An advertisement celebrates female confidence and even shows a black woman: how empowering for women! NOT! Instead of promoting women's issues, this advertisement plays into raunch culture stereotypes: that confidence is based on appearance, appearance equals value, and overt sexuality is empowering.
The advertisement rests on the belief that confidence is derived from appearance; if you look good, you will project happiness and be outgoing. If you are ugly, you will lack confidence. Thus, it follows that being shy and not presenting yourself as sexual, you have no value. Confidence is not derived from intelligence or personality, but from outward appearance. The Harley Medical Group website even goes as far to say that "small breasts or breasts that have decreased in size following childbirth and breast feeding can be a source of concern or embarrassment to a woman. But breast enlargement surgery is one way to make you feel more confident and feminine again." It equates large, symmetrical breasts with femininity, implying small breasts are boyish and uneven breasts are unappealing. This narrow notion of beauty is problematic because the women held in esteem for their looks are completely unnatural. Just as pornography showing women in pain rather than pleasure distorts the public's idea of sex, idealizing the body of celebrities and proclaiming them feminine always will result in feelings of inadeqaucy for the normal woman.
This bus stop poster for Harley Medical Group, a plastic surgery business, represents how feminism has been distorted and used to justify a practice that confirms gender stereotypes, oppresses women, and reifies a certain strict definition of sexuality. While feminists and plastic surgeons agree that women should be confident, the two groups have vastly different agendas and motivations. Plastic surgeons benefit from women wanting to change their bodies from their natural state in order to increase their confidence. Feminists want women to be empowered and confident regardless of their outward apperance, and criticize society for valuing women based on their appearance and overt sexuality. Plastic surgeons have usurped the feminist ideas of self-determination and empowerment to meet certain business ends. The result is that women conform to societal pressures to look a certain way to assuage their feelings of body insecurity inadequacy in comparison to the valued body stype.
Levy would criticize this advertisement, and the industry it comes from, for playing into raunch culture’s focus on sexuality in relation to looks and performance. Breast augmentation is an act that changes one’s physical appearance only. Raunch culture has elevated the status of the breast to make its public accentuation represent feminine sexual expression. Bras now come with all sorts of contraptions to push, lift, separate, reveal, conceal, or any combination of these. Breasts have become a way to display ones sexuality, as exemplified at the extreme case of the flashing in Girls Gone Wild videos, but also on a daily basis because they are usually relatively clearly present no matter what a woman decides to wear. Yet the breast gives little sexual pleasure, especially with plastic surgery, which is a horribly painful and often dangerous process. Instead of representing female sexual pleasure, it represents pleasure for men, who are renound for their continual discussion of their affection for said body part. When large (often fake) breasts are shown as the icons of female sexuality, the rest of the "average" women have no hope to measure up except through extreme artificial measures.
While Levy might not criticize the entire discipline of plastic surgery itself, she would criticize it being rationalized as feminism. Feminists might say that the desire for larger breasts, while is our own desire, only stems from men's desire for larger breasts. Women are in a unique situation in which we love and seek the approval of our oppressors. Thus, the only way to make short term gain is to make long-term sacrifices.The way to fit ourselves into the accepted standard of beauty, gaining recognition and power, is to buy into the patriarchy’s ideals. Mark Kelly, a plastic surgeon, was quoted in an article titled "Surgery Show-Offs" in the Daily Mail saying, "Surgery used to be regarded as vain and self-indulgent: now it's seen as a valid investment in yourself...Surgery has become part of a woman's legitimate resource for making herself more beautiful, persuasive and better able to lead an active, satisfying life." Again, both plastic surgeons and feminists would agree on the desire for women to create satisfying lives for themselves, but feminists would argue that a truly satisfying life doesn't include saline implants for the purpose of conforming to stereotypical male desires. An article in Ms. Magazine titled "Has Artificial Beauty Become the New Feminism?" describes this phenomenon by saying "Under the dual slogans of possibility and choice, producers, promoters and providers are selling elective surgery as self-determinism." Yes, it is an elective choice that women make to undergo such procedures, but are they actually only making these decisions based on programming and not their true desires?
I hesitate to conclude that women who get plastic surgery are simply seeking approval and conforming to society’s ideal of beauty. It is difficult to separate the individual actions of specific women from the general trend. Women should be free to choose whatever they want to do with their bodies, but the question is whether plastic surgery in general is really what women want, or what is pushed upon them by societal standards. This is part of what divides women today, because women outside raunch culture criticize those who participate in it. The fact is plastic surgery probably does result in an increase in confidence. It garners attention from males and generally feeling more sexual because our society equates larger breasts with being sexually appealing. When a woman's identity has been reduced to sex life and sex equals power, it is logical that to increase power women would present themselves in a certain manner. Women are working to move themselves forward, but unfortunately our individual actions reduce women’s causes overall. Just as Katie Couric putting her legs on display is a way for her to become a successful woman on TV through portraying herself as a sexual being, women who feel ignored and lacking confidence can potentially gain “value” through larger breasts. But both of these acts reinforce a standard, narrow notion of sexuality which Levy criticizes.
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Photo credit: Stephanie Bohar, taken in London, UK 2009
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