Fight Like a Girl, Second Edition by Seely Megan;

Author:Seely, Megan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press

Body Dysmorphic Disorder: “A woman with this disorder sees herself as extremely ugly. . . . Seventy percent of the cases occur before the age of eighteen. . . . BDD sufferers are at elevated risk for despair and suicide. . . . In some cases they undergo multiple, unnecessary plastic surgeries.” (Definition from the National Organization for Women’s Love Your Body Campaign)

Under the Knife

One of the most physically dangerous outcomes of this epidemic of body hatred is the rising popularity of plastic surgery. Plastic surgery puts women under the knife in far greater numbers than men—and more often than not for “beauty” purposes—liposuction, breast augmentation, tummy tucks, nose jobs, and more. In fact, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), women accounted for 92 percent of the more than 15.8 million plastic surgery procedures in 2017.28 The ASPS also found that there was a 127 percent increase in women patients between 2000 and 2017, with liposuction and breast augmentation the most common surgical procedures, and Botox injections, which saw an 876 percent increase in these same years, the most popular “minimally invasive” procedure.29 But is surgery the problem? I am sure that many would say that being able to afford these surgeries and take charge of our appearance—and, in a sense, our destiny—is empowering. Women today have bought into the message that their power lies in their physical bodies and, more specifically, their physical beauty. I don’t think that surgery is the problem per se; rather, the problems go back to my initial argument—the message that as we are is not good enough. We have set an extremely limited standard for female beauty, and, while we have begun to push back against this standard, allowing greater diversity among models and actors, the truth remains that American women are under tremendous pressure to look a certain way. Rather than emphasizing the unique beauty within us all, the media, society, and women themselves have sought to change women’s bodies and appearance through increasingly extreme measures.

With the highly publicized case of the singer Carnie Wilson (who broadcast her procedure on the web), bariatric surgery is growing in its popularity for weight loss, with an estimated 196,000 procedures performed in 2015.30 Bariatric surgery includes varied approaches, including laparoscopic gastric bypass, laparoscopic adjustable gastric band, and sleeve gastrectomy. With a cost of $11,500 to $26,000 per procedure, bariatric surgeries have become a new benchmark in the hierarchy of beauty. And, with an increasing number of stars taking this route, the message that you can never be too thin is clear. While newer bariatric surgeries have lower complication rates than previous procedures, bariatric surgery is hardly a complication-free procedure. Gastric bypass surgery, studies have found, leads to the greatest weight loss but still carries the higher risk. A study by the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery found a thirty-day complication rate of 1.25 percent versus 0.96 percent for sleeve gasterectomies and 0.25 percent for gastric banding.31 Bariatric surgery is one of

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