Beauty Standards | Adios Barbie

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Filed Under: Aging, Beauty Standards, Body Image Tagged With: aging, Argentina, botox, Buenos Aires, Plastic Surgery, self-acceptance, wrinkles

Doll Parts: The “Barbie Executioner” Strikes Back

December 13, 2011 By pia 29 Comments

by Melanie Klein, Contributor

My mother never addressed beauty in a critical way. In fact, beauty was rarely openly discussed in my house, but was the lingering weight on the shoulders of all the women in my family. The only times beauty was discussed was when my mother told me I needed to lose weight or when my grandmother told me I needed to “suffer to be beautiful.”

My critique of beauty came far too late in life, after the damage had already been done. Hole’s Courtney Love slapped me upside the head the first time I heard her belt out the lyrics to Doll Parts with gut-wrenching emotion, in her torn baby-doll dress and smeared lipstick .

I am doll eyes/ Doll mouth, doll legs/ I am doll arms, big veins, dog bait/ Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do/ Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do/ I want to be the girl with the most cake

Love stirred the festering agitation in me and eventually I was led to feminism’s door. I’ve been a body-image warrior ever since.

But what if a critical dialogue about the limited definitions of beauty began early? Let’s face it: these conversations are necessary. Gender socialization does not occur in a vacuum, and even in the most conscious homes unrealistic images of beauty bombard our young people. Few parents can effectively combat the onslaught of conflicting values and norms perpetuated outside the home.

Barbie looms large as a pivotal figure in the lives of young girls. She is the epitome of the mainstream beauty standard, making an impact across race and class: She’s young, thin and, for the most part, white (while Mattel has created “ethnic” Barbie dolls, they sell in lesser quantities and, in the case of Wal-Mart, are sold for less money).

For more than 50 years, Barbie has remained an emblem of idealized femininity and a key element of gender socialization. Barbie fan Danielle Scott, 16, said:

Playing with the hair, the brushes, switching outfits. It really just made girls be girls.All the characteristics of what to look forward to and what girls really could do.

In those 50 years, Barbie has not waned in popularity (gained a pound, developed a wrinkle or gray hair), even in the face of mounting criticism. Rajini Vaidyanathan wrote at the BBC:

Despite some of the negative headlines Barbie is still a hit with girls across America and the world. … More than one billion dolls have been sold since her inception, and according to the doll’s makers, Mattel, 90 percent of American girls aged between three and 10 own at least one.

While it is true that Barbie is more complex than the Bratz (the googly-eyed dolls with a “passion for fashion”) and has had at least 125 jobs over the last half-century (jobs that presumably allowed her to purchase her multiple homes, extensive wardrobe and pink Corvette), Barbie is not famous for her extensive resume. Even Toy Story 3′s “renegade” Barbie doesn’t redefine Barbie’s cultural presence. Bottom line, Barbie is not defined by her career or the chutzpah she eventually taps into to help free Woody and the gang in Pixar’s latest. She is a timeless beauty icon. Period.

Generations after Mattel executive (and “kinky swinger”) Jack Ryan created Barbie, she continues to reinforce the beauty myth that pervades all aspects of the dominant culture. But with her alien measurements, Caucasian features, ivory skin, blond hair and unnaturally thin body how can anyone possibly measure up? I had a vintage Barbie scale fixed at 110 pounds, which would inform my notion of a woman’s ideal weight for most of my adult life.

Evelyn Ticona-Vergaray reports in “Barbie’s 50 years of beauty and controversy” on UPIU:

Studies made by the Wellness Resource Center at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee confirmed that a human version with Barbie’s body proportions would only have room for an esophagus or a trachea in her neck, a tibia or a fibula in her legs, and that she would have to crawl to support her top-heavy frame.

Academics from the University of South Australia suggest that chances of finding a woman having Barbie’s body shape is one in 100,000. Moreover, researchers at Finland’s University Central Hospital say if Barbie were a real woman she would lack the 17 to 22 percent of body fat required for a woman to menstruate.

Most girls and women could never and will never look like Barbie although many try (and some try harder than others). So, as an ambassador of a twisted yet omnipresent beauty norm, it’s no wonder that Barbie is subject to “torture play.” Ticona-Vergaray also wrote:

Research found in the article “Early adolescents’ experiences with, and views of, ‘Barbie’” revealed a high rate of “torture play” and “anger play” associated with the Barbie doll. Girls admitted to blaming the image of Barbie for their self-consciousness and lack of self esteem due to the simple impossibility of living up to the standards of beauty presented by the plastic doll.

Most anger play is played out in private, with little dialogue or social commentary to accompany the cut hair, dismembered appendages and pins shoved through her cheeks. But recently, my friend Justine showed me pictures of the anger play perpetrated by her pint-sized 9-year-old daughter (lovingly nicknamed the “Barbie executioner”). Together, mother and daughter turned this anger play into artistic self-expression and social commentary.

Justine, a self-identified feminist, knew there was trouble the first time her then-five-year-old daughter requested a Barbie after she saw one at a friend’s house. Justine, an outspoken, self-assured woman with a personal disdain for Barbie who also teaches a class to young girls called “Tapping the Body’s Wisdom,” was quick to discuss her feelings about Barbie’s “unrealistic portrayal of feminine beauty” as something not worth “aspiring to.”

