Comments on: “Be All That You Can Be” With Plastic Surgery

By: amanda

amanda — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:11:23 +0000

i recently had a baby and had a c section … and my stomach has taken the toll i can not afford surgery .. and i found this free plastic surgery page .. can u help

By: Gloria

Gloria — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:58:00 +0000

Megpie. OMG, the plastic surgery industry’s marketing machine has totally hijacked the language of feminism! Take a look at this article: How Plastic Surgery Has Co-Opted the Language of Feminism. It’s appalling and will make you furious!

By: megpie

megpie — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:23:31 +0000

SuzannaBanana and Gloria- thank you both very much for the clarification, and many apologies that I misunderstood the mission of this site. I’m so glad you all have come here to support each other.

It’s funny, though, Gloria- I never though of plastic surgery as a form of empowerment. I think of it as a very sad form of control and distraction and oppression by the mainstream, and I am VERY sorry you all got sucked in, and that I misunderstood the concept/mission of this site.

Believe me, while I may subscribe to some “hard-core” as you say feminist beliefs, I also struggle everyday with the ideology of image.

I don’t know much about plastic surgery, but yes, if one poses so much more of a health risk than others, hell yes it is a larger evil.

By: Gloria

Gloria — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:01:55 +0000

Megpie, you must agree that there are different degrees of evil in this world. For example, picking someone’s pocket is not the same as killing someone in cold blood. So it seems to me the difference between a nose job and breast implants. Of course, in all surgeries there are risks, and I dislike the whole notion of taking those risks for the sake of beauty — and this is a feminist issue. But there is a whole other issue around implants that is more immediate and disturbing, which is women’s health. A woman getting a nose job is not taking on the same risks as a woman getting breast implants. Implants are foreign chemicals thrust into a woman’s chest, and how that woman’s body reacts to them can be severe. In fact, her chances of having complications over a lifetime of having these foreign things in her body are really, really high, and the complications can be so bad that it destroys her health or even kills her. But how well does the public understand this? Not well at all, because no one talks about it. This blog is one of the few places that does. But if this blog says all plastic surgery is bad for the sake of feminiISM, then it would only speak to hard-core feminists, which is like preaching to the choir. But I would hazard to guess that most women getting implants hold feminist beliefs — many Made-Over Mommies, after all, were motivated by the belief they are doing something empowering — but would be turned off by a hard feminist line. Because this blog takes a neutral position on plastic surgery in general, but a hard line on implants, then maybe women other than hard-core feminists will visit and actually learn something about implants and thus a little more information is disseminated to the public and down the line a few women’s lives spared from such horrors as disfigurement, silicone poisoning and financial bankruptcy.

By: suzannabanana23

suzannabanana23 — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:27:35 +0000

Megpie — this blog actually isn’t about entertaining the notion of plastic surgery — if you read through the posts and comments you’ll see that it’s mostly women who’ve been damaged by different types of plastic surgery sharing their experience.

Anyway — I wanted to share an interesting observation about the military paying for plastic surgery. During the old Dow Corning bankruptcy days, one of the biggest claimants was the federal government seeking money for health claims paid out to women with breast implant problems. The biggest pot of money BY FAR was requested by the Department of Defense. This seemed so bizarre to me UNTIL I realized that it must be to compensate military personnel who’d been implanted, then treated through the military health care system. So strange.

By: megpie

megpie — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:08:34 +0000

Sorry I meant I found you through a link of a link (etc.) originally from Salon.com’s Broadsheet blog.

By: megpie

megpie — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:05:28 +0000

I am a new reader to your blog, I found it through link upon link, originally from feministing.com. Thank you for bringing these matters to the table.

Thought provoking for you to say that the notion of people not questioning their appearance is dead, and that this is what feminists of yore tried to do. Do you then scoff at the belief that you can’t be a feminist and wear make-up? It’s a tricky subject with layer upon layer of influence and argument.

But the disturbing fact remains that all the diet ads and all that other hyper-improve-your-appearance-focused crap out there ARE successful BECAUSE they prey upon people’s insecurities (as soon as they found out they jumped at the chance)- and while these ads and products are increasingly targeting men too (think supply and demand here), I’m sure we can all agree the in-your-face-everyday notions of obtaining unimaginable outer beauty are by and large on the hunt for females.

All make-up and fashion and diet products aside here, it’s a hard pill for me to swallow that you are trying to open little windows for feminists by putting this information out there, but then end up slamming huge doors by saying its okay to entertain the notion of plastic surgery.