Mine and No One Else's

All over the world, women alter themselves surgically as part of their quest to be enough. Cosmetic surgery is considered a very legitimate option in most cultures. Here in the US, we are quite familiar with the idea of tummy tucks and nose jobs and liposuction and breast lifts and implants and Botox. There is a silent accord among women not to judge those who get plastic surgery—they are simply doing what they must to cope with that pressure. Cause all of us feel it. It’s actual pressure, pushing on our stomachs, breasts, noses, faces, trying to get them in and up and out of the way.

Many may argue that they do it for themselves, so that they can feel more confident. But why is it that these women didn’t feel confident enough in the first place? Because they didn’t feel beautiful—a “virtue” to be evaluated by heterosexual men. Now, I’m not saying that women shouldn’t want to feel beautiful. I’m not passing judgment on those that get plastic surgery. I just can’t wait for the day when we don’t feel like we need it.

I, personally, am terrified to get my wisdom teeth out—and that’s something I HAVE to do. The idea of going under and getting cut open isn’t something I handle very well, so a completely voluntary surgical procedure like a face-lift or a tummy-tuck is quite foreign to me.

I was reading a book the other day and came across a passage that I stopped and re-read three or four times. It was a quote from author Inga Muscio’s interview with Somali film maker Soraya Miré:

“In America, women pay the money that is theirs and no one else’s to go to a doctor who cuts them up so they can create or sustain an image men want. Men are the mirror. Western women cut themselves up voluntarily. In my country, a child is woken up at three in the morning , held down and cut with a razor blade. She has no choice.”

Her reference, of course, is to female genital mutilation. When you step back and look at it, plastic surgery is remarkably similar- both require a woman to mutilate her body to fit what society thinks she should be. The BIG difference is that here in the USA, where we have the physical, legal, and fiscal ability to be whoever the hell we want to be, and we CHOOSE to mutilate ourselves. We elect to be changed. We’ve internalized the kind of hatred that is inflicted on little Somali girls in the middle of the night; nobody has to hold us down. Yes, the procedures serve different purposes and have very different end results, but it all boils down to the same principle: “Women, when you came into this world you weren’t how you should be. So change.”

The next time I find myself begging all the magical forces of the universe to make me taller or skinnier or whatever, I’ll take a second to thank my lucky stars that I live in a country where I can have money, a body, and a voice that are mine and no one else’s.

-E