Maybe She’s Born With It…

Cosmetic surgery, you see it on TV, read about it in magazines and you probably know people that have had it. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, in 2007 nearly 11.7 million surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed, a 457% increase since 1997 when the collect of data began. Out of those 11.7 million people 91% of them were women, the other 9% were men. If cosmetic surgery isn’t a gendered use of technology than I’m not sure what is anymore. In the Dull and West article, “Accounting for Cosmetic Surgery: The Accomplishment of Gender,” one woman who received a face lift was quoted saying, “I mean, if it is your body and you want to have it done, why not? And if it helps your vanity, what’s wrong with it?…Women buy makeup and have their hair done – what’s the difference?” Obvious cost reasons aside what is so different about all of the other ‘tortuous’ products we as women use to appear thinner, younger, more ‘beautiful’ according to social standards.

If you spend five minutes watching TV or flip through any fashion magazine you’ll be sure to find ads for makeup, hair products, perfume, body shapers, all things promising a ‘better, brighter, younger looking you.’ The amount of makeup sold in drugstores is intimidating, not to mention hair products, hair dye, even control top panty hose. It’s difficult to find an exact figure but American women seem to be spending about $7 billion a year on cosmetics, another statistic stated that women spend somewhere between $2000-$4000 a month on beauty products. These numbers are striking but seem to prove just how important beauty products are to women.

Makeup seems to be a sort of ‘rite of passage’ into womanhood because I remember not being able to wear makeup until I was 13 years old, an age agreed upon by my parents. I do not know if I ever played in mother’s makeup when I was younger but I did start sneaking makeup to school when I was about 11, putting it on in the bathroom before class and having the difficult task of washing it off before my mom came to pick me up. I always associated makeup with beautiful women so when I was finally allowed to wear makeup I would wake up two hours before school to do my hair and makeup perfectly. I thought makeup was what made me pretty and the media images surrounding me only reinforced this idea.

Cosmetic surgery and makeup are akin in some superficial ways, they allow people to cover up or fix their ‘flaws’ and allow some women to feel more confident about their outward appearance. Our society places such importance on looks that it is relatively easy to get caught up in the entire cycle of wanting to be thinner, more beautiful, and most of all to be ‘perfect.’ It’s difficult growing up to live in a world where pictures of airbrushed, painfully skinny models are on the cover of every magazine. Not only does technology allow for the invention of new devices to torture ourselves with but it makes images of ‘perfect’ women more readily available for consumption.

It’s true that compared to cosmetic surgery makeup, hair dye, control top panty hose, and body shapers are nowhere near as painful but I’ve never heard a woman say that she enjoyed curling her hair every morning or that her body shaper was comfortable to wear. Most of the time you hear complaints about wanting to just go home, change out of the uncomfortable, wash off the makeup and just put on a pair of sweatpants and relax. As women we’ve accepted that beauty is pain and that you must suffer to look good every day. Instead of using technology to create new torture techniques maybe we should use it to promote healthy, shorter women with character and not plastic features. Barbie is just a doll for a reason.

Works Cited

Dull, Diana and West, Candace. “Accounting for Cosmetic Surgery: The Accomplishment

of Gender.” Social Problems. Vol. 38, No. 1. Feb. 1991: 54-70.

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/800638>.

Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Research. “Statistics and Trends for 2001-2006.”

<http://www.cosmeticplasticsurgerystatistics.com/statistics.html#2007-HIGHLIGHTS>.