The Power of Looks

THE POWER OF LOOKS

Dedicated to the memory of Skippy

The Power of Looks Social Stratification of Physical Appearance

BONNIE BERRY Social Problems Research Group, USA

© Bonnie Berry 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Bonnie Berry has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Berry, Bonnie The power of looks : social stratification of physical appearance 1. Physical-appearance-based bias 2. Social stratification 3. Aesthetics I. Title 306.4'613 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008922738

ISBN 978-0-7546-4758-4

Contents Preface Acknowledgements

vii ix

1

Introduction

1

2

A Brief History of Social Aesthetics

17

3

Two Types of Appearance Power: Economic and Social Networks

23

4

Minority Statuses, Inequality, and Social Aesthetics

33

5

Alterations: Making Our Appearance More Suitable

51

6

The Media, the Economy, Globalization, and Other Forces Associated with Social Aesthetics

65

7

Methodologies: The Means to Understand Social Aesthetics

75

8

Theories: Explanations of Social Aesthetics

83

9

Animal Aesthetics: An Illustration of Symbolic Interactionism

99

10

Transforming Social Aesthetics: Accommodation and Rebellion

109

11

Conclusions

119

Appendix: Field Notes from Seattle Street Laborers’ Interviews

127

Bibliography

131

Index

141

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Preface As a sociologist, I come to this stage in my work after a long history of examining social inequality. Earlier topics on inequality that I have investigated include my work in criminology and crime control. I have found, as have many before and after me, that those with less social power, usually meaning less economic power, are more subject to control (often punishment in some form) than those with greater socio-economic power. Socio-economic power, as the reader knows, greatly overlaps with other measures of power such as race and ethnicity, gender, age, (dis)ability, nationality, and sexual orientation. Beyond studies of criminology, race, and other minority issues, my investigations of inequality have addressed, for example, human rights as contrasted with non-human animal rights. The occurrence of social inequality crosses many lines of sociological study and I have devoted my life to its understanding. This book is about inequality and social stratification based on physical appearance. Social stratification refers to layering within a society along any number of variables. Usually, we think of stratification in terms of socio-economic status, which technically is defined by the combined education, occupation, and income of individuals, and is more commonly referred to as class. We are also, simultaneously, hierarchically arranged by the variables mentioned above: race and ethnicity, gender, age, ableness, nationality, sexual orientation, and other traits. These traits greatly influence our socio-economic status, with non-whites, women, and other power minorities having less access to economic power than members of the power majority, such as abled white males. A variable that influences our place in social strata and that has not been treated academically as much as the above-mentioned characteristics is physical appearance. The variables already mentioned (race, age, gender,and so on) intertwine and all influence our “place” in society. The same is true for an examination of stratification by appearance. The portrait of the attractive person is white, tall, thin, with Northern European features, free of disabilities, and young. Attractive people are far more likely to proceed up the social ladder of socio-economic stability if they are not already safely ensconced there. Even though I understand well the phenomenon of social inequality, I remain intrigued, if not puzzled, by the purpose and the mechanisms of inequality maintenance. My befuddlement was one of the prime reasons I chose to advance this line of inquiry. We can say that inequality serves the purpose of maintaining an unlevel playing field which thus limits competition. We can say that inequality allows for relatively guilt-free exploitation of, for instance, non-human animals for our own uses. We can say that inequality serves the economic elite, which profits from inequality in all forms. But when we stop and think about it, stratification-on-purpose, even if it has a basis in reasoning, is social dysfunctional and cannot stand the harsh light of day. It is undeniable that men have more power than women, that whites have more

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The Power of Looks

power than non-whites, and that other hierarchical arrangements are about denial of power to some, while others have unquestioned but highly questionable power. These arrangements, however, are nonsensical in that men are not actually superior to women, whites are not superior to non-whites, and no other social category is innately superior to another. Racists, sexists, ageists, ableists, and other “ists” seem to disagree that one category is not superior to another; they want to retain their viewpoints, their policies, and their practices related to sexism, racism, ageism, ableism, and other “isms.” The same social behaviors and attitudes apply to appearance bias. Those with less than optimal appearance face prejudice and discrimination. Those expressing this bias use “explanations,” such as, it is their own fault that they look the way they do, they are not as qualified as the more appearance-acceptable, and they deserve to be denied access to avenues of social power (education, employment, marriage, and friendships). To help make sense of social stratification by appearance, the social scientific explanations for how the more commonly discussed stratifications (by socio-economic status, race, and so on) came about and why they are retained will be described in this book. These explanations are helpful in understanding the phenomenon of stratification and, eventually, in changing the phenomenon through social awareness (for instance, education and grassroots activities), social movements (such as civil rights), and legal changes (anti-discrimination policies, for example). In 2007, my book Beauty Bias was published. Naturally, I encourage the reader to consult this book if she or he prefers a more popular approach to the topic of physical appearance. Beauty Bias is an intellectual book, as is this current one, but it did not address the theory and methodology of social aesthetics as I will do here. Thus, this book is a more academic treatment. The Power of Looks also has a more international scope, surveying the manner in which different cultures view and respond to physical appearance traits. The literature relied upon is academic textbooks and journal articles, popular press books, and news articles. It is essential to utilize a mixture of sources to explain the phenomenon of public reaction to physical appearance, since the examination is relatively new and there is not a large accumulation of scientific literature on the topic. It is additionally essential to use this wide range of sources, since popular sources do offer a meaningful, if not scientific, glimpse into what is considered beautiful and not beautiful, how people are discriminated against depending on their appearance, how we cross-culturally view and respond to people based on their looks, and the many appearance-changing practices (notably plastic surgery) that we undergo in order to be globally acceptable. In any case, my intention for engaging in this research is to share with the public, academic and otherwise, my findings on a neglected but important phenomenon— societal reaction, positive and negative, to what we look like. The hope is that my findings will not only enlighten the readership about this form of social inequality, but also propose social change toward less inequality, regardless of its basis. Bonnie Berry Gig Harbor, Washington November 2007

