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Breasts, redefined

Jill

According to the LA Times, a growing number of American women are getting breast implants — and many want the FDA to speed up its approval of silicone implants, despite the fact that the safety of silicone is questionable.

Now, I tend to have a live-and-let-live mentality when it comes to beauty regiments, including plastic surgery. But I think it’s overly simplistic to say that women who get breast implants just “do it for themselves,” and that it’s not at all problematic. I’m getting kicked out of this internet cafe, so I can’t say everything that I want to right now, but I’ll end by saying that, culturally, we’ve gotten to a dangerous place when so many women feel the need to risk their health and decrease their sexual function for the sake of having boobs that fit a narrow ideal.

11 thoughts on Breasts, redefined

  1. Preach on, Sister Jill.

    It’s one thing to say that we ought not to question each individual woman’s decisions about how her body should look. It’s hers. It is something else entirely to say that we ought to abdicate analysis of why certain beauty ideals prevail.

  2. Yes. We all make choices, but are choices are shaped by social and cultural factors. Yes, it’s my choice to get breast implants if I want them, but what social forces acted on me to lead me to that decision? So, I make the decision for my “self”, but why would my “self” need me to surgically alter it? Reducing it to a matter of individual choice or empowerment reflects, I think, our culture’s tendency to individualize everything, and ignore social factors. We’re all individuals! We’re all totally autonomous! Our fake breasts reflect nothing but our inner Big Boobiedness! Thinking sociologically (as opposed to thinking in terms of isolated “individuals” somehow apart from a social group) it’s hard not to be disturbed by such a trend.

  3. Indeed, word. Individual decisions to attempt to comply with an unrealistic standard of beauty are not decisions that feminists ought to celebrate.

  4. I just don’t understand the need for a boob job. Sure a gal can get more guys attention, but for the price you can buy a car! Come on, boobs or a car?? Plus size isn’t everything… although I may be in the minority of guys to say that. But hey, I look above the chest to see what is important.

  5. Frankly the idea of going under the knife fro purely cosmetic reasons strikes me as seriously screwed up. I can understand wanting to repair horrible disfigurement, straighten your teeth (or any procedure which can be done without general anesthesia) or replace missing parts. Boob jobs and all other vanity surgery to me is mutilation.

    Why do women always say “…its for me”? Do you all play with them or something? [grin]

  6. I’m not sure that it’s fair to imply that by societal pressure (to increase the boobage) it’s pressure from men. I have the worst body image possible (even worse with the huge and sudden weight gain I had this year – the the point the customs agaent questioned my passport this morning), while I agree that many men seem to prefer the fantasy, I think women put as much of the physical appearance pressure on themselves and each other as men do (if not more).

  7. Cranky, patriarchy isn’t just men telling women what to do. It’s a system of gender roles that both men and women enforce. I think there’s a lot of truth to the notion that women enforce norms of appearance, but that doesn’t mean they are not patriarchal. For instance, my wife will not see her mother without full makeup, because her mother gets very critical. No man directly involved.

    I think when women say, “it’s just for me,” it’s true as far as that goes. They understand perfectly well the pressure they’re under. They understand that, even if their romantic partner doesn’t care (I know lots of men that actually prefer smaller breasts), that having larger breasts will influence the way they are looked at, the way they are treated, and ultimately the way they see their own bodies when they look in the mirror. So I don’t think women who say, “it’s just for me” are being disingenuous, or even naive. It’s just to place them in a better position vis-a-vis social pressure, and that is just for them.

    The problem, of course, is the pressure.

  8. Cranky, patriarchy isn’t just men telling women what to do. It’s a system of gender roles that both men and women enforce.

    It was mothers who bound their daighters’ feet in China. Clitoridectomy is often – perhaps even usually – performed by older women.

    If the fight against patriarchy was just men against women, it would have been over a long time ago. (Men would have caved in about two weeks.)

  9. The safety of silicone implants is only questionable by those who know nothing about science or statistics, or mass hysteria.

  10. Mike, I presume you’re talking about the allegations of systemic lupus, and that’s a distinction only between silicone and saline. You’re talking about an issue nobody has raised: nobody on this thread is talking about the relative merits of silicone and saline. That’s not necessarily why people think breast augmentation is dangerous surgery. For example, I think it’s dangerous surgery because it is, in fact, major surgery on the torso, performed under general anaesthetic. That’s always a big deal, and something of a risk, no matter how you slice it. This applies to liposuction as well.

    Also, whether silicone or saline, breast augmentation carries risks — scarring and contractures, leakage, imbalance, loss of sensation and nerve damage. This also applies to liposuction as well.

  11. Doesn’t it bother anyone that we live in a society where breast augmentation, liposuction, lifts, tucks, and nips are becoming — hell, they are — mainstream.

    Plastic surgerry for the purpose of reconstruction is a noble thing. It’s fantastic that we live in a country that you can be rebuilt in, if you get your face torn off by a rabid dog, or wrecked in a motorcycle accident…etc.

    But if you put some serious thought into it, it’s the ultimate vanity to go and have your body, sliced into, rearranged, things inserted, just to look better, whether for yourself, or for a man, or for another woman for that matter when the body that was there in the first place is perfectly healthy. Or even mostly healthy.

    We as a society have no idea how good we have it. None.

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