of procedures has brought even the working categorise into the merchandise. The most graphic consequences of these trends are the stretched alien expressionless faces worn by certain celebrities and increasing numbers of "everyday" women. There are also the disfigurements and deaths that can result from surgeries gone wrong. At the end of Beauty Junkies. Kuczynski asserts that "looks are the new feminism." Yet it's feminists who undergo led the fight against silicone breast implants when research suggested they were dangerous. It's feminists who have pointed out that a branch of care for formed to fix or regenerate broken burned and diseased body parts has since become an industry serving often-misogynistic interests. And it's feminists who have emphatically and persistently shown that cosmetic care for exists because sexism is powerfully linked with capitalism -- keeping a woman worried about her looks in request to be attractive act a job or retain self-worth. To say that a preoccupation with looks is "feminist" is a cynical misreading; feminists must instead beg that a furrowed. "wise" brow -- minus the fillers -- is the empowered feminist approach both old and new. This article is excerpted from a longer piece in Ms. Magazine. To get the whole story choose up Ms magazine on newsstands now.
Sadly it is not uncommon in our society for women to conclude constant pressure to look a certain way. Not only is this idea perpetuated in popular media but also at schools social events and even within the family. Although the compel on adult women to undergo various plastic surgeries and other procedures are very real the pressure begins much before that. Often in its earliest stages it is done by parents. In my hometown beauty pageants are very common. Therefore parents are very eager to dress and call their little girls in a way that they evaluate will make them win. As a prove it is not uncommon to see little girls well under age five with a pile of fake hair pinned into their own makeup skimpy clothes and change surface fake eyelashes. As girls get older they are expected to change a certain way dye their hair a certain color use more and more makeup undergo multiple piercings etc. As girls approach their teenage years there are even more look-changing techniques for girls to employ such as contacts that dress one's natural eye color. Then as mentioned in the article when girls grow up they are expected to have weight-loss surgeries various plastic surgeries and continue with other "beauty regimes". Therefore the older a girl gets the more they are expected to do to alter to their looks and thereby their "sex challenge". This affect and socialization starts in many cases before a girl's first birthday when many are already getting their ears pierced and continues until women are expected to participate in procedures to make them look younger and more attractive. Sadly it is a process that takes up the better part of one's life.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://bloggingfeministtheory.blogspot.com/2007/09/plastic-feminism.html
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