Acknowledgements Allow me to express immense gratitude to my friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and, for that matter, total strangers for their kindness and support. Many have stuck with me through this time of intense preoccupation. Some have offered expert advice, some have offered perspective, some have offered equally valuable friendship. Among those who deserve credit for the success of this project are the folks at Ashgate Publishing. Caroline Wintersgill, Mary Savigar (formerly of Ashgate and now moved on), and Neil Jordan have proved themselves above and beyond editorial duties. They have been patient with my many questions; more importantly, they have been encouraging and have granted me the freedom to do my best. Because of them I am able to present to you what I hope to be an intelligent and cogent view of the topic. The street laborers of Seattle, who were kind enough to allow me to interview them about their experiences as beggars, performers, and vendors, were quite gracious with their time and answers. Not only were their responses to my questions enlightening (startlingly so), their openness and kindness was much more than I had anticipated. They added an important insight to this work and I trust that they know that. Also, my many academic friends and colleagues are credited with making this project possible. I mean that literally. Without them, it wouldn’t have happened. They have provided me with ideas, sources, and alternative interpretations. Among those who have been especially helpful are: Joanne Belknap (University of Colorado), Sue Schweik (University of California at Berkeley), Earl Smith (Wake Forest University), Angela Hattery (Wake Forest University), Stephen Muzzatti (Ryerson University), Denise Paquette Boots (University of Texas), and Paul Longmore (San Francisco State University). I am blessed to be surrounded by many loved ones who have supplied warmth, friendship, entertainment (even when I don’t deserve it), and strength. My mom, sisters, and niece have, as always, been there when I needed to talk. Blue and Misery, my animal companions, never let me down and love me unconditionally no matter what, as I do them. Finally, my partner and best friend, Peter Lara, has remained steadfast throughout. He is more than I had ever wished for.

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Chapter 1

Introduction Turning the page of the newspaper, I saw the double full-page advertisement, in color, for a department store. The picture was of four people, one woman and three men. They were extraordinarily attractive, white, young, and apparently financially successful. The woman was lounging on the hood and windshield of a mint-condition vintage convertible Mercedes, wearing a short dress which was well above her knees and with her long blonde hair flowing over the top of the windshield. The three men, all showing perfect white teeth, were casually but elegantly dressed. In the back of the Mercedes was a beautiful wooden canoe, spotless and shiny. The setting was idyllic. The people were in a wooded area with a very inviting lake behind them, apparently about to enjoy an outing in their canoe. What this advertisement has to do with the goods sold at the department store that sponsored it is not immediately clear. It will be by the time you have read very far into this book. To get ever so slightly ahead of myself, we, the viewers of the advertisement, are supposed to believe that if we buy our clothes at this store, we will be like the people in the advertisement or perhaps that we will have the chance to associate with them. Mostly, we want to be them. We are not. Globally, most of us are not white, many are not young, few are so financially secure, and almost none of us are anywhere close to being so physically attractive. The chances of the people in the picture representing the public, at whom the advertisement is aimed, are small indeed. The advertisement gave me pause because, having studied the phenomenon of social reaction to physical appearance for almost a decade, it is abundantly clear that we are all aware of the things I will describe in this book and yet we continue to be inundated with the same social messages about appearance. We know, for example, that attractive people have social advantages that unattractive people do not have. They gain access to social power, be that power economic or more purely social, because of their looks. We know that we are bamboozled by economic forces, such as but not limited to advertising and the media, into believing that we should strive to be as attractive as we can be. We know that beauty standards have an arbitrary, superficial, restricted, and false nature to them such that, for instance, whites with Northern European features are generally considered more attractive than those of other ethnicities and features, that tall people are considered more capable than short ones, and so on. We know all these things and more. But the visual images of what we should be and, for the most part, cannot be, affect us. We accept these visual images as valid representations of what we should be. There is not a backlash against, or even a serious questioning of, the artificial socially arranged hierarchy that creates social alienation on a scale that rivals if not exceeds other forms of social inequality. This

2

The Power of Looks

form of social stratification, moreover, exacerbates the “isms” that we are more familiar with and have begun to deal with: racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and culturism. Unlike our dealings with the other “isms” (racism,and so on), the social awareness we have of appearance bias is shallow, infantile in its development, and mostly acceptable as a given and unchangeable form of inequality. Social Aesthetics When first beginning this project, I spoke of the topic as “social aesthetics,” by which I meant to describe public (social) reaction to physical appearance (aesthetics). Admittedly, the term, while it has a nice ring to it, is somewhat vague. After all, conceivably, social aesthetics could refer to a social reaction to any kind of aesthetics (the design of ink pens, home remodeling, and so on). A more precise term might be socio-personal aesthetics, since I am attempting to understand the social reaction to personal aesthetics (an individual’s physical appearance). I will use both terms and beg the readers’ indulgence. Regardless of what we call it, the phenomenon about which I am writing is fraught with stratification, bias, and discrimination. In this way, social aesthetics falls under the broad category of social inequality and the inherent problematic nature of socially imposed inequality. Being short, fat, plain, wrinkled, visibly disabled, and so on is not truly the problem. Social bias is: social bias against people, based on their looks, inhibits social functioning at its best. Social stratification has been mentioned in the Preface and has a prominent place in the title to this book. All societies stratify along a number of dimensions, be those dimensions income, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, region, and so on, with the chief outcome being a layering of categories of people with greater and lesser social power. Hierarchies by themselves are not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. For example, to rank order people by height in order to arrange a photograph is socially meaningless. But when height is used to deny employment, with tall men (in particular) granted employment privileges that short men and women are denied, we have bias. Bias exists against the less-than-physically ideal. Throughout this book, I will describe the appearance traits considered ideal and, conversely, less than ideal. As mentioned, appearance bias shares many of the same features as does bias against other disenfranchised groups, such as minority races, women, the poor, the differently abled, and the not-young. Indeed, as we will see, appearance bias overlaps with racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and ageism. Appearance bias against the nonideal goes beyond attitudinal prejudice and unkind remarks. The consequences are real when they impinge upon income, medical care, educational opportunities, and access to social networks. As I have mentioned in Beauty Bias, looks-bias refers to bias against people based on their physical appearance. Looksism in practice has severe to mild social and economic outcomes. Usually, looksism is hidden and unknown, not unlike other “isms,” such that the victim may not be given the real, true, honest explanation for unequal treatment. Although, and this is an important point, occasionally we are told

