ABSTRACT
Whenever a woman is asked why she had cosmetic surgery, her short answer is likely to be ‘I didn’t like the way I looked and I wanted to look better for myself ’. To many people such a response is reasonable enough not to warrant a great deal of further discussion. Given that the vast majority of women living in the developed world are less than happy with their appearance, ‘wanting to look better’ barely raises an eyebrow. Indeed, finding women who are entirely happy with their appearance is more unusual. They represent an anomaly, a minority group who could technically be described as deviant, and to whom other women look with a kind of wonder and, quite possibly, respect. These women are extraordinarily fortunate since being content with one’s appearance inevitably frees up time, energy and money that can be directed elsewhere. While women who undergo cosmetic surgery want to change their appearance, they are also aspiring to join that small group of women who are satisfied with their appearance. They want, more than anything, to look in the mirror and be happy with what they see. Not insignificantly, as appearance dissatisfaction in women approaches
the level of norm, body image anxiety has surfaced as an essential variable upon which the successes of grooming industries like cosmetic surgery are reliant. It is, moreover, to this rising swell of discontent that hugely profitable global organizations market an unprecedented range of grooming products and services designed to redress and assuage the problem. The media – with an unnerving and purposive agenda, accompanying us into our bedrooms, bathrooms and seemingly infiltrating our very psyches – are usually blamed for distorting the relationship women have with their bodies and their perceptions of appearance. Whilst the effects of the media are undoubtedly pervasive, how they exert an impact is far less certain. Like many others who have examined the progressive acceptance of cosmetic surgery, I assumed that tracking down the impetus behind turning to a surgical fix would uncover the role played by the media, magazines in particular, and of men. That was until I actually started speaking to women themselves and found that those teleological formulas did not quite stack up. Indeed, what I found in their long answers was an angst related to appearances born much closer to home.
