Recently I found myself in the middle of a series of discussion all relating to cosmetic surgery and self esteem. Plastic surgery has been around for years and people have been reaping the benefits of nose jobs, chin implants, tummy tucks and breast enlargement so it’s nothing new.
However, when a friend of mine explained how some women in Korea are getting a particular eyelid surgery that widens the eye to make it appear more “Western” I immediately reacted with a sense of disapproval. Which is strange because I usually thought of myself as a do-what-makes-you-feel good kind of guy when it came to plastic surgery.
So why did I react so negatively? When a woman gets a breast enlargement or a guy gets a tummy tuck its about improving their attractiveness, but those procedures don’t seem to deny a part of who are they are. It’s like in trying to look more “Western” to look better that something must be wrong with looking “Eastern”.
I was a little taken aback, because I naively assumed that in a country to homogeneous as Korea that the population would have a solid sense of identity to resist the global image of beauty pushed by magazines and cosmetic companies and the like. You know, the white ultra thin, long haired, and now I guess wide eyed, waifish beauty with flawless skin and a dazzling smile.
Back home, in the US, this pervasive image of “white/Western” beauty has special significance for African Americans who, except for folks who can pass for white like Wentworth Miller from Prison Break or Jennifer Beals, cannot attain this image because we are not white. Which is why during the civil rights era movements like black is beautiful was so powerful and so important, because the white image of beauty is so intertwined with issues of status and power.
Through the years the black community in America dealt with things like paper bag tests and “good” hair which were used as markers to denote someone as more beautiful or better social standing or potential. Which conversely casts darker skinned and people with textured curly hair as undesirable or inferior without ever directly saying a negative thing to them.
This ties into a recent blog I was reading, Where The Hell Am I, by Expat Jane who has tackled the issue of black hair on her blog.
So the question for me is why didn’t the notion of black women who straighten their hair strike the same note of disapproval that I felt when I heard about the Western eye surgery? Can it be simply a fashion statement or aesthetic look one likes or are black women who straighten their hair denying a part of their blackness? If you change something about yourself isn’t it because you don’t perceive the original state as being as good as the alternative?
I just never thought of any conscious or unconscious reasons why black hair would be straightened or colored other than purely for the look like when someone decides to wear a red shirt today and a blue shirt next week. But if the reason is that people are trying to achieve that standard of beauty, or get as close as they can, then isn’t that off putting?
black women have had to “fix” their hair to be excepted in a white world and even worse in a black world that did not like the way they looked be cause of how they got treated how they saw them selves… yes its the same as getting that change to your eyes but you have an exceptance as who you are there is a culture with your attributes that has status and respect in the world those black women didnot have that it wasnt the in thing… it was to “become” invisible they still do it today its rare to see a black woman without a white womans hair it hasnt gone away i just hope asain people dont get caught up in an amrican headache like us black people have… they 4get why things are done they just do them becasue they have seen it done 4 years
Thanks for linking to me. What a nice surprise.To answer your question. I think it’s the fact that black women have straightened their hair for so long, so it doesn’t really come up. I mean Madame CJ Walker invented the hot comb back in the early 1900s I believe (maybe even the late 1890s).In contrast, this is new to Korea. They’re rich and they’re spending money on looking good and better health. It’s just that when your definition of looking good means looking less ethnic, I do and will always have a problem with that.I do like the distinction of breast augmentation surgery or a tummy tuck. Eye surgery is different as you’re blasting away ethnic features. Slightly bigger boobs isn’t doing that. Carving away your natural eye shape is.