Introduction

3

that we are rejected from jobs, dates, and other means of access to power because of our looks. When this happens, it is a clear indication that the rejecters think it is appropriate to claim appearance as a sufficient reason for denying equal treatment to the less-than-desirable. Probably more often than not, we are not told the truth about our rejection but are given an explanation much more palatable and much less sueable, such as “you’re just not as qualified as the other applicants.” To date, looks-bias is largely unmeasured and mostly anecdotal. To some extent, it is unmeasurable because, as just mentioned, we are not told the real reasons for denial of employment, healthcare, housing, friendships, dates, and so on. And certainly, the deniers (landlords, health insurers, employers) are not usually going to freely and openly admit to their prejudices and their discriminatory practices. Nonetheless, bias is present in a number of social contexts, from hiring to airplane seating to the higher prices charged for plus-size clothing; and these forms of bias are measurable. Even when looks-bias is measurable and documented, the problem then becomes what to do about it. Legal recourse is one approach to righting wrongs, education is another, grassroots awareness-raising is still another. Clearly, though, looks-bias, as well noted by others besides myself, is the last vestige of legal and mostly socially acceptable prejudice and discrimination. For the remainder of this chapter, I will address the alienating effects of appearance bias (isolation, invisibility, social expectations, mediated anxiety, and impossible binds), the social meaning of beauty (the beauty “ideal”), the false and real choices to undertake appearance changes, the various body parts that receive our social attention (skin, eye shape, height, weight, and so on), and the temporary nature of appearance. Following these discussions is a brief description of terminology and a brief overview of the chapters. Alienation and Appearance The enactment of socially established beauty standards can be a source of alienation. If we fail to live up to these standards, if we are plain or (worse) unattractive, we are not uncommonly made to feel excluded and socially rejected. The standards for acceptable looks are supermodel-high, unrealistic, and unrelenting. While the plain and unattractive are frequently stigmatized, even the attractive can be stigmatized if they are not attractive enough. By sheer numbers alone, even the most common looks, one would think, would escape stigmatization, since they are common. But they do not escape. Isolation To get an idea of how this stigmatization is experienced in a real way, consider the words of disfigured author, Lucy Grealy. Grealy wrote of growing up as a child with jaw cancer and specifically identified the source of her unhappiness “as being ugly” (Grealy 1994: 126). She wrote: “When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like” (Grealy 1994: 177).

4

The Power of Looks

People with visible disabilities are viewed similarly to people who are unattractive; in fact, the disabled are sometimes viewed as the unattractive by virtue of their disability. In any case, the disabled are relatively socially isolated. They are marginalized economically, educationally, and romantically. They are less likely to complete high school or college and far less likely to gain employment. When they do get jobs, they are paid less than the abled. Their social isolation has been reduced due to changes in structural accessibility, such as ramps, Braille instructions on menus, and so on. However, despite some improvements in accessibility, people with disabilities are still far less likely than non-disabled Americans to go to restaurants, movies, concerts, sporting events, churches, or stores. They are twice as likely to live alone. Those who grow up with disabilities tend to marry later, if they marry at all. Disabled women in particular marry and form families significantly less often than non-disabled women or even disabled men. Over the past 20 years, “these conditions have improved modestly or not at all, and in some areas such as earnings things have actually gotten worse,” so writes Paul Longmore, a differently abled professor of history (Longmore 2003: 20). Is this social isolation due to health issues and restricted physical access? No, or not entirely. After I read his book, I asked Professor Longmore if marginalization and social isolation could have anything to do with the physical appearance of the disabled. Certainly the absence of physical access affects isolation. So does the confusion that the abled experience when assimilated with the disabled. Given the poorly understood status of the disabled, the abled are often unsure of what to say or do when in contact with the disabled. Real physical barriers and unwelcoming social attitudes affect isolation. But the physical appearance of disability per se plays a role in the disabled’s marginalization. Much of the initial bad reaction to a disability may be due to the visible artifacts of the disability. Society at large may be put off by the obvious signs of disability: the wheelchairs and other accoutrements, missing parts, and prostheses. There are also social aversions to an unusual gait, facial grimacing, and so on. Not to be dismissed are the temporary versus permanent cues of the disability, such as paralysis or a motorized chair (signaling permanent disability) versus a leg cast or an arm sling (interpreted as temporary disability), with permanent disabilities being less “forgiven.” And there is the location of the disability as it pertains to visibility and thus public reaction, with the face being the most obvious place we focus our visual attention, and with disfigurements of the face receiving especial focus. Disabilities that are not visible may be far less targeted for prejudice and thus are not so isolating; witness the deaf Miss America. Heather Whitestone, Miss America of 1995, was as beautiful as her fellow contestants and was able to participate in all the pageant rigors (the talent contest, and so on). Her deafness, in other words, did not affect her physical appearance. The pageant, moreover, in its attempt to demonstrate inclusiveness (very likely a superficial and false sense of diversity acceptance) may have singled out Miss Whitestone as the prize winner because she is deaf (BanetWeiser 1999). Besides deafness, other invisible disabilities include asthma, heart conditions and other internal organ ailments, chronic fatigue syndromes, and sometimes blindness. When I asked Professor Longmore particularly about the visibility versus

