The Increasing Relevance of Appearance in Society - Essay Example

?The Increasing Relevance of Appearance in Society Cosmetic surgery is one of the fastest growing industries in the world today (Elliott 21). According to a 2011 plastic surgery statistics report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (2011), the number of cosmetic procedures performed increased by five percent on 2010. Regardless of age, gender, or ethnicity, more people are getting plastic surgery than ever before. Plastic surgery first began more than 4,000 years ago, although its purpose was very different from what it is now. When plastic surgery first started occurring, its main purpose was to treat war injuries. It was mainly injured soldiers who went under the knife for reconstruction surgery (American Society of Plastic Surgeons 2011). However, since the late 1980s, the number of patients who desired cosmetic surgery began to spike; today, cosmetic surgery patients make up most plastic surgery patients. Dr. David Hargraves stated that the majority of his work now centers on aesthetic or cosmetic surgery, whereas before the 1980s he mainly performed surgeries for burns victims (Elliott 16). So, why has there been an increase in the number of patients looking for aesthetic surgery? The answer is that society has become more appearance-oriented, and many factors have contributed to this shift of thought. We can clearly see that society has moved towards a focus appearances when we consider how beauty standards have affected our lives. These days, there is a certain beauty standard that people are likely to pursue. To start with, people try to meet this standard for social reasons. Henderson-King and Brooks (134) state that a motivation for enhancing one’s attractiveness through cosmetic surgery is to develop one’s social status. It is a basic human desire to want to look more attractive to others, including one’s partner; this results in feeling a need to undergo cosmetic surgery (Henderson-King and Brooks 134). Not only do people want to look beautiful, but peer acceptance plays an important role in someone’s perspective on cosmetic surgery. People are likely to follow the norms and behaviors of their peer group, and this contributes to someone’s sensitivity to their appearance (Park, DiRaddo, and Calogero 109). For example, adolescents are easily influenced by their peers, who continually have conversations about the ideal appearance. This pressure drives a person to feel dissatisfied with their body. As a result, having a negative image about their body contributes to their thinking about reshaping their bodies through surgery (Park, DiRaddo, and Calogero 110). Also, Henderson-King and Brooks (135) argue that “one mechanism through which the internalization of standards of attractiveness is likely to happen is through the influence of close others, such as mothers, fathers, and friends.” A person’s concern about being attractive is formed by their close acquaintances, as their family and friends keep transmitting messages to them through appearance-focused behavior and attitudes (Henderson-King and Brooks 135). Basically, this behavior is likely to lead to someone to feeling insecure and less confident, and this intrapersonal reason, as well as the social reason, promotes someone to change their appearance through cosmetic surgery. Among several beauty standards, the most widespread one is known as ‘white beauty’. Across the globe, many people believe that white equals beauty. In addition, many people have a perception that white skin will result in a better economic and social status (Hunter 153). Due to these beliefs, many immigrants to the United States, such as Asians, Europeans, and African-American women, are now turning to cosmetic surgery to meet this recognized standard of beauty. This has come to be known as ‘ethnic plastic surgery’. The fact that the number of cosmetic surgeries performed from 2000 to 2008 in the United States for African-Americans increased by 145 percent and for Asians by 290 percent proves that ethnic plastic surgery has become popular (Hunter 153). In New York, there are a growing number of patients who visit their doctor’s office to consult about their desired type of plastic surgery. The majority of these patients demanding specific surgeries, such as eyelid surgeries, nose jobs, and jaw surgeries, that will eventually enable them to look more like an American. Many Asians seem to be obsessed with double-eyelid surgery to makes their eyes rounder and bigger so they can look like a westerner (Dolnick 2011). In Dolnick’s article “Ethnic Differences Emerge in Plastic Surgery”, Margaret M. Chin is quoted as asking why so many Asians in the United States are eager to change their appearance to be more like white people. “You want to be part of the acceptable culture and the acceptable ethnicity, so you want to look more Westernized” (Dolnick 2011). As Chin points out, cultural barriers can have an influence on immigrants in terms of changing their appearances so they can feel accepted and like they belong here (Dolnick 2011). The same situation can be applied for African-American women. Women of color have been craving lighter skin-tones for years. According to Hunter (153), skin-bleaching creams and cosmetic surgery have seen a drastic increase among wealthy African countries. As with many nations such as the United States, there are now many offers for skin-bleach procedures along with a rise in demand for the brighter skin of African American