Cosmetic Surgery, Gender and Culture

247 Pages·2003·0.808 MB·English

by  Suzanne Fraser (auth.)

Cosmetic Surgery, Gender
and Culture
Suzanne Fraser
Cosmetic Surgery, Gender and Culture
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Cosmetic Surgery, Gender
and Culture
Suzanne Fraser
Research Fellow
National Centre in HIV Social Research,
University of New South Wales, Australia
© Suzanne Fraser 2003
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 978-1-4039-1299-2
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this publication
may be made without written permission.
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Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988,or under the terms of any licence
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in
accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2003 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-349-51160-0 ISBN 978-0-230-50022-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230500228
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fraser,Suzanne,1967–
Cosmetic surgery,gender and culture / by Suzanne Fraser.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Surgery,Plastic–Psychological aspects. 2. Surgery,Plastic–Sociological
aspects. 3. Self-perception in women. I. Title.
RD118.F68 2003
617.9’5–dc21
2003045178
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations viii
Introduction 1
Part I Tools
1. Toolkit for a Modest Witness 23
2. The Pressures of the Text: Intertextuality and Preferred
Readings 41
Part II Discourses
3. Glossing Femininity: Women’s Magazines 61
4. Feminist Imaginary Bodies 97
5. The ‘Art’ of Cosmetic Surgery: Medicine, Metaphor and
Meaning 122
6. The Regulation of Gender: Cosmetic Surgery, Regulatory
Processes and Femininity 153
Conclusion 185
Notes 195
Bibliography 225
Index 237
v
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Acknowledgements
This book owes an immeasurable amount to the intellectual community in
which it was produced. Thanks must first go to my University of Sydney
doctoral supervisors, Alison Bashford and Denise Russell, for providing
attentive and challenging readings of the thesis from which this book was
produced. In addition, many colleagues and friends offered invaluable help
and companionship. In particular, I want to thank Gill Dempsey, Sarah
Howard, Megan D. Jones, Kirsty McKenzie, Celia Roberts, Fiona Rummery,
Kerry Sanders and kylie valentine.
Other friends and family helped make this book possible as well. Jo
Barraket, Jane Caldwell, Michelle Fraser, Louise Fraser, Kathy Grattan and
Justine Wilcox all provided friendship, humour and sympathy during the
long writing process. Finally, I must also thank my partner of many years,
John Jacobs, who supplied unfailing support for this project, intellectually,
domestically and technically. If there is a limit to his generosity, patience
and kindness, I have yet to encounter it.
vii
Abbreviations
ACS Australasian College of Surgeons
ASPS Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons
ASPRS American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons
FDA Food and Drug Administration
HCCC Health Care Complaints Commission (NSW)
JAMA Journal of the American Medical Association
MJA Medical Journal of Australia
NH&MRC National Health and Medical Research Council
TDEC Therapeutic Devices Evaluation Committee
TGA Therapeutic Goods Administration
viii
Introduction
‘If it ain’t broke, change my nose anyway.’1
A young man confides in me shyly that during his adolescence, his ears pro-
truded so much he had them surgically ‘pinned back’. In contrast, another
man, a friend, tells me defiantly that he knows his ears make him look like
‘a car with its doors left open’, but he refuses to conform by having them
‘fixed’. In another context, an older woman, a colleague, informs me, again
in confidence, that along with a bladder operation, she opted for a tummy
tuck. There is no doubt that cosmetic surgery is by now a well known if not
entirely accepted group of practices.2
Advertisements and articles on cosmetic surgery feature regularly in the
popular media. Not only found in women’s magazines, this coverage now
extends to television current affairs and ‘lifestyle’ programmes,3 radio pro-
grammes,4 specially dedicated, magazine-style publications5 and other
forms of media.6 Given that cosmetic surgery finds such rich expression in
the media, its impact on culture needs to be understood as extending far
beyond the experiences of those who actually undergo surgical procedures.
This recognition inspires the two main questions examined in this book.
First, what kind of impact is cosmetic surgery, through its representation as
much as through medical practice, having on current understandings of
gender? Here, various issues regarding gender are important, the most
obvious being the pronounced asymmetry in cosmetic surgery practice, in
that the great majority of surgeons are male and the great majority of
participants female.7 By analysing four discourses – women’s magazines,
medical texts, feminist work and regulatory material – this project will draw
conclusions about the directions gender is taking through its interaction
with cosmetic surgery. Femininity will be the main focus, although ques-
tions of masculinity will also be considered.
Related to this issue is my second line of inquiry, which deals with current
questions around how the media is seen in contemporary cultural studies.
Using the ubiquity of cosmetic surgery in the media as a resource, I inves-
1