[smurfin]

bklyn: I'm not sure your conclusion is correct. All it shows, is that people enjoy being what is considered the norm, and that they expect other people to want to conform to that norm, too.

And even though I agree that that's not necessarily a good thing, the fact remains that many people who have surgery *do* feel better about that part of their anatomy afterwards. Of course, nothing stops them from finding fault with a different part after, but still.

Just because the reasons someone feels a part of her body is inadequate are fishy doesn't mean that changing that body part is not going to make her more happy with herself.
Example: I am not overweight (at all). Yet I feel happier when I've lost a bit of weight. I realise the standards I'm trying to conform to are not my own, and are usually inattainable. The fact remains: I am happier in my body when I'm slimmer.

Conformist behaviour? Surely.
Unhealthy behaviour? That as well.
Still the truth? Absolutely.


I don't believe everyone should go and have surgery when they're feeling down. I don't think giving your girlfriend/mother/wife liposuction is going to help her feel better about herself. I don't think it's at *all* desirable that so many people are unhappy about their bodies. But the fact is: they are. And if they have the money, and they have reasonable expectations: go for it.

I understand that many people feel the choice is not that of these girls, but of their environment: that the pressure upon them from their peers or their parents or whomever to be perfect is what makes these girls want to have operations.
I suppose that is partially true. Quite possibly horribly true. And it would be wonderful if we could get these women to realise they are perfect as they are as long as *they* feel they are. But we can't. Our culture is what it is. We can try to change it, in fact we should work hard to change it, but in the meantime the option of surgery should be available for those who wish it.

[gluelita]

you so rock, bklyn.

[bklynhermit]

apropos of nothing, but reading the thread brought it to mind:

several times, when in casual conversation with friends about cosmetic surgery, would you get it, what would you have done, etc. i have said, "I would totally love to get a nose job. But I want mine bigger. I want Sofia Coppola's nose. Or the real version of what Nicole Kidman had in The Hours. When I get rich, man, I am so doing that..."

mostly in jest, though I do think big noses are sexy and if it were up to me that's what i'd have.

but it HORRIFIED everyone in the conversation. they all dropped everything to assure me that I have a lovely nose, how could I even think of such a thing, etc.

nobody did that when the girl next to me said she wanted lipo, or the girl next to her said she wanted bigger breasts. but, you know, the girl next to me was kinda chubby. and the other girl, well, a bit flat chested. but i have what would be considered a conventionally pretty and sufficiently WASP-ish nose. and 'nobody' wants a bigger nose!

this kind of prooves that it's not about 'personal choice' and 'being happier' at all, is it?

[miss_jane]

I go away for a day and look what happens! Just to let you know I didn't just start the thread and run - Its just I have so much to say I need time where I have nothing else to do so I can really sit down and think about this!

[sybarite]

Gluelita, the economic implications get really alarming when women with little disposable income decide to get a procedure done anyway. Where I live this often means going to Eastern Europe and getting something done in an unregulated clinic. Botched cosmetic surgery is just so dangerous and the effects can be permanent.

Btw, where were you that everyone had had cosmetic surgery but you?? That's gotta be freaky.

[kissmypineapple]

My cousin, who I grew up wanting to be and look just like, recently got a boob job. She is seriously one of the most gorgeous people I've ever met, but she still wasn't happy. I asked her why she got it done, and she said she made a promise to herself when she was 12 or something that if she didn't grow up to be a C cup, then she'd fix it. She's a full D now. Now, I'm not trying to knock my cousin, and she's obviously very happy with her breasts now...but my issue with plastic surgery extends even to cases where "someone is truly unhappy" with their A-cup. Shouldn't we be examining the reasons why that is, instead of just giving low-self esteem about a body part a pass? And I don't mean we should come down on the people who choose surgery, but more that there's obviously something really sick in our culture that so many people feel that it's the answer to something "lacking" in them.

Anywho, back to makeup...I had a lot more fun at the end of high school and the beginning of college playing with color. I'm in love with red lipstick. It's such a powerful color, and when I've got my red lipstick on, I feel like the sassiest, smartest, most un-take-downable woman in the room. It's like I'm punctuating everything I say with a fir-engine red exclaimation point. So, yeah, I like makeup sometimes. But I don't like the idea that it's supposed to be corrective. If you like makeup, and it's a fun thing, then I say, woohoo. But if it's a chore, and you feel like you have to touch it up every 2 hours, then it's definitely not a feminist choice for you.

My $.02.

