The Beauty Industries

A multi-billion dollar economy is built on our insecurities about the size, shape and appearance of our bodies. The leading Beauty Industries--fashion, cosmetics, weight loss and cosmetic surgery--realize greater profits the more dissatisfied we are with our appearance. It is hardly surprising then that these industries spend millions of dollars promoting beauty ideals that are almost impossible to achieve. Our continued failure to live up to such ideals virtually guarantees that we will continue to invest our money (and our hopes) on the latest miracle diet, “slimming” garments, or “age-defying” creams and potions.

Fashion and cosmetics

Weight loss and plastic surgery

Ask yourself

Films and readings

Fashion and Cosmetics

Corsets, bustles, push-up-bras, control-top pantyhose: each designed to discipline and “perfect” the female body. Of course, clothing fashions change along with changing standards of female beauty. While corsets and bustles emphasized impossibly small waists, broad hips and large posteriors, today’s fashions often emphasize large breasts and flat, toned mid-sections. But what does fashion have to do with the way we feel about our bodies? What can a critical analysis of fashion tell us?

Fashion trends can tell us about gender relations in a given society at a particular time.

For instance, women’s fashions shifted from the restrictive full-length skirts and tight bodices of the 19th century to the shorter split-skirts advocated by women’s rights campaigners at the turn of the century to the skin-baring “flapper” dresses of the 1920s. We can see that as some of the social, economic and legal restrictions on women began to ease, women’s fashions became less restrictive. It is worth considering, however, whether at some point more revealing and more form-fitting fashions for women become almost as oppressive to women as the corsets and bustles of earlier eras.

Fashion and fashion advertising can shape the way we feel about our bodies.

When fashions are designed to suit the tall, thin frames of supermodels, it is unlikely that the majority of women will be able to live up to the ideals they see on the catwalks and in the pages of fashion magazines. Some studies have even found that women and girls who are more frequent readers of fashion magazines have poorer body image (Harrison & Cantor 1997). With this growing awareness of the ways the fashion industry contributes to the lowered self-esteem of girls and women, in 2006 the organizers of the Madrid fashion week banned overly thin models from participating. While spokespeople for the event said that they simply wanted to avoid promoting the unhealthy, anorexic or “heroine chic” look, representatives of top modeling agencies in America expressed outrage over the move, which would exclude many of their top earners from the event. There is hope, however: organizers of similar events in Italy are said to be considering such bans.

We spend more time worrying about fashion than about more significant political, social and even moral and emotional issues.

It is not a coincidence that in America an emphasis on female thinness developed in the 1920s, just as women won the right to vote and started to make their way into previously forbidden territory—like university classrooms, professions and elective office. Perhaps because many in the culture felt threatened by women’s new freedoms, new standards of bodily beauty developed, standards which encouraged women to spend more time on their wardrobes, makeup and body shape and less on education, career and political activism.

Likewise, the cosmetics industry promotes impossible standards of flawless beauty while suggesting that natural features such as “fine lines and wrinkles,” freckles and even pores are unsightly. This fuels self-doubt and self-loathing among consumers, making us more willing spend our hard-earned cash on products to hide our countless “flaws.”

As Naomi Wolf points out, we spend $20 billion dollars a year on cosmetics (1990: 113). That’s enough to pay for

2,000 women’s health clinics;

33,000 battered women’s shelters;

400,000 four-year university scholarships;

200,000 vans for safe nighttime transport;

1 million highly paid child care workers; or

1 million home health aids for the elderly.

In other words, instead of buying the latest powders and potions in hopes of attaining airbrushed perfection, we could be improving the health, safety, education, career opportunities and security of women across the nation.

Fashion, cosmetics and men

Since the beginning of modern advertising, the fashion, cosmetics, plastic surgery and weight loss industries have primarily targeted women. In recent years, however, these industries have set their sights on men as well. Many cosmetics companies now carry men’s lines consisting mainly of skin and hair care products but also “fragrances” and assorted “grooming aids.” (Of course, they can’t call these things perfume and makeup!) At the same time, men’s fashions are more aggressively marketed with images of muscular male models with chiseled abs, often in sexually suggestive poses.