Mother and daughter critically discussed images of beauty and how the image of Barbie made them feel. Her daughter acknowledged that she did not look like Barbie. In fact, she acknowledged that no dolls looked like her and, in the end, she consciously acknowledged that she did not want to be that doll. Shortly thereafter, her daughter began to take apart her Barbies (and Bratz dolls) and would play with their heads and appendages alone. After her daughter racked up a pile of doll parts, Justine suggested saving the appendages for a future art project. Eventually, Justine provided her daughter with a canvas and her daughter pored through beauty magazines to find words to express her feelings.

The result?

The inception, process and end result inspired me. I was moved by her 9-year-old’s ability to take the “smallness” Barbie made her feel, a feeling that too often remains silent and is internalized, and articulate it loudly on canvas. We may have a limited measure of control over the images our daughters are exposed to, but we still can help them cultivate a critical consciousness, use their voice and develop a healthy body image.

Originally published at Ms Blog. Cross-posted with permission.

An earlier version appeared at Feminist Fatale as Doll Parts: Barbie, Beauty and Resistance.

Photos courtesy of Justine Amodeo.

Filed Under: Beauty Standards Tagged With: bratz, children, evelyn Ticona-Vergaray, gender socialization, jack ryan, mattel, rajini Baidyanathan, torture play, tweens

Remembering Ruby

November 15, 2011 By Sharon 3 Comments

By Sharon Haywood

Fifty-something-old Barbie[1] might be middle-aged but she sure doesn’t show it. When she was in her 30s, her manufacturer Mattel sent her for plastic surgery, not to maintain her youthful appearance, but rather in response to market demands to morph her into a more realistic-looking doll. In 1992, Barbie’s waistline slightly expanded. Then in 1998, Mattel altered one version of the doll—Really Rad Barbie—giving her a decreased cup size and slimmer hips. Currently, her estimated measurements—38-18-34—contrast greatly with the American woman’s average of 41-34-43[2]. Barbie’s curves fall several inches short of what typical women possess today.

Considering that the average woman in the U.S. is a size 12/14, a doll that wears a double-digit dress size would be a much more accurate reflection of American women. The late Anita Roddick (1942-2007), the founder of The Body Shop, thought the same. In 1997, the socially-conscious international cosmetics franchise and Host Universal created Ruby: a chubby-cheeked, chestnut-haired, computer-generated figurine. Ruby was the brainchild of The Body Shop’s self-esteem campaign, “Love Your Body.” Her size 16 image was accompanied by the caption, “There are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and only 8 who do.” She sent the message that you should love what you’ve got, not loathe it.

If you’re familiar with Ruby, you know that she’s not easy to locate. So, where’s this confident and curvaceous character been hiding? You can find her here, alongside other rejected and banned ads.[3] We can thank Mattel for Ruby’s label of “Banned.” The U.S. toy manufacturer thwarted the innovative campaign in its early days by serving The Body Shop with a cease-and-desist order; all posters had to be removed from American shops. Why? In Roddick’s own words:

“Ruby was making Barbie look bad, presumably by mocking the plastic twig-like bestseller … Mattel thought that Ruby was insulting to Barbie.”

Outside of Roddick’s explanation on her website, no other information regarding Mattel’s specific legal grounds can be found online. We can surmise that Ruby’s rolls and less-than-perky breasts were the offending culprits.

This year Ruby would have turned 14. But imagine if she had grown from being a self-esteem campaigner into a three-dimensional doll in direct competition with Barbie. Do you think that when she would have reached her 30s, she would have gone under the knife, too? Would the folks at The Body Shop have decided she needed a tummy tuck, a breast lift, and some lipo to give her a competitive edge? The Body Shop’s global communications head told the New York Times that Ruby represented “a reality check” in contrast to the “stereotypical notions of unattainable ideals.” Odds would tell us that the Rubenesque beauty wouldn’t have any part of her body nipped or tucked; in fact, like many women approaching middle-age, she might even have gained a couple of pounds. Regrettably, we’ll never know for sure.

Although Ruby’s existence was short-lived, her presence generated controversy. She caused Mattel to sit up and take notice. Along similar lines, consider that Barbie underwent cosmetic surgery to appease consumers’ demands. Although Mattel was conservative in its alterations of Barbie’s figure, the company did respond to the public. Furthermore, with sales of the blonde figurine consistently dropping,[4] the toy manufacturer has even more incentive to cater to the customer. If more and more women let corporate giants like Mattel know what they really want, who’s to say that Barbie’s waistline (and the rest of her) can’t fill out as she eases into her fifties? Something to ponder in memory of both Ruby and the visionary Roddick.

Originally published at Any-Body on June 21, 2009. Cross-posted with permission.

[1] When Any-Body originally published this post in 2009, Barbie had just turned 50 years old.

[2] I cited body measurements for White women ages 36 to 45 to reflect Ruby’s race. For the same age group, the average measurements for Black women are 43-37-46; 42.5-36-44 for Hispanic women; and 41-35-43 for Asian women.

[3] In 2009, I cited www.bestrejectedadvertising.com as my original source. The website is no longer active.

[4] After several years of declining Barbie sales, Mattel saw an increase in Barbie sales during the first quarter of 2011.

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Filed Under: Beauty Standards, Body Image, Size & Weight Tagged With: Anita Roddick, Barbie, Beauty, body image, fat, Host Universal, media representation, Ruby doll, size, Size & Weight, The Body Shop, weight, Women, women in advertising

The (Bluest) Eyes Have It

November 8, 2011 By Sharon 5 Comments

By Tami Winfrey Harris

“Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window sign – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘this is beautiful, and if you are on this day “worthy” you may have it.’” - Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

Is achieving idealized beauty worth a laser to the eye? For some, the answer is yes, based on comments to articles about an LA doctor’s new procedure that turns brown eyes blue. The Orlando Sentinel reported:

If you’ve always wanted blue eyes, but have brown instead, there might be something you can do to change that. A doctor in Laguna Beach called Stroma Medical says it can use laser technology to change brown eyes to blue — permanently — without damaging vision.