women. Even though some argue that these surgeries are only performed to improve the natural beauty of colored women and not to replace their identities, women who underwent plastic surgery clearly said that they endured the pain so that they could get away from discrimination based on their skin tone (Hunter 154). As the skin-tone of African-Americans seems like a definite obstacle to getting a high-salary job or promoted, they decided to cover up their own ethnicity with lighter skin so that they could get a better job to support their families. This idealized white beauty caused African-American women to have a hard time finding a decent job, but it eventually transformed them into Caucasian lookalikes. These beauty standards are set by various factors that affect people’s lives tremendously. One primary factor that contributes to the creation of beauty standards is the “media” (Park, DiRaddo, and Calogero 110). TV shows, movies, magazines, and newspapers convey social messages about the ideal appearance. These messages have a significant influence on the public’s attitudes toward meeting these standards. Above all else, celebrities have a huge effect on appearance. Celebrities can be found almost everywhere. We begin our day watching TV shows or reading magazines, which we can find at every grocery store and even on the street. These TV shows and magazines have been concentrated more on celebrity issues and entertainment rather than social problems (Jost 249). This easy access to various media forms enables celebrity influences to reach the public more easily and quickly. For celebrities, maintaining their image and beauty is their most basic job as well as the most important job in attaining fame; celebrities continuously put a lot of money and effort into taking care of their appearance. This results in near perfect beauty for celebrities, but it leads to lower self-esteem and body-satisfaction of those who aren’t celebrities. Henderson-King and Brooks pointed out the following in their research: Women who have been exposed to televised ideal-body images are more likely to say they would engage in a variety of methods to alter their body shape and size, including wearing either a padded or minimizing bra to create the illusion of having an ideal breast size; they are also more likely to say they would have liposuction and breast surgery to more permanently change their bodies (135). Celebrities’ artificially enhanced beauty, as Elliott defined (51), makes people want to adopt those appearance standards and feel pressure to meet those ideals (Park, DiRaddo, and Calogero 110). The combination of low self-esteem, low body-satisfaction, and feeling of pressure drives people to seek aesthetic plastic surgery to reshape their original looks. Another factor that has contributed to the rise in cosmetic surgeries is makeover TV shows. There have been now a number of popular makeover TV shows, such as Extreme Makeover, The Swan, and I Want a Famous Face, shown on TV (Elliott 52). These shows provide extreme cases of participants changing their appearance through head-to-toe cosmetic surgery. Contestants on those shows usually have similar characteristics, experiences, or backgrounds. They all show negative attitudes toward life or have suffered from bullying at school, all of which resulted from their appearance. Makeover shows put an emphasis on how someone’s life can be changed after going through a significant makeover. As an example, a nineteen-year-old girl was on the program I Want a Famous Face. She decided to apply for the show to change her life and prepare for her future career. On the show, she had breast implants, lip implants, and liposuction; the results turned out really well. After the surgery, she said that she was satisfied with the result and immediately felt better about herself. She also added that she felt confident in herself and that the surgery changed her life completely (Elliott 57). The participant seemed to imply that changing her appearance was the most effective way to enhance her quality of life. The executive producer of Extreme Makeover, Lou Gorfain, claims that “this show ‘has heart’ because it takes people who are suffering because of their looks and gives them a new lease on life” (Friedman 323). Despite the intent of the program, some critics argue that the show can only be successful because it does not reveal the side effects or risks of plastic surgery and only emphasizes the results and how the contestants’ lives are changed as a result. After watching the show, those who are not aware of serious risks of plastic surgery are highly likely to decide to go under the surgeon’s knife to transform their appearance so their lives can be changed as well. The hope and desire for happiness and better life play a powerful role in leading people to want to change and improve their appearance. Another form of media that affects people’s perspectives on cosmetic surgery is in the domain of newspapers and magazines. Many headlines draw people’s attention to transformations in their looks. When I searched for ‘plastic surgery’ on the New York Times’ website, there was a ton of articles introducing the procedures that would make people look younger and more attractive. Also, there were a number of articles about the relationship between plastic surgery and a potential career, with provocative headlines such as “Plastic Surgery Wooing Patients Hoping To Move Up Career Lander,” “Sometimes, Nips and Tucks Can Be Career Moves,” “Plastic