Celebrating Women’s History Month

This week in North Philly Notes, we showcase titles for Women’s History Month. Use promo code TWHM24 for 25% off all our Women’s Studies titles. (Sale ends April 1, 2024.)

Gendered Places: The Landscape of Local Gender Norms across the United States, by William J. Scarborough, reveals how distinct cultural environments shape the patterns of gender inequality

Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors, edited by Sharon D. Wright Austin, examines the crucial role that Black women have carried out in the cities they govern

Solidarity & Care: Domestic Worker Activism in New York City, by Alana Lee Glaser, shows how intersectional labor organizing and solidarity can effectively protect workers in the domestic work sector and other industries

Forthcoming Titles:

Proper Women: Feminism and the Politics of Respectability in Iran, by Fae Chubin, provides an intersectional analysis of Iran’s feminist activism through an ethnographic study of an NGO-led women’s empowerment program (May)

Female Body Image and Beauty Politics in Contemporary Indian Literature and Culture, edited by Srirupa Chatterjee and Shweta Rao Garg, initiates a much-neglected and much-needed discussion of the politics of Indian women’s body image and self-identity (May)

Refounding Democracy through Intersectional Activism: How Progressive Era Feminists Redefined Who We Are, and What It Means Today, by Wendy Sarvasy, theorizes a useable radical past for intersectional activists today (June)

Is what happened to Linda Evangelista an anomaly?

This week in North Philly Notes, Samantha Kwan and Jennifer Graves, coauthors of Under the Knife: Cosmetic Surgery, Boundary Work, and the Pursuit of the Natural Fake, write about the potential perils of cosmetic surgery.

Linda Evangelista—an iconic 1990s supermodel—dropped a bombshell on Instagram on September 22, 2021: “I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure.” The procedure is an FDA-cleared “noninvasive body contouring technology” that “freezes and kills fat cells.” It promises to “reduce stubborn fat by up to 20-25% in the treatment areas, all with little to no downtime and no surgery.”

However, Evangelista reported to her million plus followers that the procedure “increased, not decreased, [her] fat cells,” leaving her ”permanently deformed” even after two corrective surgeries. She went on to explain that these complications have “not only destroyed [her] livelihood, it has sent [her] into a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness, and the lowest depths of self-loathing.”

Responses to her Instagram post from other celebrities have largely focused on her “bravery” and “courage” for sharing her story publicly. News coverage of her revelation has highlighted the $50 million lawsuit she filed against Zeltiq.

This focus, however, misses an important opportunity to point out that for millions of people who undergo cosmetic procedures each year—of which the overwhelming majority (92%) are women—the experience of undergoing and living with the results of cosmetic surgery isn’t always a cake walk. In fact, our research with women who have gone under the knife for cosmetic reasons reveals that surgery can involve lifelong physical and emotional challenges. Even when women frame surgery as a success, many still struggle with their postoperative bodies.

For example, women in our study who had breast augmentation—the fifth most common cosmetic surgical procedure in the U.S. according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons—reported a number of ongoing problems, many of which only revealed themselves with time. These included implants hardening, rupturing, sagging, and wrinkling. This is consistent with an FDA report on silicone-gel filled implants stating that complications and adverse outcomes increase over time and that women who have breast implants will need to monitor their breasts for the rest of their lives. Some also reported chronic back or shoulder pain, with some sharing that ongoing pain or discomfort even deterred them from performing activities they once enjoyed such as running.

Others revealed a permanent loss of sensation or feelings of numbness, tingling, and itching at the surgical site months or even years after surgery. Stubborn surgical scars, which many anticipated but some underestimated, were another source of consternation.

Fluctuations in weight also sometimes led to the dissipation of satisfaction. There were accounts of breasts that appeared disproportionately large after weight loss, as well as accounts of breasts being larger than what was desired after weight gain.

These disappointments with both the look and feel of one’s body ultimately mean that women have to manage their postoperative bodies. Management comes in many forms including revision surgery, the use of makeup and clothing to hide scars and body parts now deemed undesirable, and emotional work to address body anxiety or even feelings of regret. In her Instagram post, Evangelista openly admits to having undergone two revision surgeries and highlights the emotional toll and ensuing emotional work she has done to recover. Moreover, fans and the media alike have noted that she has been covering her face and neck in photos in recent years, clearly an effort on her part to hide the “deformity” caused by her procedure.

Evangelista’s very public experience with CoolSculpting and the emotional fallout she has experienced may seem like an anomaly. Yet her experiences mirror the experiences of thousands, if not millions, of women in America who in the wake of cosmetic procedures must use a variety of physical and emotional management strategies on an ongoing basis. While popular media coverage tends to showcase procedures, like Evangelista’s, that go dramatically wrong (think Botched) or to celebrate supposedly over-the-top success cases (think The Swan),for many women, post-surgical life is neither. Instead, regardless of the results, it is a lifelong process of body negotiation and management.

Evangelista’s experience also gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves what it is that drives women from all walks of life to undergo drastic procedures that frequently require long term management? Why do they do it despite stories like Evangelista’s that are splashed across the frontpage?

Simply put, beauty remains a central feature of femininity, and a beauty imperative rewards women who comply. Women who meet—or at least attempt to meet—overwhelmingly unrealistic beauty standards are rewarded with psychological, social, and economic gains, while those who do not miss out or are penalized. It is long past time that we begin to sincerely question the cultural and social structures that put pressure on women to undergo potentially dangerous, and sometimes unsuccessful, procedures in the first place. Only when beauty is dethroned as a defining quality of successful womanhood will we have fewer experiences like Evangelista’s.