Our Bodies, Ourselves (13 page)
Read Our Bodies, Ourselves Online
Authors: Boston Women's Health Book Collective
The quest for beauty and the pressure to conform apply to every body part. Bikini waxingâremoving pubic hair that grows outside the swimsuit lineâhas been replaced by Brazilian bikini waxing, which usually removes every wisp of hair from the genital and anal areas, a painful procedure. As a result of removing all the hair from the pubic region, grown women's bodies more often resemble those of prepubescent girls. And if going bare isn't enough to recapture youth, there's now even genital makeup. My New Pink Button is described by marketers as “a simple to use Genital Cosmetic Colorant that restores the âPink' back to a Woman's genitals.”
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The days when television makeovers consisted of changing one's hair, makeup, and clothes are long gone. Today, participants have their faces and bodies permanently altered through plastic surgery, on national TV, with little discussion of the health and psychological risks. The United States has more plastic surgeons and performs more surgical procedures than any other countryâ91 percent of which are performed on women.
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In 2010, more than 13.1 million cosmetic plastic surgery procedures were performed in the United States. The majority, 11.5 million, are considered minimally invasive. Among these, Botox was by far the most popular (5.4 million), followed by soft-tissue fillers (1.8 million), chemical peel (1.1 million), laser hair removal (938,000), and microdermabrasion (825,000).
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BEAUTY U
For an inside look at the beauty services industry, follow Virginia Sole-Smith's nine months of training in the Esthetics Program at Beauty U. to become a licensed esthetician. Sole-Smith investigates the human costs of beauty labor, what really makes up makeup, waxing and other beauty routines, and how we all construct beauty in little and big ways. Read along at Beauty Schooled: beautyschooledproject.com/beauty-u.
A CONVERSATION ABOUT BODY IMAGE AND SELF-ESTEEM
This is an excerpt from an online conversation that developed into the “Relationships” chapter.
Kali:
It is painfully easy for us, as women, to find reasons not to like our bodies. Because of my disability, I've had joint problems since I was twelve. Hating my body is something I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. It fails, it breaks, it betrays me. Add to that a few periods of sudden weight gain due to hormonal problems, and let's just say that me liking my body is a very touch-and-go sort of thing.
The thoughts about my body and relationships aren't pretty. “That guy must like me in spite of my appearance.” “What is wrong with him? How can he like
this
?” “When he finds out how easily and how often I get injured, he's going to get fed up with this and leave.” “I wish I could hide my bulges!”
It may seem odd, but I've found that what helps me with my body issues is creating my own comfort with my body and pushing societal expectations aside. Standing naked in front of a mirror and looking at my body as a statue, with graceful and interesting lines. Finding clothing that actually fit, especially clothing that felt flirty and feminine, or bold and dashing! The less it mattered to me what other peopleâespecially prospective partnersâthought, the more confident I was about how other people would perceive my body. It seems utterly paradoxical, and I'm not sure why it works, but it does.
Jordan:
It really is frustrating how much perceptions of our bodies play into our perceptions about worthiness for relationships. I've definitely experienced that “I'm so lucky to be with someone who isn't repulsed by me” feeling and I've also had that exploited; people have used me secure in the knowledge that I won't protest because I am afraid of the consequences. And, for the most part, I like my body! I am just aware that the social constructs which surround it make other people think that it is less than acceptable.
Danielle:
I want to echo what Kali is saying, about how easy it is to assume someone likes you in spite of something. Just last night, I was talking with my therapist about an ex. I was saying that it was really easy to imagine that the relationship had fallen apart because I'm trans, because transitioning was so hard on both of us, because of my body issues. My therapist asked, “Okay, but what if you'd been together
because
you were trans? Maybe if you weren't transitioning when you were, you never would have been together in the first place.”
That had honestly never occurred to me. All women are bombarded with media indicating why our bodies aren't perfect enough. But I'd say trans women (and trans men, to a lesser extent) are additionally laden with messages that our bodies
can't
be attractive. That my very existence is “naturally” repugnant and repulsive.
I'd agree with Kali, too, that finding
things to like about your body is incredibly important. (And clothing that you actually find happiness and comfort with.) Likewise, I think doing something physical is really useful. I feel much better about myself when I'm able to say, “Yeah, I just biked those miles” (or whatever). And exercise endorphins are awesome, even if I don't exercise as often as I'd like.
Cody:
Kali, I love what you've written here about creating bodily comfort for yourself and pushing those ugly societal voices out of the way. This has been true and incredible for me as well! I have moments of discomfort in my body, wishing I was smaller or shaped differently, and one of the things that feels best in those moments is to look at my naked body in the mirror and appreciate what I see: broad shoulders, muscle-y arms, strong thighs. Hips that keep the frame of my body grounded and competent, rough hands.