When it comes to body image, we live in “don’t like it, then change it” times. Suffering from thin hair, laugh lines or a flat ass? That’s nothing hair extensions, Botox and booty surgery cannot “fix.” But in the age of the dramatic makeover, we shouldn’t stop analyzing why certain looks have more social currency than others.

I’ve always found genuflecting to light-colored eyes particularly icky. It stinks of concession to Aryan supremacy. If brown eyes are boring, ugly and inferior and blue eyes dazzling and beautiful, does that mean that all groups of people for whom blue or green or gray eyes are extremely rare are physically boring, ugly and inferior? And is it a coincidence that many people of color fall into the “less desirable” category of brown-eyed and brown-haired?

While I’m ranting, I should add how much I hate it when members of the dominant culture assume that I desire the same physical features they prize–features more common to their race than my own. Count me fed up with magazine articles, blog comments and casual conversations that include some version of Ugh! My eyes are plain old brown–so boring! Every girl wants to be a blonde just once, amirite?

No. You are not right about what every girl wants, particularly this Black girl.

Blue eyes can be beautiful, but they are neither automatically nor supremely beautiful. And brown eyes are beautiful, too. Just look at the soulful eyes on the woman to the right. It is their deep brownness that makes them so compelling.

Look, I’m afraid to get Lasik on my poor, nearsighted peepers. The chance of me subjecting my eyes to a laser for some cosmetic frippery is not likely. But I’ve no beef with someone who desires cosmetic surgery for themselves. I do question the tacit idea that blue eyes are better. (Can you imagine someone hawking a surgery to turn blue eyes brown? Yeah. Me neither.) It’s a side effect of a beauty hierarchy that marginalizes the majority of the world, including women like me.

Originally published at What Tami Said on November 2, 2011. Cross-posted with permission.

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Filed Under: Beauty Standards, Body Image Tagged With: Black, blue eyes, body image, brown eyes, Cosmetic Surgery, Ethnicity and Culture, eyes, laser surgery, Race, Ethnicity and Culture

“You Look So Much Different on Facebook…”

November 1, 2011 By Sharon 3 Comments

By Sheena Vasani

I admit it: I’ve Photoshopped myself. Some of my Facebook photos have had their contrast and lighting settings tweaked and four them have been properly Photoshopped, either professionally or by myself. Sometimes, I took photos of myself in mirrors at such bizarre angles that I’m still not sure how I managed to pull off without breaking my arm. At 15, I thought it was “artistic,” and more importantly it made my self-proclaimed “flaws” less noticeable. In desperate moments after seeing a recently uploaded picture of another girl’s equally oddly-angled, retouched photo, my jealousy would lead me to dress up just to take a few–okay, fine, maybe about 30–photos of myself to post on MySpace to try and feel less inferior.

Growing up I was no self-absorbed, vapid young girl; I hated reality TV with a passion, was heavily involved in community service and social justice groups in school, and even led and created a few. I barely ever touched magazines because I preferred books; my heroine was not Paris Hilton but passionate women who made a difference in the world through either their hearts or intellect. My favorite place was the local bookstore, not the nearby mall. Yet with the sudden popularity of MySpace back in 2005, I almost felt like I became a different person. I still did well in school, but time I once spent buried in a book in my free time was now spent staring transfixed at my friends’ photos on MySpace. I envied how photogenic they were, so completely oblivious to the fact these pictures were digitally altered.

Now, the purpose of revealing all of this isn’t to simply embarrass myself in public, but because I believe there should be greater transparency concerning Photoshopped images not just in the media, but also in our personal lives. Recently, I’ve been feeling like a hypocrite. As friends know, I can go off about the media’s negative influence on our self-image and spout out the most obscure statistics about it. Yet I feel like I’ve failed to take personal responsibility by posting digitally altered photos (or even pictures that don’t truly capture how I really look) on my social networking sites. Nowadays, I do it far less than I did when I was 15, but I still find myself sometimes uneasy about the pictures I post.

I’m not going to put myself down too much, though, and I don’t want our readers to be hard on themselves either. Self-compassion is far more empowering and effective than harsh self-criticism. I know the real reason I Photoshopped my photos because I, like most teens and young women, struggle with self-image issues from time to time. We live in a world that glorifies appearances so much so that it’s become okay to surgically and digitally change how you look. For goodness’ sake, it’s even “okay” nowadays to Photoshop photos of toddlers. There’s an underlying societal belief that it’s better to appear “beautiful” than to, quite frankly, be yourself.

Yet wanting to look good in itself is not a problem, and in fact, it’s wonderful. The problem comes when we pretend to look a certain way without making it clear the image is contrived. As a result, we perpetuate the problem. Like the fashion industry and the media, we encourage people to try to achieve an unattainable look. Our attempt to achieve a certain image can lead us to post pictures that are truly just products of our great retouching skills, which can influence others to do so as well. It’s a vicious cycle. It is one I’m trying to stop.

