Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery (review)

Abstract

Kathy Davis continues to explore the practices and meanings of cosmetic surgery, extending but also defending her 1995 book, Reshaping the Female Body. In her introduction, she addresses Susan Bordo's published criticism of her views. Bordo finds Davis too willing to accept cosmetic surgery as an expression of female agency. Engaging with such criticism highlights substantive issues long raised by feminists (at the least, since the 1968 Miss America protest) about the cultural practices and performances of femininity-notably, whether and how women are agents of their own oppression, why women engage in dangerous beauty practices, and how to incorporate both condemnation and compassion within feminist discourse to propel more women toward feminism.Dubious Equalities addresses these analytic and strategic concerns in regard to cosmetic surgery by surveying a number of intriguing topics. Davis first presents two biographical essays, one of a female and one of a male surgeon, to explore the gender of cosmetic surgery as a profession. Madame Noël, an early twentiethcentury French champion of cosmetic surgery and of women's rights, provides a model for empathic, yet also highly skilled, surgical treatment. This, along with her remarkable professional success, is no small achievement: it takes place in an era when surgeons are usually male and conceptualized in heroic, masculine terms. In contrast, the title of American surgeon Maxwell Maltz's 1954 autobiography, Doctor Pygmalion, neatly expresses the typical objectification of female patients. Maltz utilizes conventions of "masculine stories" (p. 52), such as relating his life as an epic quest, to assert not only his masculinity as an individual, but also the essentially masculine nature of practicing cosmetic surgery. The two biographies explain how the field's development as a specialization constructed gender differences that made it difficult for women both to become surgeons, and to be treated better as patients.In the next essay, Davis describes the provocative debates recently held in the Netherlands about whether cosmetic surgery constitutes a necessity that the national health-care system should cover. She analyzes the varying positions on the meanings and purposes of surgical alterations in appearance articulated by surgeons, health-care administrators, and patients. In the remaining chapters, she considers how women explain their decision to undergo cosmetic procedures; explores differences between race-based and gender-based surgeries; assesses the multiple surgeries undertaken by performance artist Orlan; and discusses distinctions in the meaning of cosmetic surgery for men.Davis utilizes these topics to raise interesting questions. In the chapter on Madame Noël, for example, she asks whether it is possible to be a feminist cosmetic surgeon. She concludes that Noël's feminism is not found in her "attempts to empower individual women through face-lifts," but in her practice of medicine "in a different voice" (p. 19). In "Surgical Passing," Davis importantly

A Brief Online Cognitive Dissonance-Based Intervention to Reduce Consideration of Cosmetic Surgery and Improve Body Image Among Chinese Women

“…The intention of developing this intervention is not to forbid women from managing their appearance, but to help them to reflect on whether cosmetic surgery is a necessity and to, at least, make them feel it is not necessary to medically modify their otherwise healthy body (Henderson-King & Brooks, 2009). From the perspective of feminist psychology, some frameworks view appearance enhancement via cosmetic surgery as a means to empower women to seize control of their lives in an appearance-focused society and to improve their sense of self and (social) capital (Davis, 2003;Heggenstaller et al, 2018). At the same time, other frameworks, including objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), would argue that selfworth and capital that is gained via appearance requires constant and substantial investment and is ultimately fleeting, and thus does not offer women true power and equity; it may also serve to uphold systems of gender inequity and the societal objectification of girls and women.…”

Beauty: Liberation and/or Confinement in The Life and Loves of a She Devil by Fay Weldon

“…In relation to this double-edged sword, the novel can be seen to be embracing both standpoints. Researchers such as Susie Orbach (1978), Naomi Wolf (1991, Susan Bordo (1993), Sander L. Gilman (1999), and Kathy Davis (1991Davis ( , 1997Davis ( , 1999Davis ( , 2003 all consider different aspects of the connection between body and femininity. The first of these, Susie Orbach, wrote Fat is a Feminist Issue in 1978, which is close to the date of publication of Weldon's novel.…”

Have Chinese women's gender attitudes become more conservative? A study using an agency approach

“…Various researchers have used Butler's concept of agency, but they differ in their application. While examining women's cosmetic surgery practices, Davis (2003) incorporated the concept of agency into the analysis to emphasize that "individuals can actively participate in the composition of social life." However, as Nishikura (2005) pointed out, while Davis emphasized women as actors with the capacity to make decisions, the concept of agency was attributed to women only as actors.…”