I have to love this body because it's what I've got, and it's healthier to love my body for what it is than to wish it looked different. If I don't love my body, appreciate my contours, find myself sexy, how can I expect anyone else to feel this way about me? Sometimes I just need to remind myself that I'm hot and perfect and it's an act of bravery and defiance to think such things, in the face of this misogynist culture that wants me to hate myself. Then loving my body becomes political, and so much about me and so much not about anyone else or what they think of my body.
For more from this conversation, check out the “Relationships” chapter.
Of the more than 1.5 million surgical procedures considered more invasive, breast augmentation (296,000) topped the list, followed by nose reshaping (252,000), eyelid surgery (209,000), liposuction (203,000), and tummy tucks (116,000).
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No longer treating only the rich, plastic surgeons regularly target working-and middle-class women, some of whom go into deep debt to pay for their surgeries. Job losses during the recession have led more peopleâboth women and menâto consider altering their appearance to look more youthful and, by extension, appealing to employers.
Nearly 210,000 cosmetic plastic surgery procedures were performed on people age thirteen to nineteen in 2009, including almost 35,000 nose reshapings (rhinoplasty) and 8,000 breast augmentations, the most popular types of surgical procedures. Nonsurgical procedures such as Botox injections, which help reduce the visibility of wrinkles, were once reserved for women trying to conceal signs of aging. While Botox is approved by the FDA for children as young as twelve for very specific therapeutic purposes (twitching of the eyelid or crossed eyes, for example),
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off-label uses are common. Charice Pempengco, a Filipina teenage singing phenom, publicly admitted getting a skin-tightening treatment and Botox injections before her guest appearance on the television show
Glee
; she said she wanted to look “fresh” for the cameras.
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ABSOLUTELY SAFE
Absolutely Safe
(absolutelysafe.com), a must-see documentary examining breast implant safety, follows the stories of two women, one who wants to have her leaking silicone implants removed and the other looking to have breast augmentation. The viewer meets plastic surgeons who are for and against the surgery, women who have suffered from silicone implants (including the mother of the filmmaker, Carol Ciancutti-Leyva), and members of the FDA committee who determine whether or not to allow silicone back on the market.
“All along the viewer feels powerfully the impact pressures to be beautiful have and have had on American women,” says gender studies expert Diana York Blaine. “Breast implants clearly âsolve' the problem while introducing myriad new onesâ¦. This film makes starkly clear that the female sense of inadequacy is not an individual phenomenon. Institutionalized sexism affects all of us. Destroying our health seems to be an acceptable solution.”
To learn more about health risks, visit breastimplantinfo.org, a project of the National Research Center for Women and Families.
Courtesy of Carol Ciancutti-Leyva/Absolutely Safe
Special scrutiny is given to new mothers. The media give approval to celebrities who, just weeks after childbirth, flaunt fit figures along with designer diaper bags. The rest of us are expected to follow suit, even if we don't have child care and 24/7 access to a staff of personal trainers and nutritionists (and even if our livelihoods don't depend on appearance). So-called mommy makeovers offer new mothers a package of surgical proceduresâbreast lift, tummy tuck, and liposuctionâto “recover” from what one plastic surgeon calls the “severe physical trauma of pregnancy, child-birth and breast-feeding.”
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© R.A.McBride
“I LIKE THE WAY MY NOSE MARKS ME”
LISA JERVIS
As an ethnic Jew of a very specific varietyâa godless New York Cityâraised neurotic upper-middle-class girl from a solidly liberal-Democrat family who observed only one Jewish ritual: going out for Chinese food and a movie on Christmas DayâI've had a standing offer for a nose job from adolescence on. “It's not such a big deal,” my mom would say. “Doctors do such individual-looking noses these days. It'll look really natural.”
It's not too late, you know,” she would add in the years after I flat-out refused to let someone break my nose, scrape part of it out, and reposition it into a smaller, less obtrusive shape. “I'll still pay.” As if money were the reason I was resisting.
Mainly, I didn't want to be that vain and shallow, and I didn't want scalpels anywhere near my face. But my queasy feelings about plastic surgery asideâthe risks, the expense, the frivolity, the blood, the sheer visceral creepinessâI'd have wanted to keep my prominent, bump-adorned honker anyway. Oddly, given how I've felt about my body at various times in my life, I've always been pretty happy with my (dare I say it?) God-given nose.
Of friends my own age who've had nose jobs, most didn't want them but were coerced or shamed into it by older Jewish female relatives: mothers, grandmothers, aunts (an experience I'm eternally grateful my mother spared me). Though in this day and age, the lust for a button nose is more a desire for a typical pretty femininity than for any specific de-ethnicizing, when we scratch the surface of what “prettier” means, we find that we might as well be saying “whiter” or “Gentile.”
I like the way my nose marks me. The first time I met another Jewish feminist writer with whom I would end up working, she asked if I was a member of the tribe. I've always appreciated that there's a part of my identity that's instantly recognizable to those who know where to look.
It's commonly believed that people who are considered extremely attractive are much happier than everyone else, but research seems to indicate that this isn't true.
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And, despite the media hype and conventional wisdom that surgery improves self-esteem, there is no research to support that.
