The Plasticine Feminist

Lately, it seems, I've come across a strain of articles dealing with women.They deal either with feminism or singleness or plastic surgery or any two of those topics at once.  It's odd to read about these topics now, at this stage in my life, when I'm not so concerned about applying them to pieces of literature or deconstructing them with students. I'm not even allowed the luxury of imagining that these grown-up women writing about grown-up issues are far removed from me because of my youth.  People seem to assume that I'm an adult, so maybe I'd better assume I'm one too (but we all know what comes from assuming too much).  What has been brought sharply into focus by these articles is the strange simultaneous rise of female empowerment and female augmentation. Contrast all of this with the idea of female heritage, throw in some abstract thoughts on Thanksgiving, commercialism, and food, and you just about grasp what's festering in mind at this moment.

I'm not sure fester is the word I'm looking for, it sounds so putrid, but cooking sounds too complicated and boiling sounds bland -- fester it is.  First things first, though, what do I mean when I say "female heritage"? I don't suppose I'm referencing what is traditionally meant by that statement, which, I think, implies women's struggles for equality.In this instance, what I really intend with that phrase is the idea of passing down typically female traditions to succeeding generations of girls and women.  I think, for instance, of my grandma teaching me (annually, I think) how to properly set a table.  Fork here, knife, spoon; glass to the right above the knife.  Don't set the space too wide or too narrow for the plate. Same amount of room between the silverware and the edge of table at all settings.  Bread plate here; napkin to left and folded thusly (I've decided that's a word no matter what spell check tells me).  By the time these impromptu lessons rolled around I was already spitefully tired of the silverware and silver candlesticks and silver tea services that my sister and I had spent the morning polishing.  Somehow, I managed to listen and learn, and, yes, I admit I judge people (restaurants especially) who can't set a table.  It's like etiquette (who knew that word was so hard to spell?) illiteracy.  Do you really not know that the fork goes on the left?  Do you really not remember that you use salad forks for salad (the clue's in the name)?  Do you really believe that's where the glass goes?  It's all very derisive and ungracious of me, but there it is -- my single fault.

Beyond these table-setting lessons worthy of Emily Post there were lessons (still from Grandma) on how to iron table clothes like a pro, how to tuck unfitted sheets in like a nurse (hospital corners to us professionals), how to vacuum carpets one way and then the other so as not to miss a speck of dust, how to wash windows with a formula of so many parts vinegar and so many parts ammonia (I think -- as long as I don't mix bleach and ammonia, I'll be safe).  There are lessons from my mother too.  Sitting at the kitchen counter while I'll gallantly let her do all the cooking, she tells me how to properly knead dough (she does let me do that).  There are special instructions for mixing biscuits so they don't end up the weight and consistency of hockey pucks. There is a how-to-can-fruit lesson which, I believe, I even got from my mom and grandma at once, some time in the dim, foggy past. I have also learned just this Thanksgiving of something called roux, which is a combination of flour and butter and is used to thicken gravy and as a base in such favorites as homemade macaroni and cheese and hollandaise sauce.

Later on, after all of this has been made public, I will be accused of complaining, and (let me be very, very clear) I'm not.  In fact, these spur-of-the-moment lessons are special memories and moments.  They remind me of Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use," in which Mama gives old family quilts to her daughter Maggie rather than her sophisticated, urbanized daughter Dee.  It isn't quite the same, but, to me,  that's the idea. Feminism is often seen as unseating these examples of female heritage (in my sense of the phrase). A struggle or belief system that had been around for decades suddenly seemed to erupt in the middle of the twentieth century.  Its grand arrival coincided (or appeared to, I think) with other ground-breaking, earth-shattering developments: the sudden rise of a powerful television media, new forms of entertainment and shifts within those types, the civil rights movement, etc. (I may be making this up; I kind of feel like I am). Advances in medical science; plastic surgery. And all of these things grew and grew.  Some for good.  Others, not so much.

All of which brings us to the here and now (as one of Scrooge's ghosts might say).  What do we have now?  For feminism, the rise of females in higher ranking positions.  There are now more women who enroll in universities than men.  There are numerous examples of successful female CEOs.  There are female cops, female politicians, female doctors, male nurses.  And with all of this comes, on a parallel course, the rise of plastic surgery and the ease with which a newer, more aesthetically pleasing you can be granted is mind-boggling.

