Feminist Criticism Of Cosmetic Surgery

Although the media generates the idea that women have no self control, the media also provokes the misleading idea that women have no self confidence in themselves. Through the various messages and ideas that advertisement, television shows, cartoons and even books sell- women tend to lose self confidence in themselves, but the media tends to send the message that women already have no self confidence. In “Love My Neighbors, Hate Myself: The Vicissitudes of Affect in Cosmetic Surgery,” Virginia Blum opens up her articles with an observation about the sudden rise in the number of popular television shows about plastic surgery and the shift of increasing numbers of women that receive plastic surgery. In her article regarding the reasons women desire plastic surgery, Blum states, “...certain conventional cultural values had to be recruited on behalf of representing these surgeries not as vain and superficial but as a route toward glowing self improvement, not as acts of self-

Cosmetic surgery is becoming the most popular category of surgery, for both men and women. According to Alexander Edmonds “Beauty is becoming a more visible part of medicine, and health risks may become less visible.” Since only one-third of surgeries

Throughout history women specifically have felt the need to change their physical appearance in order to be accepted by societies beauty ideal. Social media has influenced women to believe that the word “beauty” defines the outward appearance according to the internets definition — “beauty is a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.” The definition itself allows anyone to mistakenly interpret the word “beauty” to determine whether or not the physical appearance is attractive enough to be considered beautiful. There are so many emphasis placed on a person’s physical appearance that makes one “beautiful" and “desirable" such the numbers on a scale or measurement, youth, color of skin, etc., but for those who do not meet the media’s ideal expectations are judged or ridiculed. Social media perceives a strong influence on women and what people define beauty to be, but realistically, humans are built to be compelled by enhanced images that are presented in advertisement that create an illusion and fantasy that people admire. The ideal physical appearance that is propagated tends to connect with numerous organizations whose profits promote cosmetics to illuminate facial structures, photoshopped images of famous figures seen in magazines or ads, and cosmetic procedures including liposuction, breast enlargement, and plastic surgery to attain the perfect body ideal. With the continuation of women believing in

Women of all ages, especially numerous college-age women embrace unlikely ideals of what their body size and shape essentially should be. These ideas can be in cooperation physically and emotionally corrupt; without them even apprehending the damage they causes themselves. Most women typically want to look their finest try to excel in their goals, jobs, and more just by being beautiful. There are billions of products and even procedures, such as plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, and surgeries to place on permanent makeup, which is available and advertised in the daily media. And all of these advertisements claim that they can help women accomplish these goals of their desired “ideal of beauty”. This is a problem that we can bluntly see within today’s culture. What our society reflects as their view of beauty, has the tendency to change, erratically. And this means that our pursuit of beauty tends to be lifelong and we will be subjected to the fancies of trendsetters, media, and fashion industries on a daily

America is obsessed with body image. In today’s world, you can't go through the day without seeing the television, advertisements, magazines, or really any type of media portraying women's bodies. Due to the immense societal pressure that women should have the “perfect body” to be accepted, the nonstop reminders to change what they look like, struggling with body image has now become a major social phenomenon- and it's time for women to challenge that narrative. Women of all ages are facing face increasing scrutinization over their body image through media influence leading to invasive surgeries, increased depression, and eating disorders.

The negativity like vanity, superficiality and inauthenticity associated with cosmetic surgery found a new legality with public culture of post-feminist ways to imagine the surgical subject. The pessimistic stigma that was attached to cosmetic surgery was attributed in part to feminist

Modern popular media has a significant impact on defining cultural norms in our society. The rise of smart phones and other personal devices means that we are inundated with images on an ongoing basis. So many of these images represent women in an ideal form that is unattainable form most individuals. Cosmetic surgery, along with image enhancing techniques, are used to erase imperfections, sculpt he body into a more desirable shape and erase signs of the aging process in so many of the images that we see on a daily basis. This inundation has led to our society and me personally have a more accepting view on cosmetic surgery.

Sullivan is a nonfiction account of the political and social views of cosmetic surgery as it grows into a custom of society today. The unique point of view the author provides allows the reader to fully grasp the many components that have made the reputation of cosmetic surgery. This insight acquired from the abundance of sources cited in the bibliography of this book ensures that the information and data provided is credible and relevant to the topic at hand. This book can relate to virtually any topic of discussion pertaining to cosmetic surgery as a growing industry. The broad spectrum of topics, viewpoints, and references throughout this book will easily weave into the support of my claim that the growing industry of cosmetic surgery demands greater recognition in society. Specifically, points in the book that stood out to potentially support my claim include, the potential problems the future of plastic surgery holds, the varying consequences a changing ideal of beauty entails, and finally, the power of commercialism in today's society. This book, in my educated opinion, would be a great choice for anyone uneducated on aesthetic surgery or anyone thinking of getting or performing such