Introduction

5

invisibility of disability as related to social marginalization, he responded that 70 percent of people with disabilities have non-apparent disabilities. These invisible disabilities, including learning disabilities, many psychiatric disabilities, mild cognitive disabilities, epilepsy, diabetes, and arthritis, become known only in certain circumstances. The invisibly disabled have to deal with issues of “passing,” voluntary and involuntary disclosure, skepticism, and “bad faith,” with the latter term referring to the observer sensing that she or he has been deceived by the disabled. So long as the public does not know that a person is disabled, the social stigma and isolation are kept at bay. “Disclosure,” however, “often triggers discrimination” (Longmore 2006). (In)visibility As to the visual nature of looks, we know that primates, including humans, are visually oriented. We do, in fact, judge books by their covers. Nina Jablonski writes: “Today, humans are not just visually oriented; we are visually obsessed. … appearance has come to assume an overwhelming primacy. The first impression that we read from a person’s appearance … carries inordinate weight; it contextualizes and guides our subsequent interactions, often unconsciously” (Jablonski 2006: 142). As the reader can surmise, visibility is a significant theme to the study of social aesthetics. One way to flout appearance stigma, the negative public reaction to visible physical traits, is to be invisible. Isolation, socially imposed or self-imposed, ensures invisibility of the unattractive. While an advantage in the sense that unpleasant social attention can be avoided, the isolation and invisibility reinforce the socially unacceptable nature of unattractiveness. I have written earlier, in Beauty Bias, about the effect of refusing employment to the appearance-stigmatized (the disfigured, the fat, the short) and concluded that a continuing pattern of employment discrimination ensures that, if they are never seen on the job, society at large would never have to confront the fact that the appearance-stigmatized are as capable as the appearanceacceptable. In the minority of cases where, for example, extraordinarily short people get jobs, we can no longer avoid the obvious: short people are as capable as tall and medium-height people. This isolation-invisibility phenomenon came up again after reading two case histories of men-of-size. One weighed 1,072 pounds before weight-loss surgery and the other weighed 781 pounds until he lost weight also. These cases are not relevant to my usual examinations of size bias because: (a) they are not representative of ordinary people-of-size (that is, these cases represent people-of-extraordinary-size); and (b) they are so hidden from public view that they do not face public reaction to their size (Associated Press 2005b; Montgomery 2005). They cannot and do not leave their homes. They cannot walk, they cannot work, they do not socialize outside their homes. So there is very little public viewing and public reaction. From this, the question arises as to whether the isolation encourages extreme obesity since the extremely fat do not face public scrutiny. Perhaps social isolation, ensuring an absence of the harshly punishing social mirror, allows the extraordinarily fat to escape judgment and interpret their fatness as okay.

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The Power of Looks

We may wonder, similarly, if we would bother to do any looks-improvement, barring health maintenance like brushing our teeth and taking baths, if no one could see us. Would we color our hair, work out, apply cosmetics, or even think about these things if no one saw us? I will write more on this later. Expectations and Alienation Unrealizable expectations to be beautiful for most of us, as imposed by society, creates an anomic state not unlike Merton’s American Dream analysis, in which we are all told that we can achieve whatever we want (wealth, education, and so on) if we only try hard enough (Merton 1938; 1968). The result, when we “fail” to achieve what we are all told we can achieve by our own wits and effort, is an uncomfortable state called anomie, more popularly known as alienation. A sense of alienation can come over us when we realize that we fail to measure up to, if not social norms, social expectations. I differentiate between norms and expectations since, in the case of the topic at hand, norms refer to averageness and we are, most of us, on average, not especially attractive.1 Expectations are an entirely different matter, however. Unrealistic though these expectations may be, we are expected to be thin, tall, attractive, with white Northern European features. What is meant, more exactly, by “expected” refers to the aspirations as put forward in the media, largely through advertisements, but also through TV and movies. The failure to resemble beauty icons (fashion models or movie stars) or even unknown people in newspaper advertisements can leave us feeling inadequate. Ironically, people who are not necessarily attractive themselves expect us to be attractive because, I argue, these unrepresentative images are held up as what we can be and should be. Take women’s body size as an illustration. In the past few decades, the ideal female body has strayed more and more from the average, real woman’s physical reality. About 30 years ago, the typical fashion model weighed 8 percent less than the average American woman. In 1990, she weighed 23 percent less than the average. At the same time, “the average woman’s body size has increased considerably over the past forty years” (Gimlin 2002: 5). The strictures have become more stringent while the reality has diverged farther and farther from the ideal. Here we have a recipe for failed expectations. Sandra Lee Bartky agrees that cultural expectations have shifted progressively away from the reality of woman’s appearance, as well as her accomplishments, with a firm division between what culture dictates she should look like and do and what realistically she looks like and does (Bartky 1990: 80). Interpreting Bartky and matching it with Naomi Wolf’s conclusions in The Beauty Myth (2002), Cecilia Hartley finds that, “as women have claimed intellectual and economic power for themselves, culture has simply found new ways for them to be inferior. … because 1 More accurately, social norms, as discussed in sociology, refer to social rules. These rules can be folkways (the more informal and less penalized rules such as against picking one’s nose in public) and mores (the more formal and more heavily penalized rules such as against murder). Norms, as I have used the term here, refer to averageness or a non-breaking of “normal” or “average” appearance standards.

Introduction

7

women themselves are seen as somehow less than men, their bodies must demonstrate that inferiority” (Hartley 2001: 62). In other words, women (and less so men) will never, if society has anything to say about it, succeed in being as attractive as they ought to be. Women’s accomplishments will be downgraded to less than what they could and should be. Under these circumstances, women’s social power, in short, will be suppressed and their anxiety will be kept at a high boil. Mediated (Read: Encouraged) Anxiety Stephen Muzzatti and Richard Featherstone (2007) describe media-generated fear of crime in their analysis of Washington Post newspaper articles on the serial sniper attacks that took place in the Washington DC area in October 2002. From their study, we may make an analogy to the false impressions and false public perceptions about beauty, as generated by the media (advertisements, movies, TV, magazines, and all visual media). Muzzatti and Featherstone refer to “mediated fear” of crime, with media being the mediator, whose messages increase “public anxiety and thereby heighten the marketability of the story” (Muzzatti and Featherstone 2007: 44). Likewise, we have mediated anxiety about not measuring up looks-wise in a world that consistently blares the message that there are extraordinarily beautiful people in the world, that we can and ought to look like them, and that if we do not look like them, we are less-than-adequate. The mere fact that most people appearing in advertisements are extraordinarily attractive leads to a mistaken sense that most people are attractive and that unattractive and plain people, by contrast, are in the minority. In Muzzatti and Featherstone’s terms, overrepresentation of violent crime by the media makes violent crime seem far more prevalent than it is, thus enhancing the public’s fear of violent victimization. The same is true for beauty. Overrepresentation of beauty in the media leads to a public feeling of inadequacy. Repeated themes, such as supermodel-thinness, celebrity plastic surgery, extreme makeovers, and so on, leave the public with no doubt that beauty is important and anxiety-producing. In Muzzatti and Featherstone’s analysis, mediated fear led the DC public to arrive at strategies for coping with their fear of crime, such as isolating themselves. Mediated anxiety, in my study, can lead to (not just anxiety but also) behaviors such as isolation but also behaviors aimed at beautifying oneself. The reader, I expect, can easily recall advertisements designed to alarm us about anticipated or already-occurring horrors of acne eruptions, “love handles” around the waistline, dimly colored teeth, and any number of other social embarrassments that we want to avoid. Other commonalities in media-generated anxiety are the economic interests involved and the uni-dimensionality of the presentation. Both crime news and visual presentations of beauty (in advertisements, movies, and TV shows) serve the interest of profit-seekers, largely advertisers. Though the real purpose of the media presentations is money-making, the factual result is a constructed image of high crime risk, angst over one’s appearance, or whatever the subject of the media-generated anxiety. Public opinions are shaped by these media presentations and do nothing to reduce the social problem of crime or appearance anxiety; they only aid capitalist

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The Power of Looks

interests. In the case of mediated beauty stories, cosmetic and weight loss industries make money because people become convinced that they need these products and services. Profits are forthcoming from increased viewership and readership due to our voyeuristic tendencies to look at beautiful people and—for different reasons— fat, deformed, disabled people. The media operated as “fear merchants” in Muzzatti and Featherstone’s study, whereas in mine, they act as anxiety merchants. Either way, the overfocus on fear of sniper crime and anxiety about our appearance is deleterious to the public because it caused us to neglect focus on important social issues such as environmental poisoning, poor working conditions, health issues, and the like. Such an emphasis on fear and anxiety, though it sells newspapers, is dangerous for the society, the community as a whole, and individual members of society who succumb to the media messages. Although the advertisers would have us believe otherwise, there are plenty more important things to worry about and be engaged in than physical appearance. As Naomi Wolf (2002) and others have pointed out, mediated beauty anxiety causes people to spend enormous sums of money, time and energy on mostly futile attempts at beautifying themselves, to the neglect of socially significant concerns (Wolf 2002). The Impossible Bind Fashion, it has been said, serves to keep us unhappy. Because fashion changes, otherwise it would not be “fashion,” we are supposed to, in a perfect consumerist world, want the latest, newest, and best. As with fashion, we are made to feel insufficient if we are not supremely attractive. Yet, supreme attractiveness is largely unattainable if one is not born with it, or, if one has it, it is temporary. Yet, we are pressured to look as good as possible and to subscribe to the mantra that “pretty is as pretty does.” This poses a bind for most of us since it is highly questionable whether we have control over particular physical traits, such as our weight, our height, and our racial features. The meaning of the word “impossible” in the context of The Impossible Bind, typed deliberately with beginning capital letters, means two things: (a) not achievable due to biological factors; and (b) we’re-never-happy-with-ourselves-nomatter-what-we-look like. As to the former, the fact of the matter is that mostly our physical appearance is an accident of nature; our appearance is genetic and therefore beyond our control to alter more than in a minor way. Cosmetics, for instance, can only aid in the “appearance of” various flaws, and cosmetic surgery is very iffy as to outcome, as I will describe in the chapter on alterations (Chapter 5). Even for those who are moderately to greatly attractive, we are socialized to be dissatisfied with our appearance to the point that we constantly strive for improvements. The tens want to be ten and a halfs (Singer 2006). Mostly, this book is not about beauty so much as it is about non-beauty and the social reaction to that. We are judged on our weight, our age, our skin color, and so on, and often we do not measure up, depending upon what we are trying to achieve (jobs, marriage, college entrance, dates, friendships, club memberships, and so on). But even beautiful people are judged and do not measure up. Whole societies set

Introduction

9

appearance standards that restrict literally all of us (from access to means of social power). After all, even supermodels age. The Mechanics of Understanding Social Aesthetics The Social Meaning of Beauty Physical appearance affects our place in the world, and at the outset, it is helpful to understand some of the basics of this phenomenon. One basic component of this place-in-the-world-dependent-upon-looks phenomenon is the dynamic meaning of looks. By this I mean that the social value of looks is not static. For instance, throughout history, we have changed our minds about the meaning of body mass. Obesity was once admired but now (in most societies) it is a scourge to be avoided at all cost, to the point that a significant portion of people surveyed indicated that they would rather have cancer or a missing limb than be overweight (Solovay 2000). These shifting and arbitrary definitions are not limited to social values but also are evident in more formalized rules. Marilyn Wann writes that, in the late 1990s, the US government “adopted new, lower cutoff points for ‘overweight’ and ‘obesity.’ The result: ninety-seven million Americans—or fifty percent of us—are now fat. On the day before the government’s ruling, only fifty-eight million people, or onethird of us, were fat” (Wann 1998: 46). As I will describe later, health insurance corporations also have changed their standards for overweight and not-overweight, restricting what they consider to be healthy weight standards and allowing them to charge greater premiums (Roehling 1999). There are reasons for changes of opinion about size, skin color, and other physical features, and these reasons make perfect sense when they are understood and discussed, as I will do. To make things a bit more intriguing and to solidify the point about the dynamic nature of appearance standards, even today, obesity does not mean the same thing to all cultures. African American males and females have long had a different point of view about obesity compared to the viewpoint of American whites. To make things more complicated still, as African Americans become more middle class, their perspectives on obesity have changed to match those of middle-class whites (Bordo 1995). Yet, black Africans in Africa continue to revere plumpness in women (Cauvin 2000). Furthermore, consider the overlap between health issues and looks in terms of the changing nature of looks-diversity and its acceptance. In April 2005, it was reported that being overweight (excluding morbid obesity) is actually healthier than being thin. Specifically, it was reported that people who are moderately overweight live longer than people who are not overweight. This finding has already been disputed and the arguments on both sides have been amply presented in Beauty Bias but, if verified, the finding would be a delight to a majority of Americans and a growing number of Europeans who are overweight. But that does not mean, even if verified, that the stigma of large body mass will dissipate. Stigma, it can be predicted, will continue against fat people even if they are no longer seen as unhealthy; such findings would only remove one aspect of the stigma since sizeists use the health argument

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The Power of Looks

to support their sizeism. There will still be license plate holders messaging “No Fat Chicks.” Health is one issue, looks are quite another. Not only does society determine what constitutes good looks and not-good looks, but parts of society, notably the economic system, play a more subtle, hidden, but crucial role in creating social advantages and disadvantages dependent on appearance, and thus influence the social value and social meaning of appearance. Society also influences how we respond to pressures to be acceptable, by offering us (for instance) diet books and diet pills at the same time as we are offered plus-sized clothing—leaving us to wonder if we should strive to be thin or to proudly accept our size no matter how massive. The Beauty “Ideal” Naomi Wolf writes: “… the ideal was someone tall, thin, white, and blond, a face without pores, asymmetry, flaws, someone wholly ‘perfect’ …” (Wolf 2002: 1). Moreover, speculating on the purpose served by the beauty ideal, she comments that the purpose is often financial: “to increase profits of those advertising whose ad dollars drove the media that, in turn, created the ideals” (Wolf 2002: 33). The ideal also serves a political end: as women grew stronger politically, the ideals of beauty bore down on them more, with the outcome and possible purpose of distracting their energy and undermining their progress. Criteria can shift, become more stringent, as a way of controlling women. Wolf remarks that the beauty ideal is not universal or changeless, but instead is rapidly changing. As examples of how beauty is not universal, Wolf offers examples of how women in some cultures are sought after for features, such as droopy breasts, that we in the West would dislike. By contrast, Nancy Etcoff (1999) writes of the crosscultural agreement about beauty ideals. She finds that not only do people in the same culture agree strongly about who is beautiful and who is not, but that “human faces may share universal features of beauty across their varied features” (Etcoff 1999: 32). People consistently agree about which faces are beautiful, and they find similar features attractive across ethnically diverse faces. In other words, the “role of individual taste is far more insignificant than folk wisdom would have us believe” (Etcoff 1999: 139). There is the well-known mathematical formula dictating which faces are attractive: specific ratios of spaces between the eyes, between the nose and mouth, and between the mouth and the chin determine what constitutes an attractive face. What I would call symmetry, Etcoff refers to as averageness and points out that we find average faces attractive if not beautiful. Symmetry is one ingredient of the attractive face, but, Etcoff notes, it is no guarantee of stunning beauty. Cover girls and supermodels are not average looking but are distinctly beautiful; they have “supernormal stimuli.” Lucy Grealy, the aforementioned author who wrote of her own facial disfigurement, seems to agree with Etcoff. “Beauty, as defined by society at large, seemed to be only about who was best at looking like everyone else,” she wrote (Grealy 1994: 187). Kathy Davis’ (2003) plastic surgery interviewees say something similar. In rationalizing their decision to have cosmetic surgery, they stated that they

Introduction

11

just want to look normal, like other people. Perhaps, but in my work I have found that people undergo cosmetic surgery, sometimes to look “normal,” but more often to be exceptionally good-looking. Average looks are merely acceptable, but supermodel looks are, oddly, expected of us all. Body Parts The importance of the social meaning of various features cannot be overstated, since the physical features themselves are meaningless until meaning is attached to them. Bias against Asian eye shapes, dark (non-Caucasian) skin, and Negroid hair texture are mere overlays. There is nothing inherently good or bad about any particular features. The features themselves are neutral except for the meanings attached to them. Compared to the face, the body can be hidden, thus making the face the more visible, public symbol of good or poor appearance. However, in cultures that value the body as a symbol of sex and gender (particularly the female gender), the body is also very significant. According to Erica Reischer and Kathryn Koo (2004), the body can be thought of as a socio-cultural phenomenon, as a symbol, as an “agent.” There has been much recent scholarship on body ideals and, specifically, the beautiful or perfect body, with the beautiful body being replete with issues of gender, namely femininity. There is much more to be said about bodies and I will attempt to do the topic justice herein. Throughout, I will be discussing the various features that receive societal focus: eye shape, hair texture, foot size, height, skin color, tooth color, and so on. Just as one example, consider here the largest organ of the human body, the skin, which covers us entirely. The skin says much about us and is the recipient of much social judgment. As Nina Jablonski reminds us in her history of skin, “Our skin reflects our age, our ancestry, our state of health, our cultural identity, and much of what we want the world to know about us. People in all known cultures modify their skin in some way, often using deliberate markings and manipulation to convey highly personal information about themselves to others” (Jablonski 2006: 2). We, as societal members, examine our own and others’ many physical features. We judge ourselves and others on them. And we try to modify them as a way of gaining or keeping social power. The Temporary Nature of Appearance Another dimension of beauty criteria is the temporary nature of beauty. All aspects of our appearance are temporary rather than permanent; they are constantly in flux for better or worse. When women become pregnant, their bodies change shape dramatically for roughly nine months. When we experience a temporary disability, an outbreak of acne or cold sores, or any temporary change in our appearance, we notice that we are subject to a changed public reaction to our appearance, or at least we think we instill a changed public reaction to our looks. We experience changes in our appearance that we initiate ourselves, such as when we undergo liposuction. Liposuction can result in a permanent change in our appearance if it is undertaken

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The Power of Looks

only for smallish “problem areas” such as thick ankles or “jodhpur thighs,” or if we change our eating and exercise habits after the liposuction. Cosmetic surgery, cosmeceutical alterations (Botox injections, chemical peels, and the like), and cosmetic use (makeup, hair color, and so on) are temporary changes. People who are not disabled are referred to as “temporarily abled” in the disability literature for good reason: it is assumed that we all become temporarily disabled at some time or other; the remainder of the time, we are temporarily abled. The public reacts differently to us when we are visibly temporarily disabled than they do when we are abled, and the public reacts differently to the visibly permanently disabled than they do to the visibly abled. Choice and Rationality: Being Yourself or Being “Successful” It does matter, but it should not matter, what we look like. In her seminal work, The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf supports “… a woman’s right to choose what she wants to look like and what she wants to be, rather than obeying what market forces and a multibillion-dollar advertising industry dictate” (Wolf 2002: 2). Women and girls are saying no to oppression in the forms of media and other forces dictating us to look a certain way. Many women today “have a sense of a measure of freedom to” dress how they want, gain or lose weight, wear makeup or not, and so on, “without fear that their value as a woman or their seriousness as a person is at stake” (Wolf 2002: 8). At the same time and as a measure of regress, “the latest fashions for seven- and eight-year-olds re-create the outfits of pop stars who dress like sex workers” (Wolf 2002: 4). Wolf addresses the world “Beyond the Beauty Myth.” She asks the very important question, “What is so great about looking young?” (Wolf 2002: 270). The question elicits a new depth of thinking about gender and beauty. For example, if looking young is really about attracting men, then my question is: what is wrong with men that they would demand such a thing? True, youth is something that we are told we should have, in reality or feigned. But to ask what is so great about it begs the real question of why we undergo expensive and sometimes dangerous procedures to appear young. Forgetting expense and medical risk, an equally important question is why we compromise ourselves, men and women alike (with the emphasis on women), and succumb to the futile tasks of being forever and always appearance-acceptable. The answer: we have been convinced, via the beauty myth, that we should do this. The more concrete answer is found in socially punishing forms of lost employment and other lost social access opportunities. Wolf makes it clear that she is not saying that we should shun makeup (grooming, working out, and so on). She recognizes, as does Kathy Davis (2003) and most people who study the social aesthetics phenomenon, that we gain and lose social power depending on our physical appearance. In an eye-opening passage in Wolf’s book, she explains the sense of threat posed by women with power. Actually, only sexist men and women are threatened by women with equal power. But the main point is, beauty strictures keep women under control in an unequal society. If we could turn back the social clock to a time when women had no rights and did not demand any rights (such as equal pay), we would be less threatening and, Wolf

Introduction

13

argues, the beauty myth would slacken. The beauty myth, in truth, does not really care what women look like so long as they see themselves as ugly. The proposed alternative to the beauty myth is that we understand that our looks are unimportant so long as we feel okay about ourselves, regardless of our failure or success to live up to socially dictated beauty standards. “The real issue has nothing to do with whether women wear makeup or don’t, gain weight or lose it, have surgery or shun it. Dress up or down, make our clothing and faces and bodies into works of art or ignore adornment altogether. The real problem is our lack of choice” (Wolf 2002: 272, italics in original). Here is the crux of the matter and one which will be revisited throughout this book. We have a choice to succumb to social dictates to optimize our appearance in the hope of amassing social power via employment, social networks, and so on. Wolf refers to this choice as a false one and suggests that we reject the false and forced dilemma of whether we should be “sexual or serious,” as though we cannot be both or that we have no choice but to attempt both. Men do not face such dilemmas, at least to the extent that women do. Nor are the consequences so harsh for men if they fail to be beautiful or sexy. True, men increasingly are concerned about their appearance and increasingly try to maximize their appearance via cosmetic use and cosmetic surgery. It is undebatable, however, that women have been in and remain in a very troublesome double bind regarding their appearance and their chances at social success. Our choices, to strive for good looks or not, should be “real choices,” as Wolf puts it, and should be “no big deal” (Wolf 2002: 283). Kathy Davis writes of the “long-standing feminist critique of the beauty system that views cosmetic surgery as a particularly reprehensible beauty practice that is not only risky to women’s health but sustains cultural notions of feminine inferiority” (Davis 2003: 3). Davis, however, feels that the well-meaning feminist critique of cosmetic surgery trivializes women’s reasons for having cosmetic surgery. Postfeminists like Wolf and Katie Roiphe (1993) criticize “old feminists” for refusing to respect the choices of women who undergo surgical changes and who can only view them as victims. Wolf and Davis both recognize that these choices are influenced by cultural constraints. Davis uses the sociological concept of “agency” (referring to active participation in social life) to explain how women view cosmetic surgery as their best and often only option to gain and keep social power (usually employment). Davis does not view women who undergo surgery as “cultural dopes,” a concept that will be detailed in the theory chapter (Chapter 8). Instead, she views them as “competent actors” who have an “intimate and subtle knowledge of society,” who are using cosmetic surgery as an action of choice, a solution to a problem, as a form of empowerment (Davis 2003: 13). Of course, they know how society reacts to certain physical features and, since they want to be successful social actors, they undertake beauty practices. The situational constraints are such that women feel pressured, are made to “suffer” (in Davis’s terms), and thus pursue the route of plastic surgery. Women are right to try to survive well in an unjust society and to try to gain access to social power, as I state in Beauty Bias. If women were given jobs regardless of what they looked like (for instance, regardless of their age), they would not feel pressured to have face-lifts and other surgeries.

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The Power of Looks

But choice is not equal to structure. Women, more than men, must strive to be attractive in order to advance, to have a chance at social equality. There is a choice, but to choose to not make oneself as attractive as possible can cause grave social harm to the individual. Rather than see the decision to undergo surgery as succumbing to a coercive and oppressive system of beauty strictures imposed by a capitalist consumer society, we might, as Davis does, view the decision as an act of agency, as a rational weighing of factors, as an attempt by women to exercise control over their lives within situations that are not entirely of their own making (Davis 1993). In sum, as long as we are preoccupied with making ourselves attractive, spending time and money and effort in this temporary and mainly futile endeavor, we are removing ourselves from opportunities to be taken seriously as equal and powerful members of society, as power brokers in a society that stubbornly refuses to view and treat women as equals. At the same time, if we want access to social power (for instance, jobs), we would be self-defeating to not do all we can to improve our chances. Both Wolf and Davis speak to the competition and the manner in which we, as operating, functioning, competitive members of society, must do all we can to be looks-acceptable. In Beauty Bias, I refer to this phenomenon as the “looks race,” comparable to other forms of competition, wherein various entities (persons or entire cultures) want to stay ahead of their peers or maybe even eliminate those peers from the competition. I do not mean to imply that the looks race is quite so vicious as, say, the nuclear arms race; it is more a matter of subtleties in the looks race. Our fellow competitors are not our opponents so much as are those who impose the opposition from above— the employers, advertisers, media, and so on. To gain good employment, college admission, friendships, advantageous romance, and marriage arrangements, it is well understood, if not often discussed, that we need to outdo our competitors. In essence, sure, we can refuse to do all we can to be attractive. The price for this refusal, however, is steep indeed. To speak of volition addresses two sub-elements: the social pressures and expectations to be attractive (whether we should succumb to these pressures) and, given the punishments for not doing so and the rewards for doing so, the issue of real choice. Do we truly have a choice to resist, defy beauty standards, as rare individuals have stated up front and in no uncertain terms and as the fat-acceptance movement has put forward? Technically, yes. If one wants to have important social access, no. Terminology I will use terms such as “attractive,” “unattractive,” and the like with the understanding that these terms are always preceded by the modifying adjectives of “socially dictated” or “socially determined.” Our definitions of attractiveness and unattractiveness are social constructions, as will be made abundantly clear. Having struggled with the least offensive way to describe large body mass, I have decided to apply a number of various terms, such as “fat” (per the fat-acceptance movement’s suggestions), “obese” (a more medical term and one not in fatacceptance favor), “heavy” (my personal favorite since it is objective and simply

Introduction

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describes poundage), and “people-of-size.” I support the fat-acceptance movement’s policies and practices, largely geared toward raising social awareness of fat stigma and ending discrimination. I support their reasoning for using the term “fat” when referring to people of large body mass since, as they point out, there is nothing wrong with being fat. To elaborate, Marilyn Wann encourages us to use the word “fat” instead of obese, overweight, heavy, and other euphemisms. She says “fat” is not only the simplest way to describe fat people but it is the least offensive. “Overweight” is comparative (raising the question of compared to whom?), with height/weight charts being bogus, judgmental, and meaningless, according to Wann. “Obese” she considers to be more of a medical term, an unfair one at that, as well as subjective, and having nothing to do with how healthy a person is. As to other euphemisms, “you only need a euphemism if you find the truth distasteful. But there is nothing wrong with being fat, so there’s nothing wrong with using the word. It’s just as polite to say fat as it is to say young or tall or human” (Wann 1998: 20). Likewise, Sondra Solovay uses the word “fat” instead of “overweight,” which assumes an ideal weight; and she avoids