Ask a man, and he cannot understand the longing and the sadness that a woman feels, as she flips through the pages of a magazine, or gazes enviously at the models on TV. Wanting to be something that she's not is a feeling that becomes second nature in the life span of the contemporary woman. She thinks how much better things would be if she was thin, if she had bigger breasts, if she had long, flowing blond hair, or if her skin was a different color. Her "flaws" become symbolic of everything that's wrong in life. To her, this unattainable beauty is what could make her worthy of love, and love is the key to happiness. Ironically, this ideal is one that every woman works towards, at all costs to herself, but can never truly fulfill. Even the beautiful are not exempt from the ravages of the beauty myth, a backlash against the feminist movement which has kept women, in spite of their political and reproductive rights, in a position of inferiority. In our society, a woman has nowhere to turn. Made to feel inadequate by mass culture, oppressed and rejected by men, scorned by her competition with other women, and punished by herself, the feelings of failure in the face of impossible ideals are emotions that women must deal with alone, at great cost to their self-esteem.

In magazines, on television, and in daily life, images abound which convey the three worst things that a woman can be: ugly, fat, or old. When women tell researchers that they would rather lose ten or fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal (1), it becomes clear that this is an aspiration to be pursued tenaciously, that eating disorders and cosmetic surgery are means justified by an end. The aspect of the beauty myth's manipulation of mass culture that is most stifling for women is that they are both the perpetrators and the victims of their own oppression. In a world where every woman must struggle with issues regarding her body image, the plight of the beautiful and the plight of the plain are strikingly similar. (2) In the study of self-esteem as a genetic trait, one must observe the dichotomy between nature and nurture. In this sense, self-esteem is an aspect of female psychology which is so fashioned and molded by society and environment, that in terms of "nature", what she inherits is insignificant by comparison.

The issues which influence the development of self-image in women culminate around the advent of puberty and adolescence. Girls at this age have already learned to "overvalue, display, and mistrust their appearance", resulting in a strong need to feel attractive. Measuring up against the idealized norms for their own sex presents a greater challenge for girls than than it does for boys. Girls are socialized to estimate their identity through the indicator of male attention. According to Rita Freedman, " The connection between appearance and worthiness for females can become so deeply ingrained during puberty that it remains throughout a woman's life, making her continuously insecure about her appearance and, consequently, about herself." (3) The factors which prove important at this time in a girl's life, the quality of the parents' marriage, the father's attitude toward women, the mother's attitude toward self-expression and autonomy, and the roles and opportunities provided her by society (4) therefore prove to be an indication of how she will struggle with the challenges of her socialization.

To the female child, her parents' marriage serves as a model of a woman and the man she loves, and is an anticipation of her later attitudes toward both work and love. Depending on the model, she may be either encouraged or discouraged by the prospects of love and marriage. In terms of her father's attitude toward women, it is said that "The admiring sparkle in the eye of the opposite-sexed parent has a great deal to do with what it is like to be a boy or girl, man or woman." (5) His love will serve as a gauge of expectation. Throughout the prepubescent stages of maturation, a girl's behavior is dictated by the basic desire to be loved by both parents. "If she grows up in an atmosphere in which she is valued by both her mother and father, and sees her mother as being valued in all respects by her father, then she will not come to feel later that she is 'missing something' physically or emotionally." (6) Society as an institution is one that a woman enters, seeking the approval of others and fearing rejection and loss of love. "In a context where female inferiority is the norm, women will suffer from a low self-esteem, making them particularly vulnerable to what others think about them." (7) Nevertheless, a certain self-consciousness is justified, in light of the fact that a woman's appearance is probably the single largest determinant of the opportunities that will be afforded her by society.