People need to realize that many pictures you see on sites like Facebook aren’t totally reflective of reality. Judging by the many websites and YouTube videos that teach even the least computer-savvy people how to alter their pictures, I’m guessing even more people are doing so at increasingly younger ages nowadays. I hope by sharing my own experiences, I might inspire people to not compare themselves to these false images, as I frequently have done and sometimes still do. Men see these photos unaware they have been manipulated and think “this is what a real woman looks like.” Consequently, a real woman never measures up. We need to be conscious of the effect our own photos have; it’s not just the magazines anymore. With the popularity of social media and how easily accessible it is to anybody, we are also responsible.

Earlier I mentioned how at 15 years old, I’d spend hours browsing through random girls’ MySpace or Facebook photos, unaware of the “wonders” of airbrushing and Photoshop. As a result, I sought to unsuccessfully achieve a look that could never be imitated, and kept it to myself. I am open about this now because I believe I am not alone, and I want this to be the first step toward increased transparency. I read an article that the American Psychiatric Association now requires physicians to ask girls if they use Facebook when evaluating them for depression and body image issues. That speaks volumes about the power of social media on our mental health; it’s more than just a fun diversion to pass the time. It’s now become a means of helping young people establish or ferment an identity that can often have harmful effects if used inappropriately.

I’m going to guess that you or someone you know has probably had my experience. And, to be even more frank, if you digitally manipulate your photos to look like the false “beauties” you once felt inferior to without making it clear you have, you’re unintentionally helping contribute other girls’ and women’s insecurities. I’m not saying *we’re* the problem. It’s far more complicated than that. But let’s try not to contribute to the problem by being a little more transparent. At the very least, we could write captions under our photos if they have been altered. We may not have a lot of control over how the fashion industry has chosen to represent females, but we do have control over how we choose to portray ourselves. Let’s try to be the change we wish to see in this world.

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Filed Under: Beauty Standards, Body Image Tagged With: airbrushing, Beauty, body image, Facebook, MySpace, photoshop, teens, Women

Face Value? Study Claims Makeup Makes Women Appear More “Competent”

October 21, 2011 By Ophira 5 Comments

The NY Times reported on a study of 25 Black, White, and Hispanic women between the ages of 20-50 who were photographed wearing various levels of makeup.

By Ophira Edut

Does the mascara make the woman? The New York Times published results of a study (see the article here) claiming that a moderate amount of makeup “increases people’s perceptions of a woman’s likability, her competence and (provided she does not overdo it) her trustworthiness.”

Granted, the study was funded by Proctor and Gamble (which makes me arch a penciled eyebrow), but it was designed by some scholarly folk, too. It’s yet another piece to fall into that uncomfortable realm of human-as-animal/biology-as-destiny that’s such a strange bedfellow with feminism and progressive ideals.

The notion that a woman has to wear makeup to be deemed a solid citizen is about as sophisticated as the old “are you a fall or a spring” palette method. I know plenty of bare-faced ladies who run empires. And trust me, nobody would dare questions their cred. However, I’ve also read studies that the brain can make a lasting first impression within as short as 1/10 of a second. I’m guilty of doing so. And I always get a laugh when people refer to Gloria Steinem as the poster girl for this stereotype of de-gendered feminism. Back in the day, Gloria’s feminist cred was suspect because she was so pretty. Gloria knows the power of being polished, even as she delivers a radical message.

I’ve been swiping on the same five-minute combo of eyeshadow-eyeliner-mascara for about 20 years. I do feel more polished and together with makeup on, though I skip the foundation and blush routine unless it’s a bigger event. I brave the trendy streets of New York makeup-free, too, but usually it’s just to run errands. So I guess along the way, I’ve been socially conditioned, too.

Part of the girlieness I enjoy is getting to play with colors, polishes and powders. It’s fun for the imagination, and harmless to a point. As long as we’re not talking Toddles & Tiaras “glitz” pageants and THAT slippery slope, of course. And thanks to Nirvana, Pete Wentz and the JoBros, boys can dabble in the fun, too. (Guyliner, anyone?)

The danger of such studies, though, is that makeup becomes compulsory, instead of fun.

We can no longer discount neuroscience completely. However, we can’t just take studies like this at, ahem, face value either. Findings like this discount the soul, the essence, the “anime” that we sometimes call inner beauty. Without charisma—which can’t be painted on—all the makeup in the world can only help so much.

Filed Under: Beauty Standards, Body Image Tagged With: Beauty, Gloria Steinem, makeup beauty research, Women

Mirror-Less Schooling: A Positive Initiative?

October 11, 2011 By Sharon 7 Comments

By Sharon Haywood

Last month, a UK high school attracted media attention when its administration chose to remove all mirrors from its bathrooms. Shelley College in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire put the policy in place only a few weeks into the new school year to enforce the no-makeup rule for students between the ages of 14 and 16. The radical move also aims to minimize the social time students spend in the bathroom, an initiative that has been met with parental support. I know my parents would have stood behind mirror-less schooling.

When I was 16, I spent an awful lot of time looking at myself. My hair and makeup demanded time. (Think Madonna’s Big Teased hair, circa early 1980s coupled with an obsession with the color purple—painted heavy-handedly on my eyelids and lips.) I went to a Catholic high school so a uniform was a must, leaving hair and makeup as the primary vehicles to visually explore and express my sense of style, my sense of me. The importance of how I looked was magnified as I was also suffering from an eating disorder. When reading about Shelley College’s decision, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had lived without mirrors during school hours, would it have affected the way I viewed myself? Would it have created an alternative culture among my schoolmates where accomplishments overshadowed looks? Would I have valued my intelligence, my sensitivity, and my gifts over my appearance instead of the other way around? Potentially.