[ambercherry]

chani, i totally agree, and those are some of the biggest reasons that i don't wear make-up. my face gets oily throughout the day, and the last thing i want to worry about is whether my mascara is rubbing off, my eye shadow is clumping around the crease of my eyelid or if my lipstick needs retouching. of course, some woman can pull off wearing make-up through the day with no problem. i can't.

and overall i think women look better without make-up. i love the show what not to wear - but i hate when they pile on the make-up at the end.

[chani]

I have a recurrent pattern of thought about being too lazy to put on makeup.
First I start to feel like I'm letting down society by not making an effort to look nice. My instinctive next thought is that I make up for my lack of face paint by the work that I do with my brain.
Then I tell myself that no one expects men to wear makeup so that they'll look nicer so this whole thing is just another ploy to make women spend their diposible income.
I admit that when I go to a fancy function wearing makeup I look and feel good, but in everyday life I just can't justify running to the bathroom every 2 hours to fix my lipstick. Maybe if I worked at an office job it would be a nice diversion, but as a physician it's going to compromise patient care!

[gluelita]

i don't have anything to add except that more than a few times lately i have found myself in a room where i was the only one who had not had plastic surgery. or the only one in a room who had not had it and did not want it. wtf! that's creepy.

what interests me also is the economic implications. beauty maintenance is not free and these surgeries, diets, etc can be very expensive. even women who make less money are supposed to maintain a high-class (high-cost) regimine. for working class women, think of the percentage of disposable income expected to go to this upkeep just for the purpose of having or finding a job. that, to me, is really troublesome. when you consider that we only have so much income and that, in a very real sense, we are asked to choose between our looks and our retirements, downpayments, oppressive debt, children's education, it seems very WRONG to me to expect so much of our limited resources to go to these ends. the cycle of insecurity-consumption-profit for the beautyand diet industry-investment in creating more insecurity pisses me off.

not that i'm not stuck in it too. i try to limit it, but like the rest of you, at the end of the day i need a job.

[sybarite]

Sorry, I should have said re. primping before jobhunting... I meant to differentiate between looking cute to get a job and looking professional. When I was dropping into restaurants with my CV I made an effort to look cute (as well as clean). At conferences I want to look professional so that people take my work seriously. However, people I know working in TV, newspapers and architecture are under pressure to look cute, pretty, thin. This pressure can be explicit and this is for jobs that aren't front of camera. They are being strongly persuaded to conform to an ideal and, as I understand it, they are rewarded for doing so.

Looking professional, dressing formally in respect of a meeting etc, is fair enough; men have to do it too. Being pressured to essentially be good looking (naturally or otherwise) in order to succeed at work is entirely different, and unfair.

[mornington]

Smufin - I think you've hit on what I was trying to express re: plastic surgery. I don't like the idea that the people who have plastic surgery think thier lives are going to be improved by implants/eye lifts/botox. Ultimately, if it is going to make you happier, go for it. I'd probably put psychological reasons under medical. I had a friend in school who had a nose job - purely cosmetic - but she'd hated her nose since she was a kid; the nose was straightened, and she was far happier. Fair play to her.

The feminine/unfeminine thing with make-up annoys me. Nivea have brought out a tinted moisturiser for men, which is as far as I'm concerned, foundation by any other name. I can remember having a conversation with my (male) english teacher about mascara choices - he preferred black, I like brown. Men have worn make-up before, it doesn't make them less masculine to wear eyeliner/mascara, so why should it make women less feminine to not wear it? (that's terribly expressed)

[ambercherry]

i like this thread, too. and the talk about applying for jobs certainly comes at a good time, as i am going out this afternoon to resume drop at a bunch of shops.

i don't wear much make-up, either - if i do, it's just eyeliner, and it's more just to make my eyes show up a little more. but by the end of the day, it usually fades off anyway. sometimes i'll wear lipstick, but it's of the minimal colour kind, and on special occasions i'll wear mascara. this past halloween i dressed up in a gown, a wig, and put a lot of make-up on - or, as it turns out, i thought i had put a lot on(it felt like i did!). my partner looked at me and told me it didn't look like i had put much on. (he's not big into the make-up thing - or for that matter the shaving/waxing thing, either).

as for the job hunting/interviewing thing, i feel compelled to wear makeup even to drop off these resumes, which is crappy, because i don't like feeling as though i have to wear it. and even crappier is that fact that i'm self-conscious of the fact that my head is shaved (nice little brush cut). i love my hair - but i'm worried that maybe it needs to be more "girlie" for the stores to which i'll be applying. of course, if that's the case, i don't want to work in a place with those standards. gah.

regarding the plastic surgery debate - i agree with you, smurfin, about some underlying issues not getting fixed with plastic surgery. but i think in the case of medical reasons, if a person feels strongly about having the surgery, then they should go for it.

years ago, my mom had a breast removed due to breast cancer. she never had surgery to replace it, she now just has one boob, but she does usually wear a prothsesis (sp?). sometimes she doesn't, though, and i highly admire her on those days (although it's really not *that* noticeable when she doesn't - but still). she's a helluva woman. and i by no means mean to come down on women who choose to replace breasts lost through cancer, or anyone who chooses to have surgery for medical reasons.

