So I found this to be pretty funny.
A new study has just been released that supposedly “reveals why women have cosmetic surgery.”. Sounds exciting, huh? And, when you see the results, it also looks really scary! So scary, in fact, that even I was fooled until I stopped to read it a second time.
British women are more likely than Americans to have cosmetic surgery to please their partners, according to research published yesterday.
The Aberdeen University study found UK women were often motivated to go under the knife to appear more attractive to their other half. In the US women were more likely to have the surgery for themselves.
The research also revealed that British women were more inclined to keep their surgery a secret from family and friends and were often self-critical of their decision.
Forty British and 20 American women aged between 23 and 52 took part in the study. In interviews with Debra Gimlin, a sociologist, they were asked about their motivation. While the Americans consistently claimed it was for themselves, nearly a quarter of the British women indicated they wanted to make themselves more appealing to a male partner.
Wow, I wonder how this cultural disparity arises? Are American women more “confident” than British women? Are American women just self-delusional? What could it all mean . . .
Wait a second. Does that say that only sixty women took part in the study?
Yeah, that’s right. Apparently sixty women can explain why millions of women undergo cosmetic surgery. Women are just that much alike.
Let’s also just say that if this was a real study with a real test group, it would still be a bunch of crap. It tells us nothing about why women choose cosmetic surgery– it tells us why they say that they choose cosmetic surgery. Self-reporting is notoriously unreliable, and everyone knows it. Yes, it can be useful, or even necessary. But it is unreliable all the same, particularly on a small scale. It gets even more unreliable when questions are left open-ended, or when participants are only given a couple of ill-defined choices. It doesn’t say here what the actual wording of the study was. But of the several articles I’ve looked at on the subject, they have all used the same basic wording– “for themselves” and “for their partners.”
Doesn’t that seem a bit vague to you? “For your partner” doesn’t sound very good. Or, at least it doesn’t sound good to me as an American, who has been raised from day one to believe that self-preservation, independence and selfishness are virtues. The British don’t get quite the same strong capitalist brain-washing. And since when do we make decisions only for one reason? Wouldn’t multiple options, with “choose all that apply” be a lot better? Choosing both “I wanted to increase my self-esteem” and “I wanted to look more attractive to the opposite sex” sounds vastly different than “I did it for my (presumably male) partner,” but in actuality really isn’t all that different, because it’s still about meeting patriarchal ideas of beauty.
In any case, the sensationalism made me chuckle. And I’m sure that the inevitably countless beauty magazine articles about the study will be pretty hilariously sad, as well.
On a related note, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has released a statement denouncing female genital cosmetic surgery. They say that it has not been proven to be safe or effective. Gee, really? Wow. Good to see that they’re only a couple of years late.
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And aside from the small sample size, they interviewed twice as many Brits.
This study is so flawed that 8 year olds would be shaking their heads in shame.
Were the results at least statistically significant?
I’m no mathematician, but I’m not really sure that you could even tell from such a small sample. I have no idea how the subjects were chosen– it’s not difficult to deduce, though, that they probably weren’t chosen very carefully, seeing as how no one bothered to make sure that comparable numbers of American and British participants were used.
The way questions are phrased during an interview has a great deal to do with the response received. I know this first hand as I interviewed over one hundred women in preparation for my book about women’s experiences with Cosmetic Surgery, (especially those of an emotional nature).
Early on in my interviews, one of the questions I posed was: “What motivated you to have Cosmetic Surgery?” Most of the responses I received centered around issues of self-esteem – wanting to improve the way they felt about themselves.
Then I began to ask a more in depth question: “Is there anything in your life that you hoped would change after Cosmetic Surgery.” Thinking about this question helped them probe their thoughts more deeply. Gradually, through their answers, as well as my personal expereinces, I became aware of how much about Cosmetic Surgery relates to sexuality.
Lois W. Stern
Author of Sex, Lies and Cosmetic Surgery
Interesting comment by L. Stern. The “for myself” reason for plastic surgery has always struck me as an evasive half-truth. It is also what american women have been programmed to say.
Even if the study had a sizeable number of participants, I would feel pretty certain, no matter what I was told, that the difference had to do with our extremely different health-care systems. Some cosmetic surgery can be paid for by insurance. And the comment above about the wording of the questions is probably very significant, too.
The sampling isn’t substantive enough to validate a conclusion, have all of these women had the same procedure? Breast augmentation and liposuction are substantially different than a lunchtime Botox injection. Its long been known that a person conducting a study, including interviewers, even the person overseeing the study can bring in bias to persuade the answers they seek.
Its long been known that a person conducting a study, including interviewers, even the person overseeing the study can bring in bias to persuade the answers they seek.
Indeed. And I noted in the post that the study was so tiny as to be a joke. But it has also been long known that a doctor who makes lots and lots of money off of “revealing one’s spirit and beauty” — or, if the pictures are any judge, allowing women to romp around nude, looking young, firm and airbrushed, so as to not offend the eyes of poor men who would be devestated to know that porn isn’t real and females are human — will stand up for cosmetic surgery no matter what the evidence that it’s dangerous and unhealthy.
I’ll take you a bit more seriously once you add some perfect naked male bodies to your site and start performing a single kind of reconstructive procedure. Sorry, the cranky feminist is not impressed.
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