When this story broke last month, Margaret Hartmann of Jezebel straddled both sides of the argument:

“Teenagers have enough trouble accepting their looks and it seems a bit cruel to take away something that could make them feel a bit more comfortable…. On the other hand, maybe it’s a good time for girls to learn that they look fine even when their faces aren’t coated in makeup, or as 14-year-old student Rebecca Mannifield put it, ‘nobody is no prettier or uglier, we all just look normal.’”

Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky took a firm stand by stating she could support the makeup ban but she thought removing bathroom mirrors was “harsh.” Here at Adios Barbie we couldn’t think of a more appropriate person to weigh in on the issue than Kjerstin Gruys, the PhD student who has vowed to live mirror-free for a full year.

We featured her story and the first 100 days of her self-imposed experiment this past July. Since then she successfully navigated the adventure of getting married without peeking at her reflection (with the exception of one fantastic photo she has allowed herself to see and share with readers). Gruys supports mirror-less schooling and I agree with her. Like myself, she also suffered from an eating disorder while in high school. Neither one of us believe a mirror-free secondary education would cure an eating disorder but we both recognize the potential preventative and positive effects it could trigger.

Here is Gruys’ straight-shooting stance in her own words:

Day 181: Why Taking Mirrors Out of Schools is FABULOUS!

By Kjerstin Gruys

1) Removing mirrors sends a clear message to girls that their bodies should be used for doing things (hugs! sports! thinking!), not just for being looked at. When is the last time somebody told YOU this message so blatantly? Did anybody tell you this as a young teen? Okay, how about this: when was the last time you saw any form of popular media share this message, in any way or form? Bottom line: this school is trying to fight the good fight. They (and we!) are up against a powerful toxic cultural environment. Yes, I realize that removing mirrors doesn’t get rid of this larger environment, but every little bit helps. Let’s be supportive of positive change.

2) Some people have suggested that this ban prevents creative expression. I call bullshit. I agree wholeheartedly that makeup and fashion can be a form of self-expression. I enjoy these things in my own life, though not without angst and expense. That said, let’s not forget that there’s a powerful beauty industry that wants us to believe that we’re “expressing ourselves” when we buy their products and then apply them exactly as directed by magazines. This industry benefits even more when we decide we can’t be “ourselves” without these products. Here’s a crazy idea: without makeup, without mirrors, and because of the strict dress code, these poor, poor girls will be forced to express themselves through things like: creative writing, drama class, music class, journaling, or by (gasp!) just being themselves.

3) Finally: vanity makes us dumber. Don’t believe me? Check out the research for yourself. Numerous psychological studies find that worrying about appearance (called “self-objectifying” in the literature) leads to poorer performance on all sorts of mental tasks, from math tests to word recall, and even something wacky-cool called the Stroop Test. Given this, if removing mirrors helps reduce the mental energy that students had been putting toward their looks, that mental energy can now be put toward helping them be more successful learners. Since giving up mirrors, I can’t claim to have become any smarter, per say, but I’m definitely better able to focus.

In closing, I admit that I am biased about this topic. But… I’m not biased because I’m avoiding mirrors; I’m biased because I had an eating disorder when I was in high school. I’d never suggest that getting rid of mirrors could ever cure a full-blown eating disorder. But, creating a daily environment in which young women are valued for their minds and spirits instead of their looks just might help prevent one.

Every little bit helps.

Cross-posted with permission.

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Filed Under: Beauty Standards, Body Image, Self-Esteem Tagged With: body image, eating disorders, Girls, makeup ban, mirrors, school, self-acceptance, Self-Esteem, teens

Warning: Feminist Wearing Makeup Ahead. Look Both Ways Before Crossing

September 6, 2011 By Sharon 19 Comments

By Quinn Davis

“The only way I’m staying with you is if you stop wearing mascara.”

Sure, I had dated some d-bags before. But this guy competed for it in the Olympics, won the gold and then spent the next six years touring the country so that hopeful up-and-coming d-bags could look up to someone. Plus, some cereal could capitalize on his success (Shredded Douche!).

(Word to the wise: If you’re dating a woman who has a future in writing, has thought about writing or has written anything ever, you should consider treating her with more respect than your collection of Kerouac books. Cheers!)

Okay, back to the Cosmetic Conundrum. Count Douchula and I had been dating for a year or so when he decided to inform me that I was “just not interesting.” This morphed into me begging him to stay with me, which morphed again into him demanding that I make some changes, including my makeup.

Was he allergic to the product? you might ask. Did he feel insecure about his own lashes next to my lacquered ones? Did his mother die while driving under the influence… of mascara?

The answers were no and, shockingly, no and no.

Now for some background: I’m not some spineless leaf floating around waiting for someone, anyone, to pick me up and call me their own. The short way of explaining why I was in this relationship to begin with is that I wasn’t in a good place during my first two years of college, and Monsieur D’bag took this as an opportunity to practice for the Big Leagues.

I could go on and on about this relationship and all of its advantages, but I’m waiting to get Oprah famous before I allow karma’s spiked tail to strike – for the betterment of all the rest of us, believe you me. Besides, it’s difficult to explain why a woman stays in a physically and/or mentally abusive relationship; that subject needs a discussion or two million of its own. Instead, I’m going to use someone who used me (schadenfreude is not dead) to illustrate the fine line that feminists walk: Fighting socialized norms while following them.