[smurfin]

I don't wear make-up. I have never been on a diet (well, once, when I was 12, I went on a diet. It lasted two days). I only shave if I'm wearing something short, and I only shave what shows. I do not wax. Ever. I do not always feel happy in my body, but I am loath to change its appearance: I wánt to be confident of myself, but I not always ám. I try though. And usually I succeed.

However, if someone has the money and wants to have plastic surgery done (by a qualified surgeon), I say: go ahead. If you think it will make you happier, and you have realistic expectations: seriously, go ahead.

I don't want to make distinctions. Where I live plastic surgery can sometimes be paid for by your insurance if there is a 'medical indication'. So, people will have their eyes lifted because it apparently gave them headaches. Well, I doubt those medical indications. I think a person who is truly unhappy with her A cup may well benefit from an operation just as much if not more than a person who has the top of her pinky reattached after an accident. Both examples of plastic surgery, one 'medically indicated', one not.

I do think people who want to have elective surgery should maybe speak to a psychologist. Not because they're mad, but because they need to have reasonable expectations. If you're counting on a boob job to fix your relationship with your husband, you need to realise that's not a reasonable expectation. Problems of the interpersonal variety aren't going to go away along with the fat you're getting liposucted. Yes, it may make you feel better about yourself. It may also make you feel worse.

Anyway, what do you think?

[lucizoe]

I agree, curioushair. How much can it be one's own completely personal choice when as women we are particularly susceptible to the pressures of the culture at large (since women seem to get the brunt of it; I know men are affected too)? I always find that to be disgenuine, when someone says "I did it to feel good about me." Well, yes, you did do it to feel good about you, but you're feeling good about you within the strict parameters of beauty set by someone else, and how is that empowering?

I don't want to be seen as tearing down anyone who has undergone cosmetic surgery, but I really have a hard time believing that having bits of your natural body cut into and foreign matter inserted into you, to fit an ideal that maybe 5% of people can actually achieve, is somehow empowering.

I do feel less feminine sometimes for not knowing anything about make-up. I work in theatre, in costuming, and often make-up/hair duty goes right along with costume design. I'm always lost at those moments, but fortunately there is never a shortage of people (mostly women) who know the basics and can cover for me.

Two years ago I was working with a children's summer theatre program, not in any position of authority. Prior to curtain, there was the usual flurry of activity backstage and I was asked to help with make-up. I told the woman who asked me that I had no idea how to apply it and she, being stressed, snapped at me. She didn't even address the fact that as a costume assistant I needed to learn, it was all about how I was a girl and how could a girl not know how to apply make-up?

Of course, she was also pregnant with her 8th kid and she and her fundie hubby were busy with instilling strict gender roles and divisions in their brood, so I guess she took it personally.

Sorry to go OT there for a second. I like this thread!

[curioushair]

Ideally, it should be about choice: it's a woman's choice to have plastic surgery, shave, whatever, but it's naive to think that living up to the stereotype of a C-cup, glossy-lashed girl with the unlined face of an 18-year-old is all about choice. Every plastic surgery patient who's ever been interviewed says, "I'm doing it for me." No, you're not.

That being said, I'm not opposed to plastic surgery for genuine medical reasons (like mornington). I don't think anyone would accuse someone with a harelip of vanity. Makeup, eh..yeah, I wear makeup because I look like a corpse without it. As I've gotten older, I've become less concerened with fitting in, though, and more comfortable without it. Same with shaving. And yeah, I think it's okay to look "polished" at a job interview. I think it's less about feminine sterotypes than hygiene. A certain amount of primping is expected of women, and I doubt that will change anytime soon.

