I'm a feminist and I've had a breast enlargement

[smileylottie87]

Phew, thanks to the Mya clinic advert I've just seen I know I can augment my breasts if I wish and still be a feminist. Who knew?!

You can be a feminist and have breast enlargements, but having breast enlargements is not a feminist act.

Aye.

Forget the individual expressing their freedoms with a boob job - pull out the focus to wider society. Normalising surgery (by having it) contributes to the problem that women are valued for their appearance. Look at it objectively - it makes zero sense for women to risk their wellbeing to literally chop bits off, or sew foreign objects into their healthy bodies.

But I've grown up in that society, and truth be told if money was no object I'd have cosmetic surgery tomorrow, because I can't shake the conditioning that I'd be 'better'.

Years ago, my exH tried to convince me to have my breasts enlarged, now he was a grade a knob in many ways but as a much younger woman I did consider it. I saw them as a problem to be fixed.

That was 20+ years ago, imagine being a young woman nowadays, constantly bombarded with this stuff and the underlying message that if you just fix X or Y you will have instant confidence and be happy.

It's not about picking apart individual women's reasons for whatever they choose to do, it's about acknowledging that there is a much bigger picture and that, culturally it is harmful to women.

It’s an uncomfortable truth though - any body modification is done in order to make your body more attractive, and because of the society you live in then what you deem attractive is indeed aligned to the male gaze, that isn’t your fault it’s a combination of psychological and anthropological factors. Because otherwise why do you need pert boobs or slim thighs or an attractive nose to feel good? Why aren’t you beautiful as you are?

(Cross posted with you Wherearemyminions and you said what I wanted to say only you said it much better ! )

I find the references to 'saggy tits' a bit disconcerting to see on feminism board tbh

This is the sort of language used in society that results in women feeling not up to muster

Saggy tits
Bingo wings
Chub rub
Muffin top
Etc etc

It all works together to make girls and women judge themselves and find themselves lacking

Not saying that was the intention of those posters but language has a big impact across society in normalising certain views.

Totally agree FrogsFrogs, It all works together to make girls and women judge themselves and find themselves lacking

Labelling body parts like that defines them as a problem. Once you perceive there is a problem (and it is all about perception), it's a fairly natural response to look for some way to fix it.

@FrogsFrogs

The worst example of that is my ex talking about a girl he had sex with, when he talked about her outer labia he called them ‘large rain flaps’.
I was 20 and quite naive so stayed with him (he turned out to be very abusive after I moved in with him). If now a man I was dating would talk like this about a woman I would run for the hills. Using such derogatory terms to describe women’s bodies reveals a very misogynistic attitude.

FrogsFrogs yeah I used "bingo wings" intentionally. But I take your point.

Also, it's really hard to discuss this because anyone who's had surgery takes it personally.

Normalising surgery (by having it) contributes to the problem that women are valued for their appearance. Look at it objectively - it makes zero sense for women to risk their wellbeing to literally chop bits off, or sew foreign objects into their healthy bodies.

But I've grown up in that society, and truth be told if money was no object I'd have cosmetic surgery tomorrow, because I can't shake the conditioning that I'd be 'better'.

Groggy puts it very well.

This is the way advertising and marketing work it begins as choice and ends in compulsion. No one has a body that is beyond aesthetic assessment, the more people subscribe to the male gaze at one remove the more it impacts on norms which creates more pressure to achieve the required standard.

Also consider the approach to advertising cigarettes to increase the market
'Torches of freedom'

tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/9/1/3

Should a woman who has had to go through a mastectomy have breast implants? What about a woman who had gone through dramatic weight loss / pregnancy which has irrevocably changed the shape of her breasts?

I’m sure nobody would condemn the cancer survivor as being ‘un-feminist’ for having breast implants, yet they might do for the slimmer / mother? All women are trying to ‘restore’ their breasts to a state they had once been, so why is one scenario ‘ok’ when the other isn’t?

Most importantly, how is policing a woman’s body at all feminist?

I think they would find it highly insulting if someone told them they did it to be more attractive to men
About this.
I'm sure they'd find it highly insulting if someone told them that they get nice haircuts, wear makeup and shave their legs for men. Likewise I'm sure their husband would be highly insulted that his Superdry polo shirt was an attempt to cling to a youth much cooler than the one he actually had, he's fooling nobody with that haircut and his Audi is a pissing contest on wheels.

They'd all agree their consumer choices were wise and good value and personal choice etc etc.
I mean, I'd find it highly insulting if you told me that the holiday I'm interested in is partly about me trying to seem more cultured than I am, but the company selling it to me is playing on that point.

We can see that fixed-odds betting terminals in poor areas are predatory, but surely the people gambling away their entire income consider themselves to be savvy consumers too? The libertarian argument is that adults can make their own choices and we shouldn't patronise people by removing choices and telling them it's for their own good. Which makes sense but again when you look at it from a societal or class level, individual choice isn't the driver - unscrupulous bookmakers who know they can make money out of people's gambling addictions are the drivers.

None of us are immune to advertising, and the smarter we get at recognising manipulation, the smarter the advertiser gets in manipulating us.
I wonder if women feeling insulted is partly because in general, women's choices are seen as flighty and silly, emotion-based and illogical, whereas men's choices (who needs a 400hp car to go to Tesco?) are Rational and Sensible and Logical.

So perhaps women are fed up of having their choices questioned, I get that.

Most importantly, how is policing a woman’s body at all feminist?

Who's asked that breast augmentation be banned? I think I missed that.

why is one scenario ‘ok’ when the other isn’t?

For me personally, it's not about the reasons, or why individual women choose to have whatever surgery, it's about the bigger picture. I don't think anyone would condemn either of the theoretical women, cancer survivor/weight loss woman. Nor do I think anyone should condemn the woman who just hates a body part and wants to change it, or the woman who feels that she needs to change something to improve her confidence. No one is policing their bodies.

What I have a problem with is cultural factors and marketing combining to plant those seeds of doubt in the first place and feeding those insecurities. The proliferation of ads for cosmetic surgery, the normalisation of it and the over simplistic "quick fix" to what may be deep rooted problems is what I worry about because it is harmful to women and girls.

@FlyingOink very well said.

This is nothing to do with feminism, but why is it always male surgeons who seem to do all the breast implant stuff, I have only seen these ops done on TV though.

I'm sure we all fall short of perfection in some aspect of our lives, don't we? I hate people having unnecessary cosmetic surgery but I don't associate that with feminism, just a general idea of not wanting everyone to look the same and not wanting people to go under the knife for non-medical issues.