Some experts assert that the initial blow to a young girl's self-esteem is the realization that she lacks a penis. As a result, she is convinced of some sort of deficiency, and her pride, body, and self-esteem are made to suffer. This turning point initiates a lifelong cycle of vanity, shame, and self-hate, and female beauty becomes a consolation prize for phallic loss. (8) Although something about this theory seems doubtful, there is no question that women, in a society that requires physical attractiveness, will be socialized to comply with their surroundings. They come to know beauty as a quality for which they are awarded hierarchically, not only with employment opportunities and residence, but also happiness, success, social acceptance, and higher self-esteem.

The irony of this invisible hierarchy is that even attractive women are never truly able to profit from the advantages awarded them through physical beauty. Attractiveness is important to women in their everyday social interaction as well as in relationships, and is valued, as a physical trait, more highly in women by both sexes. Men who are attractive seem to profit more from their good-looks, while women, regardless of how they look, find it hard to feel satisfied with themselves. "Social norms of inferiority," says Kathy Davis, "have been internalized to the extent that physical beauty does not bolster a woman's pride." (9) According to Rita Freedman, "Belief in one's own attractiveness can be as hard to achieve as physical beauty itself . . . Women judge their bodies as unworthy of self-love. Many equate what they look like with who they are." (10) In the end, the beautiful woman is never really free from the fear that she will lose her looks to age, or that she is only loved and valued for her superficial self.

Throughout history, beauty and the female body have been equated. A look at the twentieth century progression in the United States would begin with the Gibson girl and the hourglass shape. In the 20's, women modeled themselves after the perky, flat-chested flapper, and in the 40's, business-like, assertive beauties like Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, and Bette Davis were the fashion. Sex symbols and Playboy bunnies burst onto the scene in the 50's, and then thin was in with Twiggy in the 60's. The average weight of the model dropped 23 percent below the average weight of the average woman. As a result, Jane Fonda's ftness and muscle kick became the rage in the late 70's and beyond. (Banner 1983; Lakoff and Scherr 1984; Marwich 1988) (11)

In the face of this ever-changing model, it is natural for women to participate in the act of comparison, even to the point of obsession. To be female is to be presented with an ideal, and to measure your self and self-worth against it. As a result, a woman suffers feelings of self-consciousness, and of being "on display." The shame she is made to feel for her shortcomings is a private emotion that she is forced to endure in silence, perceiving her body as abnormal in shape, size, and appearance. Her flaws and imperfections are cause for a pain that is "of a long, even lifelong duration: rather than the quick prick of the needle, we have the squeezing of the laced corset, the stab of the pointy toe, the asphyxiation of the collar and tie, or the scrape of the razor blade, day in and day out." (12) It is a pain that deteriorates her physically and mentally every day in ways that have, over a lifetime, conditioned her, and imprisoned her, in a familiar shame.

Advertisements for beauty products and liquid diets are successful if they manipulate a woman's fear of aging, gaining weight, or losing control in order to will her into the action of purchasing their product. Communications media, along with the cosmetic and advertising industries, have become a "global culture machine", and are responsible for the establishment of a Western model of beauty and the Good Life that is referred to by women all over the world. (13) "The sociological explanation for the feminine susceptibility to the promises of happiness through body improvement is sought in the sexualization of the female body by the media in order to sell products," according to Davis. (14) In short, mass culture, through cultural icons, media, and the invention of body-altering methods used for discipline, creates a standard control over the body.

The beauty market is a profitable one, with the annual income of the diet industry estimated at $33 billion dollars. The cosmetic industry grosses $20 billion dollars a year, and cosmetic surgery, which happens to be the fastest-growing medical specialty, generates a revenue of $300 million dollars a year. Combined with the $7 billion dollar pornography industry, the beauty business has had a growing economic influence on mass culture over the past century. (15) Within the beauty myth exists a currency system which assigns value to women in terms of a vertical hierarchy, and in doing so ensures male dominance: 'Beauty' is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact. In assigning value to women in a vertical hierarchy according to a culturally imposed physical standard, it is an expression of power relations in which women must unnaturally compete for resources that men have appropriated for themselves. (16) The men behind these economic interests depend on a woman's propensity towards feelings of ugliness to sustain their luxurious livelihoods. After all, if women in contemporary society were all of a sudden able to stop feeling ugly, the fastest-growing medical specialty would be the fastest-dying, and a lot of average doctors would be out of work. (17)

