We’re soft launching super humans and we should be worried about it.
Written by Maria Cairoli
Choice feminism has made the phrase “My body, my choice” into its mantra. It expresses bodily autonomy in a world that keeps attempting to regulate, judge, control, and weaken women’s bodies. According to the so-called choice feminism as upheld by liberal ideals, plastic surgery appears as a legitimate expression of free choice and agency with one’s own body. Cosmetic procedures become a way to enhance one’s confidence and look as one pleases and desires, unaffected by external judgment.
We must remind ourselves, however, that choice does not exist in isolation. Beauty standards, whether we like it or not, are socially determined and constantly, brutally reiterated by social media, advertising, cultural norms, and popular discourse. Youth, thinness, paired with voluptuous curves and Eurocentric features are still undeniably desirable for the vast majority of the female population. The way we contour our faces to appear slimmer; our diets;physical exercises aimed at toning and enhancing our glutes while keeping a flat stomach; the way we tend to shave despite the discomfort it brings; the way we pose in pictures, sucking in our stomachs…these are not neutral decisions. They are our way of adapting to societal standards. Taking these acts to the extreme, an increasing percentage of the population, especially female and increasingly young, choose to resort to plastic surgery to achieve their desired looks. Is it truly because they want to feel better about themselves? Is it truly about confidence? And if so, why do we feel more confident only when we adapt to male-catering and Eurocentric features?
I have spoken mainly of female beauty standards. While I fully agree there is a worrying rise in eating disorders and obsession with one’s looks also amongst young men, the data still shows that, as of today, the social importance of physical appearance is not evenly distributed. Women are still judged more harshly and more frequently on how they look, even in their professional careers. In fact, women who align with conventional beauty standards are perceived as more competent and are more likely to be hired.
Being pretty, therefore, does not just help us in the way we perceive ourselves and the confidence we show in social settings. It is also a form of social capital. People who areperceived as attractive benefit from better treatment in social or everyday settings, and many on social media who have lived parts of their lives as conventionally unattractive and have then undergone a glow up through plastic surgery or extreme fitness programs have shared countless tales with examples of how the people surrounding them treated them very differently afterwards. Research even shows that those who conform to beauty standards earn higher salaries on average.
The first point against the choice feminist principle appears here: by tolerating plastic surgery to such an extreme extent, we reinforce the desirability of the current beauty standards and indirectly impact and worsen the lives and self-perceptions of the women who choose not to undergo—or simply cannot afford—treatments to mould their bodies and faces to fit societal standards.
In fact, accessing beauty requires increasing amounts of money, often entirely unsustainable for the average person. Cosmetic surgery, dermatological and dental care, regular personal training, and time for self-maintenance are all very expensive resources. In times of economic uncertainty, this makes “pretty privilege” deeply classist: wealth allows individuals to invest in their appearance and benefit from the social and economic rewards that follow, creating a vicious cycle.
This intersection of appearance and class may become even wider and more terrifying in the near future. Yuval Noah Harari in his work Homo Deus argues that technological advances are on their way to transform inequality from a social condition into a biological one. Wealthy individuals will not only have more educational and professional opportunities and access to plastic surgery or personal trainers, they will be able to use technologies that enhance their bodies, minds, and longevity. Plastic surgery is an early, normalized form of human enhancement, and a hint of the trajectory it may take.
These ideas were quite revolutionary and speculative when Harari wrote about them, but they are now turning into a reality. Companies are advertising genetic screening and embryo selection services, promising their customers healthier and “optimized” children. Some campaigns like these have circulated widely online and in public spaces (I saw a reel showing a similarly terrifying ad in an airport), and they are trying to make us believe genetic selection is a responsible and desirable parental choice. Physical, cognitive, biological superiority as products for sale.
This may seem like a far, dystopian scenario that has little or nothing to do with your friend who’s begging her parents for a nose job. However, both these mechanisms are commodifying bodies, rewarding conformity to narrow, purely made-up beauty or biological ideals and appearing as empowerment while enticing us to forget the societal pressures that force us to believe we desperately need them to increase our value.
Let’s at least begin to question plastic surgery as it exists today, not by hating the player (if I see one more comment shaming Millie Bobby Brown about her lip-filler I’m throwing hands), but by hating the game, by constantly asking ourselves under which conditions these so-called free choices were made. If this freedom is shaped by class, gender, and unequal access to resources, then the choices are not truly free.