This new trend of cosmetic surgery is also a factor in presenting an unrealistic body image to the public. Predominantly used by celebrities and those of wealth, now cosmetic surgery is progressively being used by the average middle class person. Men are just as affected by the

Marketing campaigns have been structured to encourage cosmetic surgeries in ways that attempt to generate demands. For example since 1983 in the USA, the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons (ASPRS) has attempted to expand its services of cosmetic surgery through a marketing campaign of press release that showed pre and post operative pictures as well as educational brochures (Gillespie 1997, p.76). In addition to that since costumers don't decide to undergo surgical procedure over night, providers need to keep a high profile by increasing advertisements and awareness through women magazines, local news papers and other types of communication (Gillespie 1997, p.76). Cosmetic surgery, which aims to improve individual’s body physique, encourages women to see imperfections as illness (Gillespie 1997, p.74). This form of ideals, that embraces only certain types of female bodies as normal and feminine in accordance to size, weight, shape and often color of the body, ignores natural diversity of women. The normalization of cosmetic surgery not only supports the capitalist system and enforces gender norms into society but also transforms normal body parts and the changes the natural process of aging into abnormal. For example nowadays it is very common to hear someone saying that an individual is ugly or fat and therefore needs to undergo plastic surgery; or questions why someone who is so wealthy would not pay for cosmetic surgery to fix certain parts of their body, which are considerate to be unattractive or abnormal according to the cultural norms. Consequently, the more people select to have cosmetic surgery procedures to create a beautiful face and body, the more ordinary looking individuals will become to be perceived and evaluated as ugly (Morgan 1991,

Since the year 2000 reportedly there has been a 77% increase of cosmetic procedures. (Markey, C.N. 2012) What could be responsible for this significant increase? MEDIA! Let’s go back to the earlier form of media… Hieroglyphs in Egypt. The depiction of the human form was close to perfection. The men were depicted with broad shoulders and pinched waist. Considering the Egyptians were striving to be like Gods on their search to perfection. Unfortunately, there is no way of researching how those depictions impacted an individual’s perception of their body image. Presently there are all sort of desired body images that are depicted in movies, magazines, and T.V. shows.

In a society so consumed by the ideology of beauty, it makes sense as to why so many women these days undergo cosmetic surgery. The definition of beauty has long been obstructed and changed. In the past, if you look at the woman, you will see they are curvy, during this era being thin meant you were poor where as a beautiful and wealthy woman would be plump because she could afford fine dining. As society has changed, being slender has become the new trend, creating the idea that in order to be truly beautiful one must be thin. The movie stars in Hollywood, although most people realize the beautifying changes that are made to the pictures, this idea of 'beauty ' and 'desire ' still lingers in the mind of whoever comes across it. Our society is bombarded with several different ideologies of beauty but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The beauty standards that have been set should not be what are shaping people around the world and influencing them to go through with plastic surgery. The use of plastic surgery has changed from a medical procedure used to reconstruct the wounded or people with birth defects to reconstructing something people do not like about themselves. Plastic surgery was used during WWI in 1910 and after the war, skin grafting grew. The first training program in the United States was in 1924 thanks to Dr. John Davis. In 1950-1959, plastic surgery was used broadly to repair cleft pallet. It wasn’t until about

Plastic Surgery has become a worldwide epidemic in today’s world. The number of plastic surgeries continues to increase since 2010. In today’s day and age, plastic surgery is one of the most popular and requested procedures. Females are opting to have plastic surgery because they dislike their body image. Society has impacted many people by brain washing them to believe that a person’s body has to be perfect. In order for one to be considered beautiful, television and media influence people’s perceptions of beauty.

“Don’t like the way you look? Ready for a quick and easy change? We can help you with one simple cosmetic surgery.” We have all heard or seen advertisements like this on television or in magazines, but why is cosmetic surgery so appealing to people, especially women? Cosmetic surgery is used all over the world to enhance one’s features and make people “happy,” but is it worth it? Is it beauty or is it a beast having cosmetic surgery done? There are many options and things to consider when thinking about getting any kind of surgery. Body image is a huge aspect especially when there is a demand for beauty by society. The cost of cosmetic surgery and the dangers are also something to take into consideration, but there are many positives in getting this type of surgery.

In recent years, it has become very popular to have cosmetic surgery. Over of 120,000 surgical procedures it was estimated that were performed in the UK during 2011. Cosmetic surgery procedures are carried out in women more that men about 9 in every 10 ,and the cosmetic treatments non-surgical, such as Botox, accounting for over 90% of all cosmetic procedures it is even more popular than surgical procedures.(6)