It was the spring of my sophomore year, and I had just dipped my toe into the pool of feminism. It was exhilarating. Every word I read felt like someone else was describing me – to myself. I finally understood why things didn’t feel quite right when middle-aged men commented on my appearance. I got how fourteen-year-old boys learned to have the gall to look me up and down whether I stood alone or with my parents.

And – most importantly, at least in this piece – I saw how the desire to wear makeup was socialized into me as completely and concisely as a cult.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my foray into feminism was the start of the disintegration of my relationship with Snap Crackle Douche. It helped me realize what a crap-tastic situation I was in. However, at the time of the Cosmetic Conundrum, the full realization was just a glimmer in my eye.

“If you’re such a feminist, how can you buy into the very things that are used to oppress women?” he asked.

To tell you the truth, I had no idea how I could. I mean, I liked wearing mascara. When I put it on, my eyelashes were transformed into these incredible, feather-like things that made me feel like a magical being. I was a friggin’ unicorn. Bam.

Of course, I now knew that this idea was tainted. Somewhere along the line, I soaked up the idea that unicorn eyelashes were what beautiful women had, and that being a beautiful woman is very, very important. All that shiz was subconscious, which is exactly why it was successful. Would it really work if someone came up to me and actually said the above sentences to me? Uh no, and it’s not just because I would have thought that whatever “unicorn eyelashes” were, they would make me look like a drag queen.

So here I was, caught up again in douchery, trying to explain why I did what I did. I lost the argument, spent the next month trying to find a satisfying lie (“It’s just a bet, and if I win, I get a pony!” <-not a finalist) and yearned to unveil the HOLY CRAP!-worthy lashes I had been blessed with.

A month and a half later, I sat in my feminist psychology class, trying to look and sound as awesome as the seniors next to me. Once again, feminism decided read my mind and explain myself to myself. My professor explained:

“It’s hard enough to feel forced into making a decision without being punished for making it. Believe it or not, a lot of people actually do like whatever thing society is telling them to do. You can’t socialize someone into liking something and then ostracize them for liking it. I know the media and beauty industry made me think that I needed mascara. I’m a feminist! But now I love it. I love it for me. I can go without, sure, but I just love the way it looks.”

FaBLAM! In case you’re confused, that was the noise of the logic bomb that went off in my head.

The point of feminism isn’t to proclaim how women should be. In fact, that’s the opposite of feminism. Feminism is about people choosing for themselves, without societal, familial or any other pressures getting in the way.

If you’re only aware of societal pressures on a subconscious level, it’s damn near impossible to make a truly feminist choice. I certainly didn’t when I first started to wear mascara.

But now that I was able to choose what I wanted while recognizing those pressures, I realized that mascara was one of my forms of expression. I loved my unicorn lashes, polka dots and pigtails not just because of how they made me look, but because it broke people’s stereotypes. They would walk in, see me as a harmless puffball and then be hilariously confused as the cuteness started swearing like a sailor, calling the shots and kicking anyone who touched her junk (yes, really).

Once I figured all this out, I went back in my mind to that argument I lost, just like everyone does. I would tell him that as a feminist, only I would choose the way I present myself, as long as it does not harm myself or anyone else. If I choose something that I’ve been socialized to like, I am no less a feminist than my Burt’s Bees and Birkenstock-wearing sisters.

And best of all, I would have actually said it, batting my unicorn eyelashes the whole way.

Filed Under: Beauty Standards Tagged With: Beauty, body image, Feminism, makeup, mascara, Women

Terrifying Trend: Models and Mini-Liposuction

June 17, 2011 By Sharon 9 Comments

The size 2 model who sought mini-lipo featured on The Today Show

By Valerie Kusler

Earlier this week, in my half-asleep daze, I flipped on the Today Show for background noise while getting ready for work. When I heard Matt Lauer introduce one of the segments, I stopped in my tracks, turned up the volume, and braced myself. “Why are thin, fit women getting liposuction?” he inquired. Oh boy. This should be fun. It’s always amusing when the mainstream media seem so shocked and dismayed at a phenomenon that they help perpetuate every single day.

The segment begins with a pre-filmed story about a woman named Nicole Silva: model since age 15, size 2, and current liposuction patient. Oh, sorry, mini liposuction, which according to the Today Show reporter, “is far less invasive than traditional liposuction” and completed within an hour. Nicole wants to trim her thighs, because she’s feeling the pressure of aging in the modeling world. “I love my body,” she explains. “I’m very comfortable with my body. I don’t think it’s bad at all. I just know that it can be better.”

At this point, I’m already scoffing, “Loves her body? Is comfortable with her body? This woman clearly has zero concept of real body confidence.” After a beat though, I have to admit I was questioning myself, or at least my logic on this point. Isn’t it possible to know we are great in other areas of life, yet want to improve to be an even better writer, concert pianist, gymnast? What makes the body any different? Or is it the line that is being crossed in surgically modifying, versus doing what’s in our natural power to be the best person we can be? (Lance Armstrong comes to mind.)

I digress – because at this point, Dr. David Amron, a Bevery Hills dermatological surgeon, comes on screen and states:

“It seems like every other patient I’m seeing for liposuction is a thin, fit patient… somebody can be thin like Nicole and have stubborn disproportioned areas of fat, and they can be a perfect candidate for liposuction. It’s all about my role in terms of rebalancing her body.”

Next on screen, to continue the story’s paradoxical theme, is Glamour Magazine’s Cindy Levy:

“I think you have to watch out when you start fixing flaws that nobody but you can see you might end up with the kind of body you will never be happy with. You need to make sure that once you have the surgery you’re not going to say, ‘any little flaw that comes up, I’m going to fix that too,’ because it’s a slippery slope.”

