Looking good these days may involve more than a trip to the hairdresser’s, a long soak in the bath and a visit to the beauty parlour for a facial. For increasing numbers of women it means undergoing a great deal of pain as the result of the cutting and/or piercing of various body parts, the partial or complete removal of hair from their genitals, followed by the display of increasing amount of flesh including the breasts, stomach and buttocks.
Back in the 1970s when women got involved in what is now referred to as second wave feminism the issues discussed in consciousness-raising groups throughout much of the western world included how pressure is put on women to conform to men’s expectations and cultural requirements about how the female body should look. Beauty practices such as the shaving of legs and armpits, the wearing of makeup, bleaching, dyeing and perming of hair, and wearing high heeled shoes and platform shoes, were put under the spotlight. All of these seem ridiculously tame when compared with what women are being encouraged to undergo today.
Cosmetic surgery
Breast implants are just one of the long list of cosmetic surgery techniques on offer. There is no part of the body that cannot be reduced, radically altered, augmented, amputated, trimmed or nipped and tucked. Sheila Jeffreys referred to cosmetic surgery as ’severe self-mutilation’ by proxy in which 80% of the patients are women and the vast majority of surgeons are men.
In Australia, Rhian Parker interviewed 32 women who had had cosmetic surgery and nineteen doctors who practiced it about their views on cosmetic surgery. She found most doctors misunderstood women’s reasons for wanting it, they underplayed the risks and complications and that communication by them to their patients was brief, fragmented and often delegated to nurses and other staff. Of the nine women Parker interviewed who had breast implants, eight said the implants were bigger than they wanted. The real question here is: are women able to get what they want or are they getting what doctors think they should have?
Increasing numbers of women turn to the scalpel as a means of conforming to men’s expectations of beauty and as a response to the ageing process. Women have largely given up trying to change the beauty ideals of a sexist and racist society which are reinforced by the powerful manipulations of the fashion and advertising industries.
The influence of pornography
The infiltration of the pornography industry into mainstream society via advertising, fashion and the Internet, results in the acceptance of practices such as the removal of genital hair (bikini and Brazilian waxing), surgical alteration of labia to create a uniform look (labiaplasty), and revealing increasing amounts of flesh especially breasts, stomach, and buttocks.
Many women routinely remove most of their genital hair and undergo genital surgery so that their genitals resemble those of porn stars in pornographic magazines and videos. Images which are certainly airbrushed or surgically created.
Members of the medical profession have become complicit in the practice of ‘carving the genitals of pornography on women’s bodies.’ Western surgeons, who call themselves ‘appearance medicine’ specialists these days, have been quick to cash in on and promote the demand for such procedures. It’s known as the Penthouse effect and an American ‘designer vagina’ specialist has a whole page on his website dedicated to publicity about his expertise. You could be excused for thinking that you had strayed into a pornographic magazine website rather than a medical one. Today Playboy, Playgirl Nerve and Madam sit alongside mainstream publications such as New Woman, Cosmopolitan, Bazaar and Marie Claire on this website.
In New Zealand, doctors and surgeons are dabbling. Some have a history of working with these bits of women’s bodies. One who is beyond dabbling and in boots and all is ‘appearance gynaecologist’ Dr Andrew Mackintosh. He regularly advertises his services in the NZ Herald and a visit to his website shows that women can choose from a range of procedures which includes:
* labial rejuvenation including surgical reduction by ’sculpturing the elongated or unequal labia minora according to your specification’ or surgical augmentation to ‘create aesthetically enhanced and youthful labia majora’)
* pubic liposculpting to ‘alleviate the unsightly fatty bulges of this area and produce an aesthetically pleasing contour’
* hymen reconstruction which repairs ‘the hymen as if nothing ever happened’
* perineum rejuvenation to ‘rejuvenate’ the relaxed or aging perineum and enhance the sagging labia majora and labia minora to provide a youthful and aesthetically appealing vagina.
The question this raises is aesthetically appealing to whom? And who is benefiting from this rejuvenation? Is it the women who suffer the pain of the operation? Women’s Health Action has begun receiving complaints from women whose genitals have been seriously carved, far beyond their expectations. We are interested to talk with other women who find themselves in this situation.
Pornography or fashion statement?
The distinction between the fashion industry and the sex industry is extremely blurred. Young women eagerly adopt the minimal clothing, boots, piercings, body jewelry and tattoos once considered the domain of those involved in the sex industry. T-shirts proudly proclaiming ’slut’ are marketed to pre teens.
Pornographic images of women abound in fashion magazines. For example, the front cover of the summer 2004 issue of Style featured a naked black woman, pointy breasts exposed, with the word ‘SURRENDER’ emblazoned in large letters across the bottom of the page. Inside are images of scantily clad women in various poses ‘ sitting with legs wide open, lying on arched backs, crouching and kneeling in provocative poses. Some are completely naked in a magazine which purports to sell clothes! The men are either fully clothed or – very occasionally – bare chested.
The summer 2004/2005 issue of Pavement contains numerous images of extremely thin vulnerable young women in erotically innocent child-like poses, some exposing their breasts, midriff, back or naked buttocks, hanging out their washing in their underwear, or holding a bottle of beer between their naked breasts. Some of these women are also completely naked. Once again the men are usually fully clothed. As Sheila pointed out we now have the fashion industry selling prostitution and pornography and the sex industry selling clothes.
Brave new world
Sheila concluded her talk by envisioning a world without harmful beauty practices where women took care of their bodies in ways that were not focused on serving the sexual interests and dictates of men and a male-dominated society. She envisages a world in which the clothing women wore, including the shoes on their feet, would be comfortable, practical and to their liking. It is a world we seem to be moving away from, the challenge for us all is how to move towards it.
Shoes
High heels and platform shoes, once again fashionable, reshape women’s bodies – changing their posture and forcing them to walk or mince with short steps and feet close together. High heels not only make standing and walking precarious and tiring, it causes pain and damage, and can result in permanently deformed feet.’ bunions, hammer toes, the shortening of the calf muscle and lengthening of the Achilles tendon. The resulting damage can make it impossible for women to walk without high heeled shoes.
High heeled shoes are also a safety hazard. An interview with Naomi Campbell, one of the world’s most famous models, recently screened on TV One featured a clip of a young Naomi in platform shoes falling off the catwalk. This is not an uncommon hazard for models as they teeter along the catwalk in ridiculous high heeled shoes that most women would find unwearable. Despite the well-publicised damage that this practice causes to women’s health, shoe manufacturers ( predominantly male) and the fashion industry show no sign of making foot health a priority in the foreseeable future.
The latest foot craze is surgery to make women’s feet fit the fashionable shoes. To streamline the foot the little toe and the side of the foot are ’sculpted.’ (That is, surgically removed). The parallels to the ancient cultural practice ‘ Chinese footbinding ‘ are obvious. Today, there is little doubt about who benefited and who was harmed by such extreme ‘historical’ practices. Too few are able to apply these lessons from the past to women.
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