I hate that breast cancer survivors in particular are trotted out as a “gotcha” example for why women ought not to criticize cosmetic surgery because in my experience breast cancer survivors often are some of the only women given any dignity whatsoever in being given information about the serious risks of breast surgery, and some of the few women for whom this decision is treated with any gravity. This isn’t to say that this is universal, and certainly women who have had cancer treatment- or prevention-related mastectomies are under tremendous pressure to “fix” their extremely stigmatized, newly atypical bodies; often reconstructive plastic surgeons are part of the suite of doctors performing cancer care and a woman may feel pressured to seek reconstruction just because it is an expected part of a cancer treatment sequence and part of showing her proper “recovery”. But woman-focused media, especially peer-created resource networks, about breast reconstruction are one of the few places where I have seen the risks and benefits of cosmetic surgery being discussed at all, and sometimes brutally and honestly weighed. Compare the materials on two very mainstream major American medical association websites: the American Cancer Society’s webpage on What to Expect After Breast Reconstruction and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons’ webpage on What are the Risks of Breast Augmentation? Hint: there is more information in the “after” section alone of the ACS’s pages on considering breast reconstruction than in the entire ASPS material on breast augmentation surgery.
If you’re still confused about the difference between material that respects a woman’s humanity and body autonomy and material that focuses on selling her a solution to the distress she has about her atypical appearance, i.e. material that is woman-focused versus material that is plastic surgeon-focused, compare also the ASPS website about breast reconstruction, which has videos about the “empowerment” of having a reconstruction-focused fashion show, but which does not contain factual information about what it actually feels like for a woman to undergo surgery for and then have breast implants after a mastectomy. The ASPS and The Plastic Surgery Foundation jointly sponsor a page promoting breast reconstruction which does mention some of the serious and life-altering risks of having reconstructive surgery and some of the permanent changes to a woman’s body that occur with mastectomy and various reconstructive techniques; however, the tone is patronizing, referring to surgical nerve damage as merely “unfortunate” and the benefits of surgery being named as “regained wholeness and femininity” and not having to wear a “cumbersome” prosthesis. (Permanent, irreversible nerve damage is less than cumbersome, apparently, even though it can cause severe and disabling chronic pain or other neuropathies, and is one of the most commonly lamented problems with both cancer-related mastectomies and cosmetic breast surgeries. No worries, though, there are plastic surgeons offering peripheral nerve surgery to stop you from feeling anything at all in your breasts should you experience this.)
Respecting women who have been left with so-called disfiguring body changes after medical treatments or surviving accidents, disasters, or violence means respecting that there are medical risks to surgery, that full and total functional restoration of body parts is not technologically possible, and that cosmetic restoration usually actually comes with functional losses. It means recognizing that women may feel traumatized not only by what initially led to their bodies being abnormally altered (like cancer, a disaster, war, or domestic abuse) but that afterwards a woman must face an awful decision in how to deal with being reminded of this trauma through the cruel medium of others’ reactions, a decision that continues to put her suffering body on the line and one that others will condone (or not) based on the very same cruelties pushing her to a decision about surgery. It means at bottom seeing women as full human people with memories and histories who must continue to live in their bodies after a reconstructive surgery, both having experienced their initial trauma and whatever consequences surgery has had for them, neither of which can be erased by the fact that their bodies merely appear aesthetically more pleasing or “normal”. Women live in there, you know.
As @kittyit notes there is something inherently frightening about dealing with an authority figure who believes “you are ugly and i will fix it”; any woman who wants reconstructive surgery has to pass through the literal gloved hands of someone who believes this and who makes a living from magnanimously rearranging the flesh of people that he or she has deemed to be both ugly enough to deserve fixing but also worthy of being restored to the dignity of appearing “normal”. The value judgments these doctors not only make as a matter of daily practice but that they literally profit from are terrifying. Like Kitty I don’t blame any woman (or otherwise female person) who seeks cosmetic surgery or who believes that they really did benefit in some way from it. If you spend a few minutes reading the very pink and very sponsored https://www.breastreconusa.org website it should be clear that it is the medical industries and doctors that are to blame here; they are not only exploiting women’s distress directly but trying to manufacture increased opportunities to be distressed, and trying to make it difficult for a woman to make the decision to handle her distress without surgery.
Women deserve better. Vaguely referring to women who have undergone serious reconstructive surgery as if they simultaneously do not experience any of the negative consequences of these surgeries and what they do experience conveniently vindicates the existence of a predatory industry is disgusting. The female experience goes far beyond factoids and snippets that support the (male) interests of those already in power. I’m tired of female experience being a void that is filled up with projections and suppositions. There is a reality to cosmetic surgery and it is by and large women who have to live it.
