I’m a Bella stan til I die, but even my absolute angel icon supermodel mommy isn’t exempt from analysis here. We’re in an age of plastic surgery. From lip fillers, buccal fat removal, to BBLs, and with obsession social media, we’re seeing thousands of surgically altered beautiful faces every single day.

This isn’t the end of the world for rational and well-aged brains because they recognise that these gorgeous, gorgeous girlies have more than just good genes going for them, but I am mentally ill and self-conscious, so I need to look exactly like these girls immediately. Will getting fillers help you? How long do lip fillers last? Is plastic surgery ethical? Are facial fillers dangerous? Can it be feminist? Is the concept of plastic surgery damaging for women everywhere? Let’s get into it.

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Q: How can you tell LJ wrote a blog?

A: When there’s a needless definition section ofc!

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We know plastic surgery is, but I’ll define it anyway.

Plastic Surgery: An operation, or invasive medical procedure, to change someone’s physical appearance for cosmetic rather than medical reasons.

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I’m gonna take a sec to be real, I have had cosmetic fillers.

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I went for a visit to a local aesthetic nurse to help sort out my biggest insecurity at the time. Whenever I smiled, the corners of my top lip would curl under and everyone could see my smoke stained gnashers (I was a real mess at age 19, can’t lie).

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Post lip-flip, my aesthetician asked me if I was going to sort out all my other ‘problems’ (which I didn’t know were problems), including the wrinkles on my forehead, puffiness around my nostrils, my ‘obviously ethnic’ nose, under-eye bags, and lack of pronounced cheekbones.

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I walked out of her office 90 minutes later with my face 13mls of filler heavier and my purse £880 lighter. I had plenty of time to think about the situation on my now two hour walk to uni, since I had spent all my student loan and maccies wages trying to de-ugly myself. That’s when I realised that I’d gone against every feminist bone in my body and allowed the multi-billion pound beauty industry to profit off my insecurities.

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I had all my filler dissolved when I was 20. I still stand by it being one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. But sometimes I’ll scroll through TikTok and see video after video of teenagers flying out to Turkey to get their cute lil' button noses or their preventative botox. Putting their primary school siblings onto the anti-aging skincare so they’ll maintain their ''perfect'' skin and honestly it makes my stomach turn. But my stomach doesn't turn out of sickness or disdain for the patriarchal beauty standards that these girls are pouring their life savings into, but out of jealousy. How's that for honesty?

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Social media has absolutely ruined us, really grabbed us by the hair and dragged us through shit. Human beings weren’t meant to see so many beautiful people every day. I genuinely believe that it has warped our ideas of what the average person looks like so badly that I’m watching my objectively beautiful friends get called "mid" by fugly lads who look like they moderate discord servers (-1 slay point to me for knowing what a discord server is, I’m too hot to be knowing these things, I’m sorry). Back to the point, my spiralling obsession with social media has ruined my self esteem and made me dysmorphic to the point where I don’t know what I look like. I just know I don’t look like ✨them✨ but I wish I did. And I know I’m not alone in that one.

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Overall, a lot of the studies I’ve raked through for this article suggest that most patients were pleased with the outcome of cosmetic surgeries and felt better about themselves post-op. This was particularly the case for women who underwent breast reductions. Areas of improvement included self worth, self esteem, shyness and quality of life. But lots of these studies have their flaws, including small sample sizes and potentially biased interviewees, plus lots of these studies looked into very specific procedures and demographics, so don’t have the full picture in terms of data.

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There is a subgroup of people who tend to respond less positively to cosmetic procedures; those of us with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). BDD is characterised by a fixation on an objectively absent or minimal deformity that causes significant distress or impairment in general functioning. It’s so hard to deal with because this disorder makes you believe with absolute conviction that you’re ugly, and according to PMC’s report on cosmetic surgery, most people with BDD found the results of their surgeries to be ‘unsatisfactory’. So if you’re debating whether plastic surgery is an instant fix for that nose bump that nobody other than you can see, maybe hold off.

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A lot of the debate around whether plastic surgery will help you hinges around your reasons for pursuing surgical enhancement. Like if you’ve gone your entire life being picked on for a certain feature and see it as something that is genuinely a source of unhappiness in your life, then wanting to get injected is an understandable decision. But keep in mind that surgery isn’t a cure-all for self-consciousness, and it is very addictive for a lot of people. Once you’ve ‘fixed’ one detail about yourself, you’ll want to ‘fix’ the next. It’s so easy to spiral. In fact, some studies and anecdotes would suggest that this addictive nature of cosmetic surgeries can lead to BDD, which is a hell of a bitch to live with, I’ll tell you that for free. Also if you want plastic surgery to change race (yes that’s a thing), reconsider. Just take a step outside and touch the fucking grass.

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I’m gonna go in point blank, chief. We are far too balls deep into the patriarchy for our choices to exist in a vacuum. I’ve seen plenty of people online say they went under the knife for themselves, not to please men, but where do you think the idea of needing a tiny nose, no wrinkles, and big lips came from? Ding ding ding, you guessed it, men. Plastic surgery rates have grown rampant – with a 22% increase between 2000 and 2020 in the US alone – and feminist actions have been generalised to any decision a woman makes. Our desire to alter the way we look ‘for ourselves’ actually aids in the overall perception of the beauty standard, which has often disadvantaged other women. A big butt, tiny waist, large breasts, sharp jawline, small nose and fox eyes: those are some of the ideals of female beauty that exist today. This results in the increased popularity of cosmetic procedures for those results;  lip fillers, boob jobs, Brazilian butt lifts and nose jobs.

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However, these beauty standards are constantly evolving at a rapid pace — and this is largely deliberate. Corporations make money off the insecurities of people. As long as beauty standards keep changing, companies have new products to market and sell. They convince people that completely normal features like dark circles or wrinkles are wrong and then provide the so-called solution in the form of a product or surgery. We often think that we do cosmetic procedures for ourselves because we are able to achieve what we believe is “beautiful” and feeling beautiful makes us feel good. However, there are outside influences we often don’t think about. It’s strange to realise that what you consider “beautiful” is an image someone else put in your head — but what’s even scarier is that we internalise this image to the point where we think it is our own.

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Some people say plastic surgery is a feminist move because it makes them feel empowered; that going under the knife doesn't mean you can not be a feminist. However, cosmetic procedures in and of themselves cannot be considered truly feminist acts. Spreading the idea that plastic surgery is empowering just makes it more interesting to women. We can start to take it as an excuse to justify the procedures and fix things about themselves that aren't broken. Even if plastic surgery was wholly the women’s choice, it would still not be empowering to all women. The cosmetic procedure industry has created a very high, classist and elitist standard of beauty; one only attainable for people who can afford expensive procedures. If only this exclusive subcategory of wealthy women are able to access the ‘empowerment’ that comes with surgery, cosmetic procedures inherently do the opposite of empowering all women.

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We need to recognise cosmetic procedures for what they are: an extreme means to adhere to current beauty standards. These standards are forced on women by making them feel insecure about completely normal facial or body features. These insecurities are created by companies, men and other women who undergo plastic surgery or heavily filter their pictures. Society imposes near-impossible beauty standards on women; most of which we can only reach through cosmetic procedures. Conflictingly, it’s that same society that is very critical of women getting plastic surgery. While women shouldn’t be ashamed of getting plastic surgery, and getting work done doesn’t exclude them from the feminist movement, plastic surgery in itself is not an act of feminism.

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