The Beauty Myth

The “Violence” chapter of The Beauty Myth focuses on elective cosmetic surgery and related procedures such as chemical peels. The author examines subjects in this chapter that include: the relationship between women’s pain and religion; the history of unnecessary surgical procedures on women; medical ethics, historic eugenics and medicine; and the link between the beauty myth and elective cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery is one of the main ways that women fit the Iron Maiden beauty mold.

A French saying, “One must suffer to be beautiful” highlights the perceived connection between beauty and pain (218). The saying is one of many iterations linking women and pain. As an example, Wolf reviews the many possible complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth before the era of modern medicine. Illegal abortions carried their own risks, including hemorrhaging and death caused by blood poisoning. With this, sex, love, and childbirth­—the quintessential women's "labor”—are always tinged with undertones of pain and danger. There are religious undertones to women’s physical pain as well; for example, painful childbirth was God’s punishment for the fall of man.

There are even darker links between elective surgery and medical ethics.