Some Obamacare supporters want to tax cosmetic surgical procedure as a way of helping pay for its costs. I am no fan of cosmetic surgery, but oppose taxing it on principle, as I wrote here.
At the time, I had no idea feminism has devolved into what we could call “Victoria’s Secret Feminism,” which holds that “feeling good” about oneself through cosmetic alteration should be a driving principle of the sisterhood. But that seems to be the case as the National Organization for Women opposes the tax because it wants nothing to interfere with women getting those frown lines removals and tummy tucks. From a column by New York Times columnist Judith Warner:
Yes, standing up for the rights of middle-aged women to have access to cosmetic enhancement is part of the work of contemporary feminism, [NOW president Terry] O’Neill told me this week. It’s the sorry consequence of a number of sorrier truths: The economy is terrible. Middle-aged women, many of whom reduced their working hours, limiting their earning power and ambition, when they had kids or, later, found themselves having to care for their parents, are in a particularly vulnerable spot these days, as they’re increasingly called upon to supplement or take over the lion’s share of family money-making. And any number of studies have shown that people with better (read: younger) looks have a better chance of getting a good job. Particularly women.
Oh yea? Try being a 60-year-old white member of the patriarchy. But bitterness aside, under this theory, women’s cosmetic procedures should be covered by Obamacare. Don’t laugh, that could be coming:
“Looks are the new feminism, an activism of aesthetics,” Alex Kuczynski wrote in the introduction to her 2006 book on America’s obsession with cosmetic surgery, “Beauty Junkies.” At first glance, this seems ridiculous. And yet it says something true enough about the way many younger women understand feminism at a time when organized, real-world activism has hit wall after wall of political impossibility. Sneaker ads teach that feminism is all about taking control — of your figure. This is what happens when equal pay stalls, abortion rights wither, and attempts to improve child care and workplace flexibility die on the legislative vine year after year. Women’s empowerment becomes a matter of a tight face and a flat belly. You control what you can control. And so many middle-aged women feel particularly out of control now, as indeed they are, in these life plan-wrecking economic times.
So rather than resist the meme that female beauty begins to fade at 25, Victoria Secret Feminists promote plastic surgery as an act of female empowerment. I am woman, hear me roar: Susan B. Anthony would be so proud.
December 5th, 2009 | 1:52 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Obamacare: The Emergence of Victoria’s Secret Feminism » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog – http://shar.es/aIwbB [...]
December 5th, 2009 | 3:12 pm
Really, Wesley, you’ve got to stop hanging out with the fundamentalist weenies.They’re contagious.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
What? I am of a certain age that I recall feminism being about overcoming what were deemed sexist requirements and standards of beauty Not it’s about acceding to them? That’s fundamentalist?
December 5th, 2009 | 4:42 pm
Wesley:
Anybody who disagrees with HistoryWriter is a fundamentalist, who is driven by silly religious impulses preventing him or her from operating on the same elevated philosophical plane as HW. HW disagrees with you on this issue, therefore you are a fundamentalist. QED.
December 5th, 2009 | 5:56 pm
First abortion, now cosmetic surgery. “Feminism” seems to be the concept that women are inherently inferior to men and need surgical intervention to become good enough. How that qualifies as standing up for women remains a mystery.
December 5th, 2009 | 9:55 pm
Wesley: “What? I am of a certain age that I recall feminism being about overcoming what were deemed sexist requirements and standards of beauty Not it’s about acceding to them?”
Well, you must have stopped paying attention about the time Madonna had her first hit record. And what I’m thinking of may be considered post-feminist, but women about that time started thinking of their sexuality as a form of empowerment. The women who embraced that seem to be doing pretty well for themselves, whether you like it or not.
But it’s true that talking about voluntary cosmetic surgical enhancement as a basic expectation of national health care is pretty out there. And despite your attempt to propagandize by associating this with “Obamacare,” it’s not a part of any current health care proposal in Congress.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:00 am
padraig: Are you implying that I’m threatened by beautiful, powerful women? I think not: I married one.
December 5th, 2009 | 10:28 pm
I don’t suppose that you’d all consider minding your collective businesses and admitting that women have the power to choose what they’d like to do with or to their bodies. As for Wesley’s fundamentalism, it was the gratuitous jab at Victoria’s Secret that was the giveaway. His script could have been written by someone at Concerned Women for America.
December 5th, 2009 | 11:11 pm
What Christina said.
December 6th, 2009 | 1:40 am
Sheesh, PD and HW. This has NOTHING to do with allowing women to do what they want with their bodies. Wesley didn’t write that women shouldn’t be allowed to get plastic surgery, he wrote (and I agree) that it is anti-feminist for women to feel like they have to get plastic surgery in order to live up to current standards of beauty. Not acceding to that is something that feminism is supposed to be about.
December 6th, 2009 | 4:08 am
Remember when the U.S. feminist establishment worked hard for a ban on breast implants? I do. (No, the feminists’ main concern was not ‘women’s health.’)
December 6th, 2009 | 12:01 pm
Wes: me too, so I wasn’t implying that.
What I was explicitly SAYING is that in associating “Obamacare” with this silliness all you’re doing is using the propaganda technique of association. Just another poison pill being slipped into the health care brew by the neo-cons.
December 6th, 2009 | 5:30 pm
And have it funded by others? I am minding my business — my pocketbook. When you stick your greedy little fingers in that, you forfeit all right to complain about my not minding my business.
December 8th, 2009 | 4:47 pm
Wesley, I like to be able to read your blog at work and I consider the graphic on this post most definitely NOT work safe. I’d encourage you to avoid similarly semi-racy photos in the future.
I’m a longtime reader who loves your work, so keep up the good work. Just a minor request.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I thought about that before putting it up, but it is not that racy. You see more at a beach. And I think it illustrated my point pretty well. But thanks. I try to keep it classy.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact