I, for one, will always be the first to say that feminism is about equality for women and men. One of the most important factors, being, women’s autonomy and their own right to choose. On a surface level, if a woman wants to get plastic surgery, with their own money, then you would think doing so was feminist. Of course, it enables women to be in control of their own looks without a man’s input. However, the question we should ask ourselves is:
‘If the male gaze didn’t exist would the uptake of plastic surgery be as high for women?’
In short, the male gaze is the way in which women are depicted in media from a male perspective. The theory suggests that women are presented in media through a man’s perception of what a woman should be. This gaze then seeps into the minds of the young women who are consuming this media. Young girls then make subconscious decisions, throughout their lives, based on what men want rather than what they want themselves. Mulvey states:
“The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure… with [her] appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact.”
Traditionally women in media were, and are, portrayed as nothing more than an object of male desire, this same media is written by men from a man’s perspective. However, the consumption of this media is equally split by both men and women. This reinforces the so-called ‘perfect women’ leading to the beauty standard for women, forcing them to believe this ideal is attainable and normal. In this portrayal, women are brainwashed by the male gaze and made to feel insecure within their appearance. Plastic surgery only fuels the male gaze, as instead of making women unpick their insecurities and why they are there; it provides an easy way out. This often diverts the blame onto women themselves and their ‘insecurities’ rather than holding society to account for making them feel insecure in the first place. Often once a rhinoplasty or BBL is complete lots of women still feel insecure, showing the problem is not with their body it is their minds, they have been tainted by the male gaze which forces them to despise themselves.
‘Body ideals’ change around each decade, in the 90s it was heroin chic, big boobs in the 80s and small bums in the 2000s and big bums in the 2010s. When women get plastic surgery, they are aspiring for the body of the decade rather than their own, this means they often regret it because, scarily, the body type they achieved with surgery has gone out of fashion. Again why does society project different ideals throughout history rather than making women comfortable within the bodies they have ?
Of course, men too have plastic surgery, but the figures speak for themselves. 92% of people in the UK who got plastic surgery in 2019 were women. There is an obvious reason why, as much as there is a pressure on men to look good, because women have a history of their value being placed in their looks, women are much more likely to turn to plastic surgery to feel better about themselves. Except, when they do get the surgery, there is always something else they could have done, and they go back under the knife like an addict. Then these same women get shamed by the people who pushed them to go under the knife in the first place. This shows women will never truly be able to live their lives unless they recognise and reject the male gaze.
Surgery has become all too normal; flaws can be fixed but they never truly are. Plastic surgery is not at all feminist and the women considering it need to truly ask themselves: Why are you doing this? If we lived in a world were men and the male gaze never existed, would we still be getting these invasive, sometimes life-threatening procedures in the name of vanity. We, as a society, need to put more emphasis understanding insecurities only exist because of the male gaze. Of course, those who get plastic surgery aren’t to blame, they are a by-product of society, but instead of praising these people we should understand their true motives in getting the surgery. We need to stop acting as if plastic surgery is this feminist notion and not just another way for the male gaze to enslave women in an oppressive cycle.
Sources
Filmmaker and theorist Laura Mulvey first coined the term “the male gaze” in her seminal 1973 paper Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.