Our world now is, I believe, a world of dichotomies, even outside the female/plastic surgery dichotomy. We are at once constantly connected and increasingly globalized but more and more isolated by the very technology which seeks to link us. I almost feel that we are creating generations of people who are, or will be, incapable of speaking face to face, of actually physically exploring the overcrowded, wonderful world around them, without the buffer of a screen, but who are also equally as incapable of being completely silent, of finding value and refreshment in solitude.  But electronics is not the name of the game today, so moving swiftly along, the first article I haplessly (but fortunately) stumbled across was published originally in The Guardian.  It's really more of a column, and doesn't deal with feminism, but did get me thinking along the lines of women and their very historical struggle with self image.The column, written by Rebecca Front, addresses not only the safety issues involved with such procedures but the personal and future repercussions as well. Front states that she understands treatment under extreme circumstances, but she worries "that there is an increasing assumption that invasive procedures altering the very structure of one's face or breasts, or any other part of the anatomy, are no big deal." Going on, she expresses "worry because there is already far too much pressure on us -- men and women, but let's face it predominantly women -- to conform to some notion of unattainable perfection."  I agree.  All of this puts me in mind, for some reason, of all the women who run out and get Brazilians, then get thongs, then get infections.  Hmm.  Who saw that coming?  Certain parts of our anatomy are there for a reason.  God did make us that mostly because he knew best.  But I suppose the argument for plastic surgery is that it alters things that can change, that don't need to be there: unsightly bumps on noses, moles, breasts that are too small, fat.  All the things that make us, whether we like it or not, individual.

Writing for The New Atlantis, Christine Rosen cites some rather startling statistics. "In a mere decade (between 1982 and 1992)," she writes,"according to the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, the number or people surveyed who said they approved of cosmetic surgery increased by 50 percents, and the number who disapproved declined by 66 percent."  Quoting The New York Times, Rosen further states that "'the overall number of cosmetic procedures has increased 228 percent since 1997.'" (Rosen's article was published in 2004.)  Another article (again in The Guardian but this time by Decca Aitkenhead) states that 90 percent of all people who have plastic surgery (in the UK, I'm guessing, though I don't imagine it's much different here) are women. Later in her article, Aitkenhead again references the astounding rise in the number of cosmetic surgery patients, but she also poses questions about cosmetic surgery and feminism.  She writes, "For feminism to offer a viable alternative to the surgical culture, it would have to risk reopening the argument about the entire continuum of the beauty industry.  The exhaustive regimes sold to women today as 'pampering' would need to be re-examined as a possible tyranny rather than a luxury."  Aitkenhead also notes the odd undercurrent of women who consider themselves feminists but also support plastic surgery as a way to create greater self-confidence.  This trend is also commented on by Jennifer Cognard-Black in Ms. Magazine who notes advertisers use of the word "choice" as a way to appeal to feminists.  However, she states,"it's feminists who have led the fight against silicone breast implants when research suggested they were dangerous. It's feminists who have pointed out that a branch of medicine formed to fix or replace broken, burned or diseased body parts has since become an industry serving often-misogynistic interests. ... To say that is 'feminist' is a cynical misreading; feminists must instead insist that a furrowed, 'wise' brow -- minus the fillers -- is the empowered feminist face, both old and new."

It is interesting to read about the struggle between feminism and plastic surgery.  It seems so many women who never thought they could be seduced by the siren-call of a Botox filled syringe are actually drifting toward the rocks. Aitkenhead is right, of course, to mention the slippery slope of beauty regiments used by women.  If I'm willing to whiten my teeth, wax my lip, tweez my brow, what problem could I have with a simple injection? An out-patient procedure?  The problem, I think, begins once those beauty regiments start to reach below the skin.  Once I progress from external, superficial cosmetics to more internal and permanent cosmetics, I think the line is crossed.  And there is a difference.  Aitkenhead also notes the number of women who say they feel more like themselves once the have the surgery: "They commonly complain that their external appearance is an impostor, obscuring the 'real' person they feel themselves to be." Ugh.  Please.  Not that I'm without understanding.  Have I suggested that sometime in the future I may want to fix the excess of skin over my eyes, especially as it loosens?  Yes, I have.  Will I actually do it? I hope not, but I may just have to wait and find out.

