Fake breasts and power: Gender, class and cosmetic surgery. Drawing on on-going ethnographic research with young, white, working class British women who have paid for breast augmentation surgery, this article addresses questions about consumption, class and gender.
It sets out to explore the relationship between agency, identity and the consumption of ‘fake’ breasts and the factors that make cosmetic surgery a meaningful part of a sample of young women's social world. The article attempts to identify how participants use ‘fake’ breasts in order to reposition themselves in terms of gender and class hierarchies. At the same time however, it remains critical of the structural context in which this form of consumption represents either the only or the best strategy through which to attain their goals. In so doing, it aims to contribute to wider feminist debates on cosmetic surgery and agency through a focus on the market and the structural context within which women choose to consume fake breasts.
Personal Rites of Passage and the Reconstruction of Self by John W. Schouten. Surgery as ritual. By TONYA CLAYTON It’s a day almost like any other in the operating room.
A nurse sets up an IV, a technician lays out shiny instruments and an anesthesiologist makes last-minute checks. But patient and surgeon are occupied with less-conventional preparations. The patient, who has come for a new breast, walks in and positions two small rocks and two photographs on a rolling surgical tray. She then sits on the operating table, knee-to-knee and hand-in-hand with her doctor. The%20Real%20Me. 9012773.