In the eye of the beholder and the hands of the surgeon

Increasingly, more British women are trying to achieve their perfect body through cosmetic surgery, and they don’t care if feminists think they’re selling out, according to a new study at Leeds.

At the same time, there is a growing market for ‘appearance medicine’ aimed at men, which challenges the view that cosmetic surgery is a ‘women’s only issue’, denoting self-hatred and psychological pain.

After interviewing a range of men who chose to go under the knife, Professor Ruth Holliday, director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, found that cosmetic surgery has potential benefits for individuals, such as greater self-esteem, career advancement, and success in relationships.

“Most research on cosmetic surgery to date has totally excluded the experiences of men, so we wanted to redress that imbalance to allow a more nuanced picture of this developing market to emerge,” explained Professor Holliday, who carried out the study with the centre’s director of studies Dr Shirley Tate and sociology lecturer Dr Jacqueline Sanchez-Taylor.

“Feminist writers are often keen to show the patriarchal context of women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies, yet it’s very rare that men would be described as victims.”

Nearly 2,500 men had cosmetic surgery last year, representing at least 10% of all cosmetic procedures, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS). The five most popular procedures were nose jobs, eyelid surgery, liposuction, pinning back the ears, and a face/neck lift.

What these official figures fail to include is thousands of hair transplants, circumcisions, dentistry, scar and tattoo removals, as well as cosmetic surgery performed overseas or by non-BAAPS members. In fact, independent estimates suggest that men could make up 30% to 40% of all procedures.

“But when men pursue aesthetic surgery, they go against the grain of a well-worn script that casts concern with appearance as a trivial obsession for women. The reality is that many men are just as self-conscious about their bodies,” said Professor Holliday.

One of the early pioneers of cosmetic surgery was the Greek physician Claudius Galen (circa AD 130 to AD 200), who tended gladiators’ wounds and removed excess tissue from the breasts of wealthy Roman men.

The study argues that both men and women can be active, willing players who use surgery to transform their bodies – and their lives – in positive ways. For the men interviewed, it was often seen as a way to look younger, of finding new partners after divorce, seeking promotion at work, or realigning their mismatched outer body to their perceived ‘inner self’.

Professor Holliday recalled one man, nicknamed ‘Dumbo’ at school, who had his sticking-out ears pinned back after feeling for many years that it had hindered his success in all areas of life. He began his first serious relationship soon afterwards and gained self esteem for the first time.

In another case, a man who had tattooed girls’ names on his body to mask his uncertain sexuality later had them removed through skin grafting. “I’m not the Glaswegian hard-man I used to be, it was just a reputation I put forward ’cos I didn’t know if I was straight,” he said. “Now I don’t feel like I have my past marked on me and my boyfriend feels a lot better about that.”

And after years of resisting the idea, a policeman finally decided to get a knife scar on his face removed, because he thought it made him look like a thug and had held up his career.

Professor Holliday believes that many feminist studies like to emphasise the pain and physical risks involved in surgery. However, the industry’s phenomenal growth– a 31% increase last year alone – indicates that many people think the benefits clearly outweigh the medical risks, “a possibility that is rarely discussed in feminist literature,” she points out. “Most consumers know exactly why they’re doing it and think it’s an investment in their future.”

She agrees “it is somewhat worrying that people need to spend thousands of pounds on their bodies to be regarded as attractive and successful, but we shouldn’t condemn them as cultural dopes either, because they might be very successfully playing the system.”

The researchers believe that feminists who paint cosmetic surgery as “only and always an oppressive body practice” have lost credibility with a younger generation of women whom they criticise for wanting to emphasise their sexuality through enlarged breasts and collagen lips.

“Young women who admire UK glamour model Jordan (Katie Price) for her business acumen, success and sexual selfdetermination are bound to feel disaffected by feminists who would cast her as a victim simply because her choices and her body image contrasts with their own sense of respectability.”

Professor Holliday, Dr Tate and Dr Sanchez- Taylor argue that cosmetic surgery is expanding concepts of beauty and ascribed social value in the same way that the ‘black is beautiful’ movement did during the 1970s.

“Some individuals are using cosmetic surgery to make their own decisions about how their bodies are represented, and for them, an overtly sexual body may denote power, autonomy and success,” said Professor Holliday. “But most of all, it throws down a challenge to the ideal of the desexualised,‘respectable’ woman, and the view that men are rational, disembodied creatures who would not be concerned about their appearance.”

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies is now embarking on an international research project to examine the burgeoning global market for ‘cosmetic surgery tourism’. It will examine international flows, people’s motivations and experiences, and how various countries like Spain and Thailand market the ‘sun, sand, sea and silicone’ package.

Professor Holliday’s paper ‘Man Made Plastic’ was published in the Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol 7(1), 2007.

Photo 1: Professor Ruth Holliday, left, and Dr Shirley Tate get up to speed on the latest cosmetic surgery techniques.