Blog Six.

Gimlin says that, for a long time, most of the people getting cosmetic surgery were men who were disabled by accidents on the job or in war. At the end of WWII, there were only 100 plastic surgeons in the country, which is a statistic that blows my mind in juxtaposition to how many there must be now. If there were 3,850 in 1990, there must be thousands more now. Eek!

I think cosmetic surgery is a multi-faceted issue. I think that reactionary plastic surgery (people who have been deformed by an accident, burn victims, fixing a deviated septum or cleft palate, breast reductions to alleviate pain, etc) is totally fine, but that doesn't fall under the category of "cosmetic" for me because it is done either for health reasons or as a reaction to something negative.

I do think that people "take it too lightly." I don't really understand why it's basically acceptable to alter one's body so significantly. Everyone has insecurities about their bodies, but I don't think that's a strong enough justification for invasive surgery.

I think what is actually taken too lightly is that justification itself. Why are women (and men) so unhappy with their appearances? I think the answer is what we've been talking about in this class from the beginning, what we're reading about - The Beauty Myth. The image of the perfect woman that is projected into pop culture, and probably pushed/paid for by the plastic surgery industry itself. The reading said there were 2.2 million procedures in 1999 - wow! I wonder how many there were in 2009!

I think the phrase "vain and shallow society" is a bit too reductive. Sure, it's easy to blame it on vanity, but that would be denying what's going on under the surface. This is demonstrated by the story of Ann-Marie, the woman who got the face-lift. She said that she considered the surgery for years before she actually did it, and her reason for doing it was that she didn't look the way she felt on the inside when her face started to show the effects of aging.

As far as whether it's positive or not, I certainly don't want to take anything away from the people who have had cosmetic surgery and experienced higher self-esteem as a result. That's great. But, again, that's not the problem - the reasons for getting the surgery in the first place is the problem.

Three examples from pop culture:

• Heidi Montag, obviously. She recently, famously underwent 10 procedures at once. I recently saw some pictures of her from before any surgeries and I thought she was so beautiful! Now she looks like a real-life Barbie, which is not attractive in the actual world.
• Joan Rivers has also had a lot of work done...she looks really creepy now. It's kind of ironic that she has a career in body-snarking on the red carpet, when she's had so much work done. what an obnoxious cycle.
• J-WOWW!!! from "Jersey Shore." Her boobs are crazy huge and crazy fake-looking. That's what I REALLY don't understand - women who want to look completely unnatural. Why??
  

Random parts I found interesting:

• "many of the women I interviewed expressed enormous satisfaction with their procedures."
• "cosmetic surgeons are frequently critical of their female clientele, seeing them as obsessed and impossible to please."
• he determines "appropriateness" of surgery. "John positions himself not only as a surgeon but also as an expert in contemporary standards for female beauty." he examines psychological health as well - to see if they're getting the surgery for a non-physical reason, like a recent personal trauma. He rejects two to three requests per week.
• even the women who are happy with results are defensive when explaining.
• Ann Marie makes a point that is striking for me... she says that if you look better, you feel better, and thus become a better worker/family member/friend/etc. Why is it that appearance is the thing that starts that cycle of positivity? That makes me sad.
• Bonnie's liposuction eliminating the most "female" parts of her figure as a reflection of her identity problems. femininity = inherently imperfect, or at least that's what culture would have us believe...
  

Blog Five.

There are some toys that are incredibly gendered, like dolls and GI Joes, for example. Some toys can be gender-neutral, but I honestly think that "they" are trying to divide the genders from birth pretty much. It starts with pink for girl babies and blue for boy babies, and it continues with toys. I don't think toys should be gendered, because it diminishes creativity and imagination in children if they get such intense division messages from an early age.

The Toys R Us website actually has a function where you can click on either "girls" or "boys" to find toys. In the 5-7 year old age bracket, when I click "girls," there are some neutral toys like LEGOs, walkie talkies and play castles. But it's mostly dolls, little toy animals to nurture, and lots of pink. When I click "boys," there are the same animals, but the rest is cars, sports toys, video games and action figures.

I do think that toys influence the way children play. Take Barbies, for example. One of the most fun parts of playing with a Barbie is dressing her up in all kinds of different outfits, doing her hair, etc. GI Joes don't have different outfits or long flowing blonde hair. Therefore little girls are concentrating more on making their toy look beautiful, as a reflection of themselves, or as living vicariously through their doll. The beauty myth starts early. Little boys, on the other hand, get right to the action with their toys - no need to worry about looks.

That's why I do think that the toys influence what kids grow up to be, to a certain extent. I mean, just because a girl played with Barbies as a child, doesn't mean she will grow up to be a bimbo or materialistic. But it may be a good explanation for the beauty myth and how it affects grown women.

My favorite toys when I was a kid were my "hard animals." I guess I called them that because they were small animals made of hard plastic. I had my own little menagerie that I'd bought with my hard-earned lemonade-stand money. They all had names and identities, and I liked to make up stories and act them out with the animals. After doing this blog, I realize that my hard animals were not specifically gendered, because I could assign whatever gender I wanted to each of them. I think that boys and girls could have an equal amount of fun playing with them. Also, I think that making up the stories helped develop creativity.

I also liked playing outside, climbing trees, riding my bike, playing with American Girl dolls and Beanie Babys. The point is, there are some toys that are extremely gendered, but as long as a little girl doesn't play with ONLY Barbies and a little boy doesn't play with ONLY cars, it's perfectly fine. I just don't like the whole "girls like dolls, boys like trucks" concept that I suspect some parents may inflict on their children.

Blog Four. (Sex)

The most basic idea I got from the chapter on sex was that beauty pornography is put in place to suppress female sexuality. When we see women that fit the ideal body image in extremely sexual ways (sexual ads, photographs, and in actual pornography), it sends the message that we need to look like THAT in order to be sexual.

Beauty is socially constructed because, as we've discussed in class, the ideal image of beauty is created by the diet, cosmetics, and cosmetic surgery industries. The ideal is perpetuated by advertising and the media, and it is also perpetuated by those of us who subscribe to it. Believing in the false ideal influences our own body image. If women don't feel beautiful, they don't feel sexy, and thus sexuality is not what it should be.

Something that struck me in the reading on sex was the whole section on violence. Wolf says that in the 1980s, as more women were graduating with professional degrees, people started to get angry at women. Thus, images of women in the media in situations of violence started to increase.

Wolf says, "Sex just wasn't sex anymore without violence."

She says that violent sexual imagery has made rape more acceptable, even if it's on a subconscious basis. Men and women now have rape fantasies because those fantasies are projected. She says that "our culture is depicting sex as rape so that men and women will become interested in it." WOW.

Also, the idea that huge industries are "selling sexual discontent" is crazy and interesting. Wolf says that "product lust weakens where emotional and sexual lust intensifies." To keep us spending money, society tries to keep us from getting laid.

In Wolf's words, "the myth wants to discourage women from seeing themselves unequivocally as sexually beautiful." Feeling beautiful is an important part of having good, fulfilling sex. If one doesn't feel beautiful, "one objectifies oneself or the other for self-protection." Women don't like their bodies because they are constantly confronted with naked or near-naked images of the ideal body. Then when they are naked for sex, it makes them insecure so they can't enjoy sex the same way. Thus, they are unfulfilled and still a slave to the beauty myth.