There are many interests in the United States at this moment, both individual and collective, which prosper at the expense of the female population. The consequences for women are both physical and psychological: Liquid fasts have caused at least sixty deaths in the United States, and their side effects include nausea, hair loss, dizziness, and depression. Compulsive exercise causes sports anemia and stunted growth. Breast implants make cancer detection more difficult. Women delay mammograms for fear of losing a breast and becoming 'only half a woman.' The myth is not only making women physically ill, but mentally ill . . . Dieting is a chronic cause of stress in women; stress is one of the most serious medical risk factors, lowering the immune system and contributing to high blood pressure, heart disease, and higher mortality rates from cancer. But even worse, the beauty myth in the Surgical Age actually duplicates within women's consciousness the classic symptoms of mental illness . . . Is it possible that by submitting women to the experiences symptomatic of mental illness, we are more likely to become mentally ill? Women are the majority of sufferers from mental illness by a significant majority. (18) In a pursuit of control over her physical being, a woman in essence forfeits her psychological well-being.

One obvious but powerful example of the devastating manipulations of mass culture is Barbie, and 11-and-a-half inch plastic doll whose unrealistic body proportions serve as "an incredibly resilient visual and tactile model of femininity" (19) which has thus far conditioned two generations of girls in a society which continues to celebrate the discipline of the female body. Barbie, whose measurements would be 36"-18"-33" if she stood 5'9", is symbolic of an impossible cultural ideal towards which women strive with the pleasure of control and mastery. While few women live up to the standard, a majority compare themselves to it and to the women who do. The impossibility of this ideal influences them and how they view themselves: Having been taught that feminine beauty means having full, softly rounded breasts, women judge themselves against this standard. Missing the mark, they put on padded bras or suffer silicone implants. As flat chests disappear, reality is replaced with a replica, and the truth of the myth is confirmed. Myths thus function as self-fulfilling prophecy and are therefore dangerously self-perpetuating. (20) When women replace their flaws with the ideal, the standard seems real and attainable. Flaws are indicative of a lack of responsibility to physical betterment, and become socially unacceptable.

As a result, women are willing to go to great lengths to fulfill their perceived responsibility. Naomi Wolf indicates that, "If we take the high end of the figures, it means that of ten young American women in college, two will be anorexic and six will be bulimic; only two will be well. The norm, then, for young, middle-class American women, is to be a sufferer from some form of the eating disease." (21) On a given day, 25 percent of women are on diets, and 50 percent are finishing, breaking, or starting one. (22) Anorexia nervosa is a mental illness to which women are dangerously susceptible, and one for which there is only a 50-60 percent chance of recovery. Five to fifteen percent of hospitalized anorexics die in treatment, giving it the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. (23)

Anorexia is characterized by a fear of growing and maturation, and can be a negative response to the onset of puberty. Anorectics have difficulty accepting their sexual identity, and by starving themselves, seek to maintain the childlike qualities that are glorified by society. Food becomes representative of fat which is a symbol of pregnancy, or fertility. Anorectics suffer from amenorrhea, an interruption of the menstrual cycle, which is further evidence of a rejection of femininity. Calvin Klein's "Just Be" campaign is an example of the pressures to be thin, even to the point of poor health. His models have certain qualities in common, including an emaciated physique, darkly-circled eyes, a milky-white, glossy complexion, and a generally strung out appearance. Today, there is a systematic rejection of the maternal, fertile look, and an emphasis on independence. These advertisements are particularly disturbing as social factors. They portray sickness and drug addiction as fashionable and desirable, and encourage the rising incidence of various forms of the eating disease.

Like Cinderella's stepsisters, victims of this disease cut at themselves, trying to fit a mold. They are in search of an elusive love affair, for which they are desperately wanting. Women who suffer from anorexia, bulimia, or bulimarexia are often blamed for their weakness, although they are in truth the victims, the casualties of mass culture.

