To what extent should we modify our bodies?
This article was published in The Isis HT24: Strip For Us, April 2024.
The slogan ‘my body, my choice’, proudly proclaimed by women fighting for the right to bodily autonomy, has been taken as gospel by feminist groups worldwide. This powerful phrase has been integral to the fight for safeguarding reproductive rights, and has since become the poster child for the global feminist struggle. But does this mantra extend to every choice a woman makes? Is there a limit on the extent to which we can — or should — modify our bodies?
In 2024, trends including the encroachment of cosmetic surgery into the public sphere, its increased potential for customisation, and its rapid normalisation are on full, glorious, unprecedented display. Catalysed by the meteoric rise of social media, influencer-celebrities and online advertising, there is a dizzying array of cosmetic surgery options available at the click of a button. This ranges from classic Botox and liposuction to more elaborate buccal fat removal, a surgery that removes fat between the cheekbones and jawbones to highlight facial bone structure.
All the aforementioned factors, coupled with increased spending power among women, have led to cosmetic surgery’s ever-increasing popularity. According to The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), 31,057 cosmetic procedures took place in 2022, a 102 percent increase from the previous year. Among the younger generations, there has also been an increased interest in nonsurgical or minimally invasive procedures.
Should this increased uptake in cosmetic surgery be a cause for concern? Or should it be celebrated as the purest form of bodily autonomy and expression for women who have long been denied the right to control what their bodies look like?
There are two main stances in the feminist debate over cosmetic surgery. One side argues that such women are victims of the beauty industry and the patriarchy, while the other supports women’s agency in choosing to undergo bodily modification to improve their lives. Susan Bordo (1993), a key anti-cosmetic surgery feminist, argues against the “abstract, unsituated, disembodied freedom” which is used to justify women’s choice to modify their bodies. In a context where Photoshopped images have become our dominant reality, where problems with our bodies have been socially constructed, this rhetoric of choice and self-determination is extremely idealistic. On the other hand, Kathy Davis (1995) opposes the painting of cosmetic surgery recipients as ‘cultural dupes’ and victims suffering from false consciousness. Instead, she argues that women who undergo surgery are “active and knowledgeable agents.” Although they know that their options are limited, they still try their best to have agency over their lives in their contexts. Such women are not vain, or seeking to make themselves beautiful. They simply wish to become ‘normal,’ ‘unnoticeable’ and ‘ordinary.’
How do we square these two stances?
Let’s take the fictitious example of Amy. Amy is an intelligent, well-educated woman who has just graduated from a prestigious university and is now working a highly-paid desk job. She thinks she is unattractive, which has hurt her confidence growing up. As a feminist, she is conscious that such norms of attractiveness are wholly socially constructed, but her lived experience makes her want some change. One day, a flashy advertisement for cosmetic surgery pops up on her Facebook feed, promising to subtly alter her features and improve her confidence. Her interest piqued, Amy reaches out to the cosmetic surgery clinic, which enthusiastically reassures her of her concerns.
After doing some research, she concludes that she has two options: she can continue her current life, constantly feeling dissatisfied about her appearance — or she can undergo cosmetic surgeries to gradually beautify herself, so that she can look in the mirror and feel attractive every day. Even though the surgery would use up a significant amount of her savings, she reasons that her current spending on cosmetic products would be proportionately reduced. The ‘pretty privilege’ and increased confidence she would gain could help her career. Amy grapples with her feminist discomfort, knowing that she is succumbing to patriarchal beauty standards, but eventually decides after many sleepless nights to undergo the procedure. She is satisfied with the outcome, and it leads to her being more confident, successful, and romantically fulfilled — though of course it does not completely remove her insecurities.
What Amy does not know is that the advertisement she received was specifically targeted at her, exploiting the data of previous searches which had built the profile of a well-off but insecure woman. She also does not know that the clinic has significantly downplayed the risk of physical and psychological complications of cosmetic surgery. Even though the outcome of the cosmetic surgery was as good as she could have hoped for, it was not made under fully informed circumstances.
