A friend of mine who is college educated considers herself to be a feminist. We’ve had a fair amount of discussions on social and gender issues and for the most part I find her to be an intelligent, interesting woman. I disagree with a lot of her opinions but more often than not she can discuss her opinions rationally and logically. No matter what your take is on life, this goes a long way in my book.
Now then, she has breast implants. On one hand I like to think that one is not related to the other, but I always have this nagging voice in the back of my head that she’s a raging hypocrite and if she really was the feminist she thought she was, she would never have had the procedure done.
I think it would boil down to her motives for the implants. If she got implants because she likes them then that is in accordance with feminist principles. If she got implants to make men like her more/treat her better, then, that would seem, to me, to be contrary to feminist principles.
And if she got implants to make men stutter and drool on themselves while talking to her, so she can mock them, that would also seem to be soundly feminist.
I don’t think she’s a hypocrite. How is wanting to be pretty against femminist doctrine (whatever the heck that might be)? Would you consider her a hypocrite because she spends more than $12 for a haircut, wears contact lenses when glasses would do, or gets her nails done? It’s all the same to me.
Why does this bother you? Are the implants grossly huge?
Only if she mocked other women that had them before she got her own.
Feminism is about empowerment and equal rights and a stay at home soccer mom with 36 FF implants can be a feminist if she got them because she thought they make her look good and goes to Billy’s games because she wants to and not because it’s expected of her.
But if it boils down to what she likes, then if she got implants because she likes men looking at her tits / likes men to ask her out, then wouldn’t she still be a feminist?
I think the obvious question here is “What do you think feminism is?” My initial response is “no.” Feminism in recent decades (it’s called Third Wave feminism) has focused a lot on these kinds of issues. The general message seems to be that yes, it can be a feminist thing to make yourself as attractive as you want to be because it’s about how you feel, not about whether other people are responding to your looks. The ‘doing it for yourself’ part is important. I hope this makes sense, I do think I have the right idea. Sounds like other posters are saying the same thing.
Personally, I think this school of thought sometimes gets shallow and self-deluded, but none of that makes your friend a hypocrite.
OK, so my response was way too short. What I really meant to say is…
You can’t really put feminism in a nutshell. But in a nutshell, it is about women enjoying the same degree of self-determination and social privilege as men (along with the same responsibilities). There’s nothing that says you can’t be as sexy or feminine if you want, as long as you aren’t compromising your ability to make your own choices for your own life.
There are many schools of thought, of course, but I think the above is the one that currently enjoys the widest degree of legitimacy.
Secondarily, with regard to personal hypocrisy of your friend, she’d by a hypocrite only if she had ever spoken against implants for feminist reasons.
But would she if she had moved on from one of the previous feminist waves to the current one, i.e. if she had changed her position? Men do that - it’s part of their self-determination, or, if you prefer, one of their social privileges. Why can’t women too?
I’m not really understanding how being a feminist–that is, being someone who believes in equal rights and opportunities for all women to pursue whatever it is that fulfills them–is incompatible with having a breast augmentation procedure. Does that nagging little voice that says she’s a hypocrite by any chance also say that real feminists are grim, humorless, asexual (or man-hating) beings who eschew curling irons and makeup?
Of course the charge of hypocrisy should only be applied to one’s present position, not every position that one has ever held in her entire life. Unless, of course, it seems that her present position often seems to shift to justify whatever she happens to be doing at the moment.
1.) Not everything women do to make themselves look attractive is directed at men. Even heterosexual women like to look good for themselves and for their friends.
2.) Even if it were done to make men drool, what difference would that make? There is a big difference between wanting to attract attention and/or sex and wanting to be thought of as NOTHING but a vagina on legs.
–I knew her pre and post procedure. It wasn’t a reduction. She got implants, like the title of the thread states.
–They are not comically large now.
–My view of feminists is not one of asexual, haggard looking women.
My view of feminists is however, also not one, that would place such importance on looks as to go to drastic measures to change them. I’m not a huge fan of cosmetic surgery in the first place – sure, you have the right to do whatever you want, it just seems silly to me. I can understand the point that she wants to look more attractive and did it for herself, etc. That’s fine.
I guess I started this thread the wrong way – this isn’t so much specifically about the woman I know, I am more wondering what people thought about ideas of feminism and plastic surgery. I do understand the whole side of “it’s your body, you choose” and 'make yourself feel better". But, has the school of thought that says “You are buying into the patriarchal ideal of beauty and demeaning yourself” gone away on this issue?
It doesn’t matter what any of you think feminism is. It matters what the woman thinks. If the woman thinks that feminism is about not living up to men’s expectations, that’s one thing. If she thinks its about equal treatment in the workplace, that’s another.
My intital reaction is that she was using the label ‘feminist’ to cover up for some aspects of her life that she was dissatified with (i.e. her perception of her apperence). Over time she justified the feminist views to herself.
Again as stated the term feminist runs the gammit, and it’s tough with out a detailed definition of what she means by it.
If so, I suspect it goes beyond being a hypocrite, but lying to herself.
Disclaimer :This was my humble O given the very brief OP, your H.O. may vary (and if so it wrong :p)
In order to look better, she had to have some criteria or benchmark for what “better” is. I think the problem mouthbreather (and I) have with this is that the round-breasted, ultra-feminine female form (i.e. Barbie dolls, Pamela Anderson, etc.) is a cultural and societal ideal perpetuated mostly by men through the media.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I always thought that a major part of feminism was breaking away from the aesthetic standards set by a so-called “patriarchal society.” That’s where the contradiction lies.