[mornington]

Hmm... not sure how much I can contribute, but here goes. First off, I'm down with plastic surgery for medical reasons. I'm talking burn victims, boob reductions and so on; it's cosmetic surgery that I'm not so sure about. Maybe I'm just freaked out by it. But I do think that cosmetic surgery is very much tied into society's perception of "beauty" - and pressure to look a certain way. I'm scared by the number of young (as in teenage) girls who seem to want plastic surgery to alter some percieved fault in thier not-fully-developed bodies.

There is definitely a pressure from society - and more than anything the media - for women to look a certain way. The one that scares me is the perception of "fat" - that you have to be below this weight, fit into this size dress, etc - in order not be "fat". I think that although the initial pressure is put in place by men, it is women who maintain that pressure upon other women - after all, it's women who write the glossies that women read, and it's the women who're more likely to tear into someone for what they're wearing (IME).

As for what syb wrote about getting "done up" while jobhunting - I think no matter what the politics of beauty are, unless they're blind, something of your appearance is being judged by other people.

Personally, I wear make-up almost every day. I started in school, because everyone was doing it and fitting in was easier. I don't wear foundation because it irritates my skin, and I really only wear eyeshadow/liner and mascara. I don't pay attention to the magazines; I wear it how I like. Make-up has become a part of who I am, and to some degree, it's a mask. I do shave my legs, and immac my bikini line when I can be bothered. I don't wax - I have sensitive skin & I'm a big wuss. I tidied my bikini line much more when I was in my last relationship - although he did tell me I didn't have to - so possibly I am trying to fit into that "ideal woman" mould.

That said, I'm all about the choice. I express myself through "beauty" and clothes, but I do think it's my choice. I'd love to see a lot less media attention paid to how the celebrities/personalities look, and more to what they do. I think so much of how people look determines how they're taken, and that peeves me.

A personal aside: I'm a vet student. I find if I dress "feminine" (skirt, heels, make-up, whatever) I'm not taken seriously as a vet student. If I wear jeans, doc m boots and a fleece, and no make-up, I'm not taken seriously as anything other than a vet - I'm percieved as asexual, work-obsessed, and boring. Don't know where that's going - but just a thought.

[sybarite]

My first time looking at the politics of, say, wearing lipstick as a feminist was when I was an undergrad looking for waitressing jobs. I was studying feminist theory at the time so questioned my tendency to get done up (lipstick, flattering clothes) before enquiring for jobs. I knew the way I looked would impact on whether or not I got the job. In the end, I decided that I needed the job so would use an advantage if it worked.

More recently I made a conscious decision to lose weight. Everyone I knew had commented (nicely) that I had gained weight. There was no good reason to lose it; I was happy otherwise and the bf had no problem with it (as well he shouldn't). Yet being a little thinner and therefore able to wear some clothes that woulnd't have suited me before makes me happy. I also like being generally fitter and healthier, but vanity is definitely there too.

I don't wear makeup (except for lipstick, and mascara on weekends) because basically I'm too lazy, never got the hang of it and I hate the way foundation feels on my face. But I get occasional pedicures and get bikini waxes regularly--more for the pool or beach than for the mister, who thinks waxing is barbaric.

I don't believe in cosmetic surgery, for me anyway. The idea of paying someone to deliberately cut into me with a scalpel is inherently wrong IMO.

I do think that the societal construction/perception of woman is tightly bound up with what she looks like. I have friends and family in different competitive industries who have all said being thinner/more groomed/wearing good clothes directly influences how seriously they are taken. I think this is wrong but it still applies in way too many situations. I would ideally like to be challenging these stereotypes/tendencies on a daily basis (in conversation for example) but I also still feel how I look (at conferences, for example)has some impact on how seriously I'm taken... and I work in academia.

That's my 2 cents.

[miss_jane]

As I read through some of the threads about various aspects of beauty (cosmetic surgery, shaving, makeup etc) I noticed that the majority of them were distinctly not about the politics but about hints ands tips. I thought it would be useful and nice for busties to have a place to discuss the politics behind the "beauty myth" and hopefully clear some of our thoughts on it.

The type of topics that have been playing on my mind:

*Cosmetic Surgery
*The Removal of Body Hair
*Diets
*Makeup
*The Media's Attitude

Just to make everything clear I don't want this to become a place to attack busties who chose different ways of expressing their beauty.

So what are your thoughts? Can stereotypical beauty maintenance sit comfortably with feminist politics? Feminism is about a lot about choice for the individual, but is any choice (specifically about beauty) that a woman makes necessarily feminist? How difficult is it to stand up and fight the beauty myth?

As a side note : The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf is the book that stemmed these thoughts in me and a few years own I still haven't cleared in my mind the way I feel about things.