Bulimics are characterized as "hardworking perfectionists, trapped by the need for achievement and the desire to remain attractive." (24) This disease affected 20 to 30 percent of the female college population in 1981, and has only become more prevalent. These women die, from mental illnesses which often stem from their simultaneous desire and fear of men: None of the women in this study had ever experienced a satisfying love relationship in spite of their attractiveness and high intelligence. All longed for one. Most were virgins . . . These women have already learned a passive and accommodating approach to life from their parents and their culture. This accommodation is combined with two opposing tensions: the desperate desire for self-validation from a man, and an inordinate fear of men and their power to reject. (25) In an attempt to take responsibility and control of her desires, she becomes one of the progeny of the delusions of the beauty myth.

In our recent history, women have made great political progress, achieving power, scope, legal recognition, and financial prominence beyond what they have ever had before. At the same time, "eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing medical specialty." (26) Despite her progress in breaching the power structure, the modern woman feels worse about herself physically than her unliberated grandmother: Reproductive rights gave Western women control over our own bodies; the weight of fashion models plummeted to 23 percent below that of ordinary women, eating disorders rose exponentially, and a mass neurosis was promoted that used food and weight to strip women of that sense of control.. Women insisted on politicizing health; new technologies of invasive, potentially deadly 'cosmetic' surgeries developed apace to re-exert old forms of medical control of women. (27) In the face of indisputable progress, women have indeed taken a step backward.

Women are challenged by society's conception of age, fat, and ugliness as diseases which are undesirable and "curable". It benefits doctors to look upon what is natural not as a cosmetic issue, but as a disease, thereby manipulating the ideas of health and sickness. Both the Victorian and the modern medical systems look upon pregnancy and menopause as diseases, menstruation as a chronic disorder, and childbirth as a surgical event. (28) The medical term for menopause, a natural process in a woman's lifetime, is "estrogen deficiency disease". Hair products are advertised as "treatments" and "therapies", and wherever a woman looks there is a "cure" for her particular ailment: According to [Carole] Spitzack, the physician's clinical eye functions like Foucault's medical gaze; it is a disciplinary gaze, situated within apparatuses of power and knowledge, that constructs the female figure as pathological, excessive, unruly, and potentially threatening. This gaze disciplines the unruly female body by first fragmenting it into isolated parts--face, hair, legs, breasts--and then redefining those parts as inherently flawed and pathological. When women internalize a fragmented body image and accept its 'flawed' identity, each part of the body then becomes a site for the 'fixing' of her physical abnormality. (29) Women are thus systematically conditioned to a process of looking for and locating their flaws, for which they must consequently learn to compensate.

How can one make sense of the popularity of cosmetic surgery in light of all its possible complications? There is the ever-present liability that women who elect to have cosmetic surgery may emerge from their transformation worse off than they were before. Specifically, the many risks include disfigurement, and with breast augmentation either encapsulation or "gel bleed". Encapsulation occurs when the body reacts by surrounding the implants with hard tissue. It is a painful condition and often results in the removal of the implants. Even more serious is the less common occurrence of "gel bleed", which can impair a woman's immune system permanently, leading to arthritis, lupus, connective tissue disease, respiratory problems, or brain damage. (Walsh et al., 1989; Wiess 1991; Goldbum et al. 1992) (30) At the point that women turn to cosmetic surgery, they have suffered so long and so deeply from their superficial imperfections, that the risk of a chronic disease is one they are more than willing to take.

Behind their pain, of course, is mass culture and consumer capitalism, along with technological development, individualism, and the belief in the makeablility of the human body. (31) Cosmetic surgery is a painful and dangerous solution for problems that are rarely life-threatening and seldom evoke physical discomfort. Its popularity is a reflection of the desperate need that women feel to correct an appearance, or one part of themselves, that ruins the rest and comes to represent "everything that's wrong" in life.

