ah, the good old double bind

[hammercock]

Is the ‘Mom Job’ Really Necessary? DR. DAVID A. STOKER, a plastic surgeon in Marina Del Rey, Calif., has a surgical cure for the ravages of motherhood. He, like many plastic surgeons nationwide, calls it a “mommy makeover

Comments

[kathrynt]

I was about to comment on this, that the trifecta is often a tetrafecta. Unless it's done for one of the aforementioned medical reason, the only person who benefits from this is the woman's male partner. It drives me up the wall.

[hammercock]

Yeah, ugh. There are also surgeons who will do this as a "beautification" procedure, which makes me even angrier. "Hey, ladies, your vaginas are ugly! Let us fix that for you!" *spit*

[moria923]

This item struck me the same way. And no, you're not talking out of both sides of your mouth. There really is a difference between doing something for health reasons, which is usually an act of self-regard, and being manipulated by society's attacks on one's self-esteem.

[tigerbright]

What she said.

[hammercock]

*nod* That's what I was thinking...there's a difference between doing something out of self-love versus doing it out of self-hatred.

[quezz]

I lost seventy pounds without any sort of surgery or fad dieting, got to know my body, and for the most part, love it. I'd like to lose some more weight in the future, but right now I'm focused on other things.

I'm disgusted by stories like these that suggest being a mother and going through what women have gone through for thousands of years is somehow unsightly. I'm sick of youth culture what forty-year-old men call women "girls," where women go to extreme lengths to hurt themselves to look younger and skinner, and where women are airbrushed to the point of not looking like women anymore.

I always worry that I am going to be lonely for a long time because I won't give in to that standard. I might be. But I'd rather be lonely than cut up for a false sense of satisfaction and a few bucks in a plastic surgeon's pocket.

[hammercock]

I'm disgusted by stories like these that suggest being a mother and going through what women have gone through for thousands of years is somehow unsightly.

Right. Tabloids make fun of pregnant women for gaining weight and then not being able to lose it quickly enough -- or at all -- and then a large chunk of this society also doesn't want to deal with breastfeeding, either. Heaven forfend that anyone have to acknowledge that breasts have a non-sexual function! Better go feed that baby in the bathroom...doesn't everyone want to eat their meals in the bathroom? *eyeroll*

Maybe all the bodily changes aren't fun, but they're not pathological. I hate the continual attempts to pathologize the female body.

[miss_chance]

So, of course, I'm well tapped into all of the pressures we face as American women about being slender and young. But, interestingly, somehow I have managed to miss any of the "fetishising of motherhood" pressures or messages. You would think that as an almost-40 years old woman who has never shown any interest in having children I would have gotten some pressure, flack, something, from someone, or some media pressure telling me I'm not sufficient somehow for that choice. I guess I'm just lucky. I mean, sure, I've seen the crazy far-right railing against the "willfull childlessness" of some "selfish" women, but that has as much personal impact on me as the people who are standing in the desert, protesting the US Government's treatment of space-aliens

[hammercock]

By the fetishizing of motherhood, I mean more than just whether one feels personally pressured to reproduce. I do want children and my parents have never pressured me about when I'm going to make them grandparents, thank goodness. What I find disturbing are things like the endless speculation over which celebrities are pregnant (if I never hear the phrase "baby bump" again, it'll be too soon), how much weight they have or have not gained, the constant scrutiny of their parenting skills (Britney Spears comes to mind). I'm also bothered by the scrutiny focused on non-celebrity pregnant women, like complete strangers thinking it's okay to just walk up to a pregnant woman and put their hands on her and ask intrusive questions, or to give her shit about whether she's having a glass of wine with dinner, as if being pregnant somehow makes a woman's body public domain. And yeah, the nutbars telling women that choosing not to become mothers is selfish are invited to fuck right off as well. Then babies and baby gear are fetishized in a way that

[lyonesse]

"accepting your body" i think should emphasize YOUR more than ACCEPT. body mod is a big medical help for some (such as you), and a lot of fun for others. the point i think is that it is YOUR (generic "your") body. you accept that it is YOURS. and then you get to do whatever YOU want with it.

i engage in fairly heavy but completely invisible body mod all the time, come to think of it, with the medications and supplements i take. i feel fortunate to have an empowering physician who respects my desires and my input. otoh i would reject a physician who, like mommy-makeover-guy, wanted to put HIS solution on MY body. i think the initiative has to come from the other side.

and that said, i'm so not gonna tell other women what to do or not do with THEIR bodies. they want a tummy-tuck and breast lift, go them. but i might ask them to pause and consider, why do they want this, do they really want it (and the asasociated pain of surgery and recovery) for THEMSELVES?