Plastic Surgery
Assignment Three
Xuan Wang
V00823206
November 11, 2014
100A-A01/Tutoria T10
The Influence of Social Factors on People Making Plastic Surgery
Introduction
Commercial plastic surgery is a heated topic in modern society. Newspapers, magazines and academic articles have discussed a lot about it. Commercial plastic surgery which, with a limited amount of audience at the very beginning, used to be a mystery field to the general public, has become more and more popular today. It has become normalized as an individualized strategy to achieve a more culturally dominant feminine or masculine appearance in order to become more successful; thus, many people believe that having plastic surgery will lead to true happiness and self-fulfillment. Both men and women are submitting themselves to popular notions of what constitutes a perfect body based on narrow constructions of ideal bodies depicted in popular culture (Turner 2004). In Canada, the most recent data available show us that women undergo 85 percent of all cosmetic procedures (Medicard 2003). In 2003, Canadian women and men underwent 302000 cosmetic procedures at a total cost of $6654000000 (Medicard Finance 2003). This number represents a 24 percent increase in procedures from 2002-quite a difference in only one year (Medicard Finance 2003). This shows a widespread social phenomenon that many people are willing to use it to reconstruct their bodies.
There are a lot of researches about body and plastic surgery. For the study of body, Firstly, the body concept of constructivism believes that the boundaries between the different groups of the body is a social product rather the foundation of community (Shilling 2003), and the most important point of construsctivism is the meaning and form of a body is constructed. Secondly, the naturalism theorists view the body in a totally opposite state with constructivism, which sees the body as pre-sociality in nature and highlights the importance of biological body, they
Xuan Wang
V00823206
November 11, 2014
100A-A01/Tutoria T10
The Influence of Social Factors on People Making Plastic Surgery
Introduction
Commercial plastic surgery is a heated topic in modern society. Newspapers, magazines and academic articles have discussed a lot about it. Commercial plastic surgery which, with a limited amount of audience at the very beginning, used to be a mystery field to the general public, has become more and more popular today. It has become normalized as an individualized strategy to achieve a more culturally dominant feminine or masculine appearance in order to become more successful; thus, many people believe that having plastic surgery will lead to true happiness and self-fulfillment. Both men and women are submitting themselves to popular notions of what constitutes a perfect body based on narrow constructions of ideal bodies depicted in popular culture (Turner 2004). In Canada, the most recent data available show us that women undergo 85 percent of all cosmetic procedures (Medicard 2003). In 2003, Canadian women and men underwent 302000 cosmetic procedures at a total cost of $6654000000 (Medicard Finance 2003). This number represents a 24 percent increase in procedures from 2002-quite a difference in only one year (Medicard Finance 2003). This shows a widespread social phenomenon that many people are willing to use it to reconstruct their bodies.
There are a lot of researches about body and plastic surgery. For the study of body, Firstly, the body concept of constructivism believes that the boundaries between the different groups of the body is a social product rather the foundation of community (Shilling 2003), and the most important point of construsctivism is the meaning and form of a body is constructed. Secondly, the naturalism theorists view the body in a totally opposite state with constructivism, which sees the body as pre-sociality in nature and highlights the importance of biological body, they
References: Turner, L. 2004. Cosmetic surgery: The new face of reality TV. British Medical Journal 328(7449): 1208-none. Medicard Finance. 2003. Plastic surgery statistics. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from http://www.plasticsurgerystatistics.com Shilling, Chris. 1993. The Body And Social Theory. London; Thousand Oaks [CA]; New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Joanne Entwistle. 2000. The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory. Heyes, C. 2007. Cosmetic surgery and the televisual makeover: A foucauldian feminist reading Featherstone, M. 1982. The Body in Consumer Culture: Theory, Culture and Society. London; Thousand Oaks [CA]; New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Foucault, M. 1978. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction Volume Ⅰ. New York: Vintage.