Through interviews with surgical patients, Kathy Davis determined a common reasoning behind their choice. Women do not see cosmetic surgery as an opportunity to be beautiful, but rather a way to become more ordinary or "normal". Whatever it is about themselves that deviates from the standard set before them by mass culture, is just a devastating to their sense of self as having a chronic illness, or a debilitating accident. Also, cosmetic surgery is a way to renegotiate their relationship with their bodies and through their bodies to the world around them. Their actions are defined by the act of facing their fears head on, overcoming opposition, and exercising the right not to suffer. Their choice reflects a concern not with beauty, but with identity, and is a way to exercise power under conditions not of their own making. It is about morality, about when suffering has gone beyond a certain point. In essence, cosmetic surgery is a way for a woman to acknowledge her problem, and to do something about it. (32)

For women, this search is meaningless. In trying to gain control over their own bodies, they are merely extending society's patriarchal influences to themselves. This can be seen as the ultimate victory for mass culture and the beauty market, when a woman blames herself for her shortcomings and feels obligated to correct them: 'Beauty's pain is trivial since it is assumed that women freely choose it. That conviction is what keeps people from seeing that what the Surgical Age is doing to women is human rights abuse. The hunger, the nausea, and surgical invasions of the beauty backlash are political weapons. (33) Indeed, these political weapons are used against women and their self-esteem, forcing them to take dangerous measures to abate the pain of perceived failure.

Genetically, a woman who is naturally blessed with the intelligence to step back from the beauty myth and see it for what it is, has sidestepped the greatest dangers to her self-esteem. It is obvious that the effects of mass culture on women and how they view themselves are, in a lifetime, trying to a dangerous and even fatal degree. In a society where the self-esteem of women is constantly and covertly under attack, women with high intelligence and a strong sense of self stand the best chance of survival, and even prosperity.

1) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 10)

2) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 42)

3) Freedman, Rita. Beauty Bound. Lexington Books, Lexington, MA and Toronto, 1986. (pp. 130-131)

4) Kreuger, David W. Success and the Fear of Success in Women. The Free Press, New York and Collier Macmillan Publishers, London, 1984. (pp. 74)

5) Kreuger, David W. Success and the Fear of Success in Women. The Free Press, New York and Collier Macmillan Publishers, London, 1984. (pp.75)

6) Kreuger, David W. Success and the Fear of Success in Women. The Free Press, New York and Collier Macmillan Publishers, London,1984. (pp. 63)

7) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 43)

8) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 44)

9) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 42-43)

10) Freedman, Rita. Beauty Bound. Lexington Books, Lexington, MA and Toronto, 1986. (pp. 23)

11) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 41)

12) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 41)

13) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 10)

14) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 48)

15) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 17)

16) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 12)

17) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 234)

18) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 229-230)

19) Swedlund, Alan C. and Urla, Jacqueline. "The Anthropometry of Barbie: Unsettling Ideals of the Feminine Body in Popular Culture." (pp. 278)

20) Freedman, Rita. Beauty Bound. Lexington Books, Lexington, MA and Toronto, 1986. (pp. 14)

21) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 182)

22) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 185)

23) Freedman, Rita. Beauty Bound. Lexington Books, Lexington, MA and Toronto, 1986. (pp. 155)

24) Freedman, Rita. Beauty Bound. Lexington Books, Lexington, MA and Toronto, 1986. (pp. 160)

25) Carmen, Elaine and Reiker, Patricia Perri. The Gender Gap in Psychotherapy. Plenum Press, New York and London, 1984. (pp. 177)

26) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 10)

27) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 11)

28) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 222)

29) Balsamo, Anne. "On The Cutting Edge: Cosmetic Surgery and the Technological Production of the Gendered Body." (pp. 208)

30) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 28)

31) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 28)

32) Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body. Routledge, New York and London, 1995. (pp. 163)

33) Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. Anchor Books, New York, 1992. (pp. 257)

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