Blog 6: "Cosmetic Surgery"

Cosmetic surgery was originally used for patients, most often men, who were disabled by war or industrial accidents. Cosmetic surgery has become centered around women because many women equate their attractiveness to their character. Women constantly feel judged based on their appearance. Women are taught to maintain a feminine beauty as to not be seen as less than. This social standard for women to maintain their beauty has made women obsessed with physical appearance.

Personally, I think that cosmetic surgery just perpetuates unattainable beauty standards. Much of cosmetic surgery is to attain an Anglo-Saxon appearance as mentioned by Debra Gimlin. As an African American woman, I like my ethnic features. I think they are beautiful and I would not change anything about it. Changing your face to look like one type of people is boring and I like the differences of faces. Cosmetic surgery loses that appreciation of your historical background and that is sad to me that you would want to look otherwise. To define what is beautiful is really hard to say. There are so many different oppinions, but personally I do not believe their is one type of beauty.

I would not get cosmetic surgery unless it was something vital to my health. I am not willing to risk my health in order to be someone else's version of beauty. There are too many fake doctors acting like real doctors who are trying to make a buck and too many bad reactions to cosmetic surgery for me to agree. I think that I am beautiful the way that I am. I actually look forward to growing old and getting to see what I will look like later in life. I think that my mother and grandmother are beautiful the way they are. I just look forward to looking older and when I see older people with face lifts, I think it makes them look older.

I do feel that people take the option of cosmetic surgery too lightly. To me it all seems really superficial at the end of the day. I just want everybody to accept themselves as they are. If the whole world made a change tomorrow to reveal the truth of what everyone looks like, I do not think that cosmetic surgery would be on such a rise. The media helps a lot with the rise of cosmetic surgery but it makes you wonder what the world would be like without photoshop. I guess if it is everyday you have trouble looking in the mirror at yourself and contemplating worse options than cosmetic surgery.

I think it is a vain and shallow culture because to say that cosmetic surgery improves your looks or self-image is still vain and shallow. The fact that when you don't feel beautiful because of your body and that changes your whole personality is very shallow. If someone doesn't like you because of the way you look then they are shallow, so if you don't then I would say the same for you. I don't mean to be rude or judgmental for those who participate in cosmetic surgery because at the end of the day, who am I to judge because I do not know your situation. The only time I would not see it as shallow and vain would be if it was something like a scar being removed, laser hair removal, or the original use of cosmetic surgery. Something like that is the only real justification for cosmetic surgery. I don't really think of that as cosmetic surgery though, I guess because its less invasive and dangerous.