Surgery Could Be the Key To Rejuvenating a Sagging Career,” and “$20,000 Face Buys a New Job” (Elliott 9-10). Since people sometimes skim the titles of articles without looking at the content, these strong words can remain in the reader’s head for a long time. Many articles related to plastic surgery and provocative headlines prove how many people are now interested in enhancing their appearance and are actually turning to plastic surgery to do so. Besides the factors that I mentioned above, the most popular reason for cosmetic surgery is a surge in job openings. A career is one of the most important aspects in life, and people put a lot of effort in building a career so they can be a successful person. According to a survey from Saramin, 66.1 percent of companies that participated in the survey responded that appearance had an effect in the process of hiring new employees. Moreover, 64.9 percent of companies have hired employees who are better looking than other applicants despite their lack of ability to perform the job (Kim). Randy Adams, a 60-year-old CEO of Social Dial, has experienced discrimination based on his appearance. He applied for a company’s CEO position and felt confident that he could attain the job because he thought that he was a much more appropriate person for the job in terms of working experience and qualifications. However, the person who became the CEO of that company was a much younger applicant with fewer qualifications and much less experience than Adams. Adams felt that age was the problem, so he decided to get eyelid-lift surgery to appear better at his next interview. Also, Adams shaved his grey hair off and wore a t-shirt and sneakers instead of a suit and loafers. The result was positive, and he was able to become a CEO of a well-known company (“CEO Randy Adams, 60, shaves head and wears Converse to get job in youth-obsessed Silicon Valley” 2012). There was also an extreme case in South Korea. A young female college graduate tried to get a job right after she had graduated. However, she failed and felt that she was discriminated against because of her appearance. So, she decided to undergo plastic surgery, but the result turned out not so well. Eventually, she committed suicide because she was so discouraged after several failed attempts to get a job (Lee 2011). Discrimination based on one’s appearance, which drove both people to go under the surgeon’s knife, is known as “Lookism” (Salkeld 2011). Due to Lookism in searching for a job and also in working environments, many people put in a great deal of effort to take care of their appearance. However, it is not only job seekers that desire plastic surgery but also experienced workers for a variety of reasons (Elliott 17). There are a growing number of patients looking for cosmetic surgery to make them look younger and more professional. These patients mostly consist of professional workers, including chief executive officers, lawyers, estate agents, and airplane pilots; men and women can equally be accounted for (Elliot 20). Professional workers are now afraid to look older since they believe that older workers are considered vulnerable and less flexible (Hymowitz 2004). The primary reason that these patients visit surgeons is to compete with younger employees. Each year new and competent workers enter into the field. Professional workers who have worked for a company for more than a decade feel pressure to have a younger look and act younger in order to compete with younger co-workers, who are clawing their way up the corporate ladder. Executive Marilyn V. Santiesteban added, “I believe that a professional image should be updated as frequently as a resume” (Elliot 20). One particular female CEO of a company went through over ten plastic surgeries so that she could perform better at her work. Before the surgeries, she felt unsettled as she had seen some cases of layoffs and early retirements. The company had doubts about their working abilities because they were old. These cases eventually sent her to the plastic surgeon’s office, and the results turned out very well. After the surgeries, she became one of the most desirable agents by her partners and also current and prospective clients. She emphasized that the surgeries opened up more opportunities to her at work (Oprah.com 2011). As we can see above, job insecurity due to age discrimination and greater job opportunities drives people to rejuvenate themselves through cosmetic surgery. In order to meet the beauty standards that an appearance-oriented society has created, people undergo plastic surgery in order to enhance their attractiveness. Peer groups and cultural factors that put emphasis on white beauty create these beauty standards. Not only friends and cultures, but the media also plays an important role in forming perspectives concentrated on appearance. Celebrities and makeover shows deliver messages about the ideal appearance. The proof of appearance-based society can be found in the workplace as well. Many workers turn to plastic surgery to receive greater job opportunities and overcome job insecurity. All these factors have contributed to the creation of a society that places such importance on outer appearances and promotes people to use plastic surgery. There is but one remaining question: What are other values that this type of society should pursue? Works Cited American Society of Plastic Surgeons. 2011 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report. 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