Saturday, August 12, 2006

Pretty Women 2: Plastic Surgery Bugaloo

Magazines, men, women, the media, they all work together to make people feel inadequate. Women are dieting and having surgery before they've finished growing. They are changing themselves before they become themselves. Make-up (it's CALLED make-up for christ sakes!) can now be permanently drawn on your face. And abortion should be illegal for rational adults? I think this should be illegal. No surgery until you're old enough to know who you are (and does anyone ever completely know themselves?). We're not talking about 'killing' something that isn't alive in the first place(abortion). With plastic surgery, you can kill your chance at being who you are.

This stuff hits pretty close to home, so I'm sorry if I get too emotional. I do not condemn all plastic surgery. I think it has its place. I think women should feel good about themselves and be able to be proud of who they are and, yes, how they look. But all the roadblocks the government continues to throw up against abortion - anywhere from 24 hr to 5 day waiting periods, required viewings of graphic videos showing the procedure, parental consent, parental notification, illegal border crossings for the procedure - I think should be applied to something that does real harm to women and men. Plastic surgery.

A person should be required to wait a period of at least three days before they go through any procedure - from botox to liposuction. They should sit through a video detailing the gruesome details of the procedure. They should be warned of all the risks, shown pictures of surgery gone bad (much like the pictures some women are shown of aborted babies). They should meet protestors who make them feel like criminals. They should walk into places claiming to be plastic surgery centers and be met with a barrage of literature and people telling them how wrong they are to want plastic surgery (there are many false clinics claiming to perform abortions which turn out to be run by anti-abortion organizations). Plastic surgery seekers should be forced to obtain parental consent even when his or her abusive father or mother cut off the ear he or she wants replaced. In what is likely a very emotional time, they should be forced to search through their state for a place to go for help, only to find that the one plastic surgery center that operates within the state is too full of patients, protesters, and bomb threats to help him or her. Can he or she go to the neighboring state? Nope. It's illegal.

Of course, I don't think this should really be the case, but hopefully I've made my point. I think plastic surgery is much more evil than abortion. And if it were treated as such, maybe less people would make a hasty decision. Let me re-state that I do think plastic surgery has its place. But I think that place should be in the hospital not "plastic surgery centers." I do not think men (which the majority of plastic surgeons are) should make tons of money off of the insecurity of women. I don't think any doctor should be allowed to specialize in cosmetic surgery. Unnecessary surgery. I think its a crime and should be treated as such.

Women and men should not be forced to wear a mask for their entire life. If I see one more ad for plastic surgery offering to help you become 'the real you' I think I'm going to rip my face off. How's that for the real me? No skin at all! Is this the next trend?

3 comments:

jmixont said...

As I said in my comment to your previous post, I can't imagine being a woman in American society. The pressure to look a certain way is incredible. Maybe it's naive and utopian of me, but I'd love to get our society to a place where plastic surgeons simply can't find any work because women are comfortable with how they look.

The thought of choosing to go under the knife to improve how I look is anathema to me (of course that may simply be because I'm absolutely terrified of needles). If America and it's media accel at anything it's convincing people - women especially - that they need to be different than who they are.

Adam Elend said...

Yikes! I agree 100% with your views on abortion - but think you're going a little too far with the plastic surgery.

You keep saying that it has it's place, but what place do you see it having? You don't really say.

Your body is your body, and if you want to change it, you can. It's nobody's choice but yours.

The arguments you make about plastic surgery can be made about abortion too. If you're not old enough to know the real you, then are you really equipped to decide to end the life that will come out of you in 9 months?

Of course you are! Because it's your womb. It's also your nose and your eyebrows and your tummy fat - whether or not you're together enough to handle making that decision.

Freedom is also the freedom to make a mistake - even a permanent one, the freedom to be unduly influenced by magazines like YM, the freedom to get really fat or get plastic surgery.

Your first post was all about being critical of the social and economic pressure - and shining a light on it. I'm ALL for that. But I'm not really comfortable with all the "shoulds" and "allowed"'s in part two.

Just my $0.02.

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