Her point is hard to argue with, but what is it really worth when the magazine that she works for features mostly models with bodies that are unattainable by 95% of women?

Fast-forward to the live interview, in which Matt grills Dr. Amron and clinical psychologist Belisa Vranich about the motivation driving thin women who want to receive liposuction, and what might be going on psychologically that makes them feel they need the procedure. Dr. Vranich explains, “If I have a patient who wants liposuction, we have to talk about some psychological factors in there. Is it a quest for perfection? Is it a quest for happiness, which should be done somewhere outside a surgeon’s office, maybe in addition to the surgery? Is it an event or is it an age that’s making you go in for the surgery? Once you’ve talked about all that, if you want to go in and get that one little problem area done, it’s not a bad idea.”

Not a bad idea, eh? So what about when the patient goes in for that consultation to Dr. Amron? Matt asks him, “Would you say no to someone if you get the hint and the red flag goes up that this is about trying to win back that guy, as opposed to just being more comfortable in their body? Would you say, ‘No, I don’t want to do this procedure’?” Amron responds, “If I see someone who is a candidate, and I feel that liposuction is going to make an improvement, I will probably want to do the surgery, but I also want to make sure they’re in the right mindset for things, and not be using it to replace some sense of internal happiness.” How thoughtful! Just wait.

At the end, Matt mentions a recent study that the New York Times covered about liposuction, which revealed that weight gained after the procedure would just redistribute to other areas of the body. Dr. Amron defensively rebutted that he “reviewed the study extensively” and felt that it was flawed, because the participants were not evaluated for disproportion. “For example, I don’t ask a patient what they want to do. I determine as a surgeon what really should be done to rebalance their body. If you don’t do that, you run the risk of throwing someone out of balance, out of proportion.”

Whatever happened to client empowerment, especially considering this is an elective surgery? I’m not going to say that liposuction is a bad choice in absolutely every situation. However, if there’s a trend of more and more people feeling like they need the procedure, especially when they are already healthy and “fit” (by their own definition), it certainly does speak to our society’s continually narrowing standard of beauty and demand for perfection. I guess I’m good. Just not good enough.

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Watch the Today Show segment here:

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Plastic Wrap–Turning Against Cosmetic Surgery

April 27, 2011 By Sharon 8 Comments

Trend Line is Clear: Decline since 2004

It was a shock to find after I had a squamous cell carcinoma removed from the side of my nose that I needed cosmetic surgery. I trusted my surgeon, and I trust she did as good a job as she could. But as I feared, the repair didn’t go well: the scar is still red, with a “pincushion effect,” so common it has a name. My face is no longer as symmetrical. I can’t believe anybody undergoes this voluntarily.

It may be hard to believe, but like me, American culture is turning against cosmetic surgery. Even in the movie business. An award-winning producer named Melanie Coombs observed after attending the Oscars that it was “like being at Madame Tussaud’s except they were live people.” The facial procedures called “non-invasive” are also a no-no. Martin Scorsese and Baz Luhrmann have publicly voiced their opposition to the use of Botox, frustrated by difficulties in finding actors able to express nonverbal emotion, especially anger, according to cultural critic Grayson Cooke.¹As Luhrmann notes, “their faces really can’t move properly.”

“Natural” is beginning to look good. Websites make fun of botched surgeries, showing photos of people’s unwanted post-op appearances–men as well as women. People report they look worse After. Characteristic consequences–the “wind-tunnel look,” the mismatched tiny chin, “waxworks,” skin like plastic wrap–are now uncool, according to many nonusers interviewed by sociologist Abigail Brooks of Boston College. America the Beautiful, one scary documentary, let’s a former anchor describe how facial surgery gave her permanent neuralgia, destroying her health and career. Many users do it only once. “Never again.”

Potential clients rationally fear death. When Kanye West’s mother and Olivia Goldsmith, author of the First Wives’ Club died, the lethal consequences began been piling up. Although there is still no register of mortality statistics, there are more exposés, like HBO’s special, “Plastic Disasters.” Even finding a surgeon who is certified and experienced is no guarantee of survival. The author of How We Die, Sherwin Nuland, pointed out the irony that “doctors who choose to perform an operation that is solely cosmetic are willing to accept mortality and complication rates significantly higher than those who restrict their interventions to those required for the treatment of disease.”

Ageism is a killer in this as in other ways. Most cosmetic surgery is driven by fear of aging-past-youth. In 2007 the average age of those receiving cosmetic surgery in the United States was 42.6. “Passing” as younger was promoted for decades by surgeons who didn’t have enough reconstructive work. The Federal Trade Commission under Nixon and then the Supreme Court made it illegal for the AMA to forbid surgeons from advertising. Third-party financing of procedures brought operations within the reach of lower-income women.

Fashion and celebrity magazines made seeking slender youthfulness seem obligatory. “Forcibly lowered self-esteem looks to the sufferer like real ‘ugliness’,” Naomi Wolf explained. It began to be said that every narrow departure from the ideal, including normal processes of female maturity (e.g., change in size after pregnancy, wrinkles) could be sold to consumers as a deformity. Other kinds of doctors without appropriate training or certification moved to supplement their practices by pursuing anxious patients’ discretionary income. Promoters said, gaily, this is an unstoppable trend. Feminists, gagging, agreed.

The promotion of plastic surgery constitutes an ethical crisis of national dimensions, since the ugliness effect impinges on people only because they are growing older. People who would never visit a surgeon are thrown into some degree of self-hatred; and younger people may look with disfavor on faces and bodies that are simply doing what comes naturally.

Trend Finally Going the Other Way

Yet the good news is that the trend is finally going the other way. Fact: The number of total cosmetic procedures reached a peak in 2004 (at 11,855,000), and has dropped every year since, according to data from ASAPS, which extrapolates the data from those of its board-certified surgeons who respond. (Perhaps the ones who write in are still in business and doing well). In 2010 the total was down to 9,336,000–a decrease of over 20% from 2004.² (The numbers dropped even before the economic crisis of 2008.)

Surgeries–the most dangerous procedures–have also dropped, from 2.1 million in 2004, to 1.6 million in 2010–a drop of almost 25%. Breast augmentation was 334,00 in 2004; now only 318,000 in 2010. Lipoplasty was 478,251 in 2004; now only 289,016 in 2010.

The numbers for breast augmentation, the highest in invasive surgeries, dropped 11% from 2007 to 2008 and are lower in 2010. There is new evidence of cancer surrounding the breast in women with implants, which surgeons in both ASAPS and ASPS had been told in a webinar to downplay, Public Citizen’s Health Letter reported in February.³

Seeing the trend away from their invasions, surgeons now pay for ads offering “unfixed”-looking procedures. The top five procedures for women 35 to 50 in 2010 were all skin-related, like Botox.

After the age of fifty, the percentage of women obtaining any procedure drops dramatically, from 44-47% depending on the year, to about 25%. And fortunately for everyone but surgeons seeking trade, the older half of the “Boomers” has aged beyond the high-risk period–ages 35-50–at which women are most vulnerable. They have grown up and turned away.

Contrary to the myth, people are not going abroad for procedures. Brandon Alleman and his colleagues of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, conducted a survey of businesses engaged in facilitating overseas medical travel for U.S. residents. The companies that completed the survey–representing around 70 percent of the market–had referred about 13,500 U.S. patients for care overseas, a number far lower than prior reports of between 500,000 and 2 million.⁴

Growing popular distaste also involves heightened aversion to danger and care for health. “First, do no harm,” critics enjoin cosmetic surgeons.

Why is “natural” looking better, aside from the fear of pain, deformity, death, and looking unfashionable?

Nonusers told sociologist Abigail Brooks that they not only find the “fixed” looks of others repugnant, they resist the ideologies behind the ageist beauty myth. They may be inspired by feminist theory, women’s-health activists, or the positive-aging movement. “Natural” to them means accepting and appreciating the body’s own processes and valuing maturity on many other measures.⁵ Maybe some female Boomers are indeed changing, aging-past-youth in America, one refusal at a time!

In 1992, despite normalizing trends, the number of cosmetic surgeries in the US was still relatively small. By 2004 it had grown vertiginously. Since then it has started to drop. There are still powerful forces promoting the procedures to women of a certain age–including the companies that fire employees in their middle years on the assumption that they are “too old.” Women sue for age discrimination ten years younger than men. As sexist ageism gets worse, surgeons and magazines and yes, even friends, falsely promise a response by calling the procedures “anti-aging.”

Newspapers still publish articles based on statistics from the surgeons’ self-serving organizational press-releases, emphasizing what rates are up (as the New York Times did recently, in an article by Tara Parker-Pope with the headline, “A Decade of Boosting Breast Size”).⁶ Rates for some procedures may go up in any given year, but the trend line is clear, as the article was forced to note. Journalists can be guilty not only of implying that getting fixed is popular and “normal,” they are missing the real story.

Make no mistake, millions still go under the knife. The number of surgeries still constitutes a public health emergency that needs to be addressed with a registry of deaths and disfigurements and with better certification. But eventually we may say that the Era of Normalized Sexist Ageism lasted not much more than 12 years.

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Margaret Morganroth Gullette is the author of Agewise: Fighting the New Ageism in America (U of Chicago Press, April) and is a Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. She is the author of four books in age studies. Aged by Culture (also University of Chicago Press), was chosen a Noteworthy Book of the year by the Christian Science Monitor. It was nominated for a Pulitzer and received an Honorable Mention from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife won the Emily Toth award in 1998 for the best feminist book on American popular culture. Her first book in age studies is Safe at Last in the Middle Years. To read about Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s Free High School for Adults visit www.newtonsanjuan.org and click on “Adult Education.”

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1. Cooke, Grayson, “Effacing the Face: Botox and the Anarchic Archive,” Body & Society 2008 14:23.

2. My data is all from ASAPS: http://www.surgery.org/sites/default/files/2009trends.pdf surgery.org/sites/default/files/2007/Surgical_nonsurgical.pdf and Quick Facts for many of the years under investigation (2004-2010). Other references are in the chapter “Plastic Wrap” from my book Agewise.

3. Public Citizen, “Health Letter,” February 2011 (Vol 27 #2).

4. Reported by Peeples, Lynne, “Few Americans travel overseas for medical care,” Reuters, Dec. 31, 2010. Retrieved at http:/ /uk.reuters.com/article/2010/12/31/health-us-travel-overseas-idUKTRE6BU28C20101231.

5. Brooks, Abigail, “Growing Older in a Surgical Age: An Analysis of Women’s Lived Experiences and Interpetations in an Era of Cosmetic Surgery,” Ph.D. diss., Boston College, 2007.

6. Parker-Pope, Tara, “A Decade of Boosting Breast Size,” New York Times, March 21, 2011. Retrieved at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/a-decade-of-boosting-breast-size/.

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