But playing into all of this is the media, as is stated time and again in the articles I've just quoted (properly, I hope; no plagiarism here).  I seem to recall a year or so ago, that an agency or department of some sort had decided to issue a new ideal body type for women, using one of the more curvaceous actresses from Mad Men as its prototype (maybe spokeswoman is a better word?).  At first I thought, great, the less we idealize the swizzle stick body-type the better, but then I thought (and maybe it was because the article I was reading suggested it), hey, why do we need an ideal body type?  Isn't this just the other side of the coin?  Most women don't have hour-glass figures, and should they strive to if they don't? Why can't we shake the idea of body image?  I would, just once, really like to go to a mall and not leave feeling like a lump of beige.  I would really like to not notice the sudden prominence of my normally subtle double-chin in a dressing room mirror.  I would love to never need to catch my reflection in glass windows as I pass just to make sure I don't look as awful as I think I do.

Feminism, of course, tried to do away with all of this at one point.  My history with feminism is somewhat ambiguous.  I'm pretty sure no one will ever refer to me as a feminist, but I have benefitted from the women's rights movement -- my life and education are a testament to that.  But, I think my childhood was peppered with negative images of militant "femi-nazis".  I'm not sure how or where the came from, but my impression of them was never positive.  Perhaps part of it was my general, admittedly hazy, impression that feminists despised housewives.  I'm not sure that's actually true.  Of course they fought against women having to be housewives, but I think I believed them far more stringent about it.  My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and she worked hard at taking care of us and the house.  I think she's proud of it.  Being a homemaker was what she wanted, and it made her happy.  So I never understood why there was such a battle over women as homemakers.  Once college came along, my ideas changed (of course, it was college).  Feminism makes much more sense to me now when I think of it dealing purely with equality.  If a woman wants to stay at home with her family, fine.  If a man wants to stay at home, fine.  But there must be equality amongst them in either situation.  Women should be able to reach the same goals as men.  I agree with that wholeheartedly. And I also believe that women continue, in spite of the progress made by suffragettes and feminists over the past decades, to be sexualized and objectified cross-culturally and that plastic surgery plays a role.  It will play an even larger role in the future if the current trends continue.

Furthermore, I'm not sure I really believe that feminism supercedes the kind of female tradition I mentioned earlier largely because that tradition is genetic in part as well as being gender-centered.  While some of what my grandmother taught me may tend to reinforce gender stereotypes, it alse reinforces a strong sense of female community grounded in nurturing traditions. I suppose to many, the systems of table manners and table settings, of hospital corners and pillow shams, of dust-free surfaces and glowing silver seem hopelessly outdated. In our post-modernist, post-feminist, post-colonial world they probably represent old modes of class and gender delineation.  They, those many who may or may not believe this, have a point. But, for me, beyond all of this complicated over-analysis, these old-time niceties represent memories, nostalgia even.

There is one last moment of my so-called "female heritage" upon which I would like to reflect, and that is the practice of imbuing one another with self-worth.  It is that reaction from my mom, after I've had one of those awful mall days, when she reiterates that I look good again: a roll of the eyes and "you always look good! You don't need me to tell you that!" Or my grandma, placing her hands on either side of my face, kissing me, and saying, "you're beautiful."  Equally as sweet; equally as important.  The people who are always meant to say these things and who always do.There is, in those moment, the simple reassurance that someone sees me for who I am. Without fillers, without alterations to my face or body -- people who can look into my eyes (excess skin and all) and know me.  And maybe one day (albeit a slim maybe), I will relentlessly reassure my own daughter that she is beautiful, even if, when she tips her head just so, she sees a slight double chin.


For further reading--

The articles I used:
Aitkenhead, Decca. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/14/gender.deccaaitkenhead
Cognard-Black, Jennifer. http://www.alternet.org/health/63683?page=2
Front, Rebecca. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/19/rebecca-front-cosmetic-surgery-fashion
Rosen, Christine. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-democratization-of-beauty

Articles I perused:
Bolick, Kate. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/
Cooke, Rachel. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/13/gloria-steinem-interview-feminism-abortion
Faw, Larissa. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2011/11/11/why-millennial-women-are-burning-out-at-work-by-30/

Not exactly MLA, but you get the idea.