How should we understand Amy’s situation, a reality faced by many women? She is an active agent who has thought extensively about her choices and the options available to her. As a feminist, she is aware of the heavy implications of succumbing to, or perhaps becoming complicit in, unjust norms and standards of beauty, and why that may be detrimental to other women and the feminist movement as a whole. However, we cannot say that she made a wholly free choice. She was unaware of a significant amount of information, including the insidious targeted and misleading advertisement which prompted her decision. Moreover, even though her choice was not one of desperation, it was one based on the need to improve existing circumstances under an unjust system which rewards attractiveness in women. Having caused significant amounts of internal turmoil and angst, Amy’s decision was not an entirely empowering one.
Amy does not fit neatly into either category set out by Bordo or Davis. She is more complicated than either theory would suggest; she is part ignorant, part informed.
What Amy’s situation demonstrates is that it is oversimplistic to characterise women according to either Bordo or Davis. Instead, most women are aware that beauty norms can be coercive and detrimental, but are still reluctant or unwilling to give up the social capital afforded by following such norms (Dolezal 2010). While beauty standards are circumscribing, women can still exercise their agency in deciding to modify their bodies by such standards. With the eye-watering array of factors contributing to shaping our desires, women are situated in a constant state of negotiation and uncertainty, exercising their right to choose to the best of their ability. It is thus inaccurate and condescending to frame women as perpetual victims of patriarchal control; it is simultaneously unrealistic to ignore what Naomi Wolf characterises as a ‘beauty myth’ — a lie fuelled by profitable cosmetic, weight-loss and fashion industries causing women to have “a dark vein of self-hatred, physical obsessions, terror of aging, and dread of lost control”.
Moreover, women who choose cosmetic surgery are not a monolith. Most of them face situations similar to Amy’s, but there exists a nuanced range of women with different levels of knowledge and information. On the one hand, ‘enlightened’ feminists do exist, fully cognizant of patriarchal norms, who choose to wear makeup, use Botox or surgically modify their bodies — to maximise their own happiness or utility. On the other hand, there exist women who have not had the opportunity or privilege to scrutinise or reflect on the reasons behind their wish to become more attractive, who are swayed and trapped by prevailing standards of what is ‘normal’ or ‘beautiful’ and who are the primary victims of the myths propelled by the beauty-industrial complex. A sweeping generalisation on either side fails to acknowledge the wide variety of circumstances under which women make such decisions.
Perhaps there is no way of resolving the bodily modification debate by looking at feminist theorists alone — instead, what we should focus on is the very real physical and psychological harm to the women who undergo such an experience. Although Amy was lucky that her procedure was successful, such surgical interventions can result in infection, bleeding, embolisms, skin loss, blindness, crippling, and death. Cosmetic surgery can also cause severely negative emotional impacts: some individuals are very happy with their surgical results and have no regrets, while others are deeply disappointed, even with a technically ‘good’ and satisfactory outcome, and ultimately feel worse than the dissatisfaction which triggered the surgery. A small minority might become ‘polysurgical addicts’ or ‘scalpel slaves’ who return for endless operations in perpetual quest of the ‘perfect’ body (Bordo 1993). Cosmetic surgery is not an inconsequential choice akin to deciding what clothes to wear every morning — it must be grounded in its very real physical and psychological impacts.
Ultimately, to what extent should we modify our bodies? If all women were fully informed of the procedures’ risks and the patriarchy’s potential influence on their decisions, I would wholeheartedly support any bodily modification they seek to undergo. But in an imperfect world, we cannot make perfect, fully informed choices. As illustrated by the example of Amy, she made a choice which ultimately worked for her, but it was still ridden with misinformation and ignorance. Under the patriarchy, where women are told that it is ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ to be hairless, where it is economically rational for women to be thin, and where a white, youthful, Western aesthetic of feminine beauty is the norm, women’s decisions to modify their bodies are rarely free. Succumbing to such misogynistic beauty standards, though tempting, will only serve to strengthen them. Although ‘my body, my choice’ is a potent catchphrase succinctly capturing the feminist demand for autonomy, modifying our bodies is not the solution.
Art Credits: Angelika Woodruff
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