Is the selling of unrealistic bodily standards for men in some ways a positive development for women? Does it suggest that women and men are finally equal? Jean Kilbourne in Killing Us Softly 3 says “No.” This is not a positive development for either men or women. Rather, we can see this as an attempt by the Beauty Industries to boost profits by instilling insecurities in men as well. But Kilbourne notes that the beauty industries may not be as harmful to men as they are to women, because our society tends to judge men more on their achievements than on their appearance."90 percent of [American women] think they weigh too much. On any day 25 percent of women are on diets, with 50 percent finishing, breaking, or starting one." Naomi Wolf (1990:185)

Weight loss and plastic surgery

These days our society seems to suffer from makeover mania. Countless television shows and magazine stories focus on transforming individuals from the outside in. Weight loss and “toning,” hair cuts, hair color and makeup, wardrobe changes, and even plastic surgery have become the staples of today’s mass mediated makeovers. Such stories and the accompanying “before” and “after” photos provide the audience with powerful messages. They imply that:

Anyone can dramatically change and improve their appearance if they have enough willpower.
Such transformations will be more successful with professional help. We need to purchase the services of personal trainers, diet gurus, plastic surgeons and other beauty professionals.
And, perhaps most importantly, makeovers do not simply change a person’s appearance: they change one’s outlook and one’s self-image. The implied promise is that a makeover will make you happier and more confident, and lead you toward greater professional, financial and personal success.

This promise—this idea that a thinner, more toned, more beautiful body is just a purchase away—is the lifeblood of the weight loss and cosmetic surgery industries.

Americans now spend more than $40 billion dollars a year on weight loss products and programs. 90 percent of American women consider themselves overweight, and almost half of them are dieting (Naomi Wolf 1990: 185).

Ironically, contrary to the diet industry’s promises, the majority of people who diet will gain back any weight they lost within 1-5 years, and will actually gain additional pounds as well. Researchers suggest that crash diets and chronic on-again-off-again dieting cause our bodies to adjust to these self-imposed periods of “famine” by slowing down our metabolism and more efficiently storing fat. In a sense then, dieting can actually lead us to gain weight, thus making us more likely to diet again, gain more weight, and diet yet again. While this is good for the profit margins of the weight loss industry, it can take a serious toll on our health. Extreme weight loss regimens can lead to side effects ranging from bad breath to organ damage and, in the most severe cases, even death. While diet gurus seem to suggest that thinner is always healthier, recent research suggests that moderately overweight people are in better health and have greater life expectancy than those who are underweight.

Americans spend an additional $15 billion each year on cosmetic surgery (Kuczynski 2006). And the number of patients and procedures is rising dramatically Since 1997, the number of liposuction procedures has increased 111%; “tummy tucks” are up 147%; and Botox injections have increased by an astounding 2,446% (Kuczynski 2006: 10). As the industry has expanded, so has the range of procedures on offer. In addition to the more well-known “face lift,” “nose job” or breast enlargement, patients can now undergo vaginal or labial “rejuvenation” procedures or even acquire fake bullet scars to give them street cred.

In Beauty Junkies (2006), Kuczynski points out that the cosmetics surgery industry in the United States is only loosely regulated, and because it is so lucrative it can attract unscrupulous and under-qualified practitioners. Under current federal regulations, anyone with an MD can perform cosmetic surgical procedures—whether or not they have been trained and board certified on any particular set of skills. Some states allow even those who did not complete their medical training to perform such surgeries. And the results can be devastating—disfigured bodies, paralysis, chronic pain, infections, and even death.

Even for those who do not get such procedures themselves, cosmetic surgery can have pernicious psychological effects. That is, as increasing numbers of celebrities, models and public figures undergo such procedures, the beauty standards shift even further away from the natural body toward more artificial, more unattainable norms.

Ask yourself…

Why is it okay for women to dress in mensware-style suits, but utterly unacceptable for men to dress in skirts, lace or anything considered “feminine”?

Which is more oppressive to women? Victorian era corsets, full skirts, bonnets and gloves OR the pressure to wear low-cut form-fitting shirts and tight ultra-low-rise jeans?

How much time do you spend each day on your clothing and makeup? Compare this with the amount of time you spend on significant social issues such as poverty or prejudice.

Have you ever noticed how many women’s cosmetics these days are made to look and smell like food? Women are encouraged to “nourish” our bodies with products such as vanilla sugar facial scrubs, chocolate mousse moisturizers, and coconut body butters. At the same time, women are encouraged to carefully limit our actual consumption of things like sugar, chocolate and butter. Is there a connection between these trends?

What are some arguments for and against cosmetic surgery?

Film picks:

Killing Us Softly, Still Killing Us Softly, Killing Us Softly 3

Flatly Stacked

The Size of It

The Famine Within

Reading picks:

Naomi Wolf (1990) The Beauty Myth

Jean Kilbourne (1999) Can’t Buy My Love

Alex Kuczynski (2006) Beauty Junkies

Lakoff, R.T. and R.L. Scherr (1984) Face Value: The Politics of Beauty, Boston, Routledge.

Summer, C. (1996) “Tracking the Junkie Chic Look."

Harrison, K. and Cantor, J. (1997). "The relationship between media consumption and eating disorders."

Complete list of books and films

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