Medicalization of Female Beauty

Introduction

What is Medicalization?

Medicalization is defined as treating (something) as a medical problem, especially without justification.

Dominance of Men in Medical Industry

The medical industry has historically been dominated by men, and this statement still holds true today; the majority of active physicians in the US, 66 percent, were male as of September 2016. Medicalization promotes medicine's tendency to pathologize normal occurrences in women's lives, such as menstruation and menopause; and natural states, such as smaller breasts. Therefore, it can be seen that medicalization promotes the control of women, and deflects attention from unjust social conditions that prevent women from opportunities available to men. Research has shown that females are influenced through society to view flaws on their bodies through a medical lens, using medical terminology, influencing them to view their aesthetic flaws and genetically determined features negatively, as though these imperfections were a disease or a medical problem. Therefore, cosmetic surgery helps women achieve the societal standards feminine beauty, which is problematic for some, particularly for feminist scholars who interpret the prevalence of cosmetic surgery as a form of subordination within a patriarchal society.

Western Perspective

Over the past decade in American society, the beauty industry has experienced dramatic growth, particularly as cosmetic procedures have increased in options available for women to achieve the American standards of beauty. The prevalence of cosmetic surgery has influenced women to view beauty enhancing surgery as therapeutic treatments and rewards, as they are promoted within society utilizing a medical approach. In Western media, marketing strategies promote the ideal beauty standards among females, and then advertise certain methods to "fix" your imperfections to achieve this particular standard. Cosmetic surgery and other enhancing techniques have become so common that the usage of these procedures to achieve perfection have been increasingly normalized.

Kylie Jenner is a style icon and entrepreneur that many young women look up to. She has gotten lip fillers since the age of 17.

Cosmetic procedures are becoming more commonplace in certain social classes. Over Eight million Americans have Botox injections every 6 years; many also have wrinkle reducing surgery every 3 to 6 years, or liposuction every 5 to 10 years.

An American cosmetic surgery advertisement utilizing a healthy appearing woman that idealizes American cultural standards of female beauty.

In a research study by Ashley Merianos, Rebecca Vidourek, and Keith King, three prominent cosmetic surgery centers were examined. All three centers used medical and therapeutic terminology when describing their services to potential customers, and their target population are mainly healthy females. Firstly, healthy appearing females that idealize American cultural standards of female beauty were featured on nearly every brochure from the three cosmetic surgery centers. Secondly, all of the brochures had been analyzed in the research study, showing that the brochures all included medical terms to target female populations using scientific language, promoting aesthetic flaws as illnesses by offering medical help and medical treatments. These facts emphasize the medicalized nature of female beauty, in which healthy women would seek cosmetic surgery to correct "imperfections", despite being perfectly healthy, as deviations from the ideal Western beauty standards are increasingly promoted as medical problems.

Breast Implants

Historically, American women have been more subject to changes in their body image. From 1850 to 1950, there were several technological devices available for breast augmentation, which were initially used due to desire for male attention and reinvention of the body. Similarly, the ideal female body image in America nowadays celebrates large breasts, as a symbol of womanhood, maternity and sexuality. Studies have found that women who receive breast implants are more likely to have a psychological profile characterized by low self-esteem, lower self-confidence, and increased likelihood of mental health problems. The medicalization of "imperfections" on ones body has increased the popularity of forms of cosmetic surgery such as breast implants. For example, cosmetic surgeons use a medical term, 'micromastia' to describe small breasts, thus defining small breasts as abnormal and therefore a medical issue. This medicalizes small breasts, influencing women with small or no breasts to believe that they have 'micromastia', a medical disease that should be medically treated. In fact, the majority of patients who receive breast implants do so merely for aesthetic enhancement, while a smaller number of people receive breast implants for reconstruction after mastectomy. Controversy challenging the ethicality and hazards of marketing and surgically inserting silicone breast implants has brought to light the essentiality of breasts in American beauty standards.

Cosmetic Surgery in Other Cultures

Brazil

Miss Bum Bum Brazil runner-up Andressa Urach is well known for her cosmetic surgery, having received silicone implants, anabolic steroids, a nose job, and gel and botox injections.

In recent years, demand for cosmetic surgery has been steadily rising in Brazil. Based on data from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Brazil was in second place for most cosmetic procedures in the world in 2015, right after the USA, with 2,324,245 procedures done. In Rio and around Brazil, some public hospitals offer cosmetic surgery at no cost at all, as cosmetic surgery is often supported by federal or municipal budgets. The hospital Santa Casa in downtown Rio is funded partially by Catholic charities and partially by the state health system, allowing the hospital to only charge a small fee to cover anaesthesia and medical materials for cosmetic patients. In a study by Alexander Edmonds, he notices that the majority of people seeking plastic surgery in the Santa Casa hospital are women, both young and old, and that men rarely seek plastic surgery unless it is for reconstructive surgery. In Brazil, cosmetic surgery is characterized as a "woman's thing", as Edmonds calls it, associated with female life-cycle events, such as puberty, breast feeding and menopause. Therefore, cosmetic surgery medicalizes the female body as it defines changes to the body due to the natural aging and life events of women as deformities that should be hidden or removed. As such, Brazil has increasingly normalized cosmetic surgery by not only promoting the medicalization of women's bodily changes throughout life as medical issues that should be treated, but even going so far as to greatly subsidize surgery for cosmetic purposes.

South Korea

A popular K-pop girl group in South Korea, Girls Generation. Their is often controversy over whether or not the members have been getting cosmetic surgery done.

South Korea is a country that has an entire set of different beauty ideals in comparison to what we see in America. Pale skin, a slender figure, large eyes with double lids, and a v-shaped faced are all examples of Korean beauty ideals. Firstly, with the popularity of K-pop in the last decade or so, these Korean beauty ideals have been exemplified in the idols, men and women, who dominate the Korean pop industry. Secondly, increasing globalization has exposed South Koreans to western culture, such as through the circulation of Western advertisements and Hollywood films, causing many people to view "Western" features such as double eyelids and prominent noses as more desirable than the single eyelids and rounded noses common among Koreans. Thus the Korean cosmetic surgery industry has boomed, as women and men of all ages try to resemble their K-pop idols, or gain more "Western" features. Nowadays, cosmetic surgery has become so popular in South Korea in conjunction with heavy influence from the K-pop phenomenon and Western media, that there is a certain cultural pressure to receive cosmetic surgery. Notably, existing research in Korea has also found that cosmetic surgery is often viewed as a feminized issue evidencing women’s subjection to patriarchy, as South Korea is still largely a patriarchal society.