The Beauty Myth

When the readers first see the title of this chapter, “Violence,” they may assume that the author will discuss domestic and sexual violence. However, Wolf already addressed this subject in the “Sex” chapter when she linked beauty pornography with date rape, women’s self-perception, identity, and other factors. Here, she provocatively surprises the readers by discussing elective cosmetic surgery instead. Wolf explores the relationship between cosmetic surgery with previous historic trends, the connections between beauty, pain, mass culture, and advertising. She also makes predictions about the way this industry will develop in the 21st century. Wolf divides the “Violence” chapter into sections with one-word titles such as “Numbness,” “Pain,” and “Choice.” These subcategories mimic the chapter titles, such as “Religion” and “Sex,” and her word choices are evocative. For example, the concept of numbness makes the reader think about being numb from anesthesia after surgery and feeling numb and hopeless because of psychological stressors.

20th-century beauty ideology sought to create cookie-cutter, two-dimensional women by reducing their identities to aesthetics, and cosmetic surgery furthers this trend: “The ideal has become at last fully inhuman” (266). Women no longer see natural female bodies other than their own. Now, they are under immense pressure to modify their bodies to fit the Iron Maiden through cosmetic surgery. It is never too early to start, and no degree of modification is ever enough. This trajectory is reminiscent of transhumanism, which seeks to surpass “imperfect” humans through science and technology. Here, imperfect humans are women forced into aesthetic improvement through medical advancement.

The question of social and psychological pressure is essential to understanding this chapter. Wolf compares the way men and women perceive coercion in the late 20th century, stating that “men think coercion happens mainly through physical violence while women see physical suffering as bearable compared with the pain of losing love” (258). Therefore, women are coerced into unnecessary medical procedures with psychological tricks in advertising and beauty ideology disseminated by popular culture rather than direct force. Some mistake this type of coercion for egotism and narcissism, but Wolf notes that “women are desperate to hold on to a sexual center that no one threatens to take away from men, who keep sexual identity despite physical imperfections and age” (259). The beauty myth dictates that women’s worth is defined by sexuality and beauty, which means that losing those things threatens a woman’s identity as a whole. With this, cosmetic surgery is not simply a vanity project, but an attempt to maintain one’s sense of self.

This type of coercion has real-life consequences. Injuries are not uncommon due to a lack of regulation. In the U.S. today, professionals handling cosmetic injectables are not required to have medical degrees, only nursing degrees. In South Korea, so-called “ghost doctors,” some of whom lack medical training altogether, have replaced celebrity surgeons in operating rooms to ensure output that rivals factory assembly lines. As a result, some cases led to medical harm and even death (Yoon, John, “South Korea Turns to Surveillance as ‘Ghost Surgeries’ Shake Faith in Hospitals,” The New York Times). Because of this psychological coercion and physical danger, the author calls the Surgical Age “human rights abuse” (257).

In making predictions, Wolf was quite prescient about the degree to which women in general, but especially those in the public eye, would undergo plastic surgery in the 21st century. However, today, these transformations are not just achieved through cosmetic surgery but with injectables like Juvéderm and Botox, false lashes, and hair extensions. She describes a future in which cosmetic surgery is almost compulsory.

Whatever the future threatens, we can be fairly sure of this: Women in our ‘raw’ or ‘natural’ state will continue to be shifted from category ‘woman’ to category ‘ugly,’ and shamed into an assembly-line physical identity. As each woman responds to the pressure, it will grow so intense that it will become obligatory, until no self-respecting woman will venture outdoors with a surgically unaltered face. The free market will compete to cut up women’s bodies more cheaply, if more sloppily, with no-frills surgery in bargain basement clinics. (269)

In the 21st century, the pressure of fitting into the Iron Maiden may seem even greater thanks to social media. Images on platforms like Instagram are highly doctored but appear more “real” to the viewer than an airbrushed magazine ad. In the past decade, social media has influenced a rise in procedures like Brazilian butt lifts, microblading, fillers, and Botox. With this increased pressure has come greater accessibility, with many clinics offering cheap services or payment plans.

Because the themes in The Beauty Myth’s chapters are directly connected, Wolf returns to the subject of sex in the context of cosmetic surgery. She argues that today’s women no longer see natural, female bodies. This results in a disconnection from their own bodies as they prioritize the male gaze. For example, some women lose feeling in their breasts due to nerve damage after breast augmentation, but they report greater sexual fulfillment. Wolf believes that this feeling is the result of having women’s sexuality become “so externalized by beauty pornography that they may truly be more excited by sexual organs that, though dead and immobile, visually fit into it” (248).

Finally, for shock value, Wolf brings up non-existent male cosmetic surgery to make a point about the way we treat women’s bodies, including “penis augmentation” (242). Wolf’s predictions here were incorrect, as 21st-century popular culture also normalized many surgical and cosmetic procedures for men, such as pec implants or incredibly painful jaw resurfacing to look “more masculine.” Because men, too, are under pressure to look a certain way, Wolf’s criticism needs to go further to address the capitalist superstructure over consumer advertising peddling such “ideals.” She also fails to address the way patriarchy creates acceptable masculinities as well as femininities. With this, her analysis is limited because it only examines the way patriarchy impacts women rather than being more broadly intersectional.