Cosmetic Surgery and the Mask of Aging in Western Societies

Cosmetic Surgery and the Mask of Aging in Western Societies

"Nature isn't always the best. I have the money to improve on nature

and I don't see why I shouldn't"

(Cher, as cited in Glasgow Evening Times: 24 April 1992)

"We hadn't seen or heard from each other for 28 years…Then he

suggested it would be nice if we could meet. I was very nervous about

it. How much had I changed? I wanted a facelift, tummy tuck and

liposuction, all in one week."

(A woman, age forty-nine, being interviewed for an article on "older

couples" falling in love; "falling in love again" 1990)

In late modernity, the exterior territories, or surfaces, of the body

have become symbols of the self, and in a society where capitalist

exchange is the dominant system, the body and its parts become

commodities to be desired and acquired. People are increasingly

overwhelmed with messages of youthful ideals of how to stay young or

how to get old without signs of aging, and women's appearance in

particular seems to pay a key role in self and identity in Western

society. Chapkis argues that "a woman is made to feel continually

insecure about her appearance, and simultaneously so dependent on it"

(1986: p.140). Consequently, it would seem that women (and quite often

men) are willing to go to dangerous degrees and to endure painful

procedures to 'improve' and alter their appearance in order to

maintain these ideals of youthfulness.

In a world in which people are so often judged by how they look, the

belief that we can change our appearance is in many ways, somewhat

liberating. We all supposedly harbour internal norms of appearance and

behave as if these are...

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...n, S.

(1999) Body Image: Understanding body dissatisfaction in men,

women and children. London and New York: Routledge

* Chapkis, W. (1986). Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of

Appearance. Boston: South End Press

* Morgan, K.P. "Women and the Knife: cosmetic surgery and the

colonisation of women's bodies," Hypatia, vol 6, no.3 (1991),

pp.25-53 in Welton, Donn (ed.) (1998) Body and Flesh: a

philosophical reader. Massachusets: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

* "Falling in love again" (1990) Toronto Star. July 23. as cited in

Morgan, K.P. "Women and the Knife: cosmetic surgery and the

colonisation of women's bodies," Hypatia, vol 6, no.3 (1991),

pp.25-53 in Welton, Donn (ed.) (1998) Body and Flesh: a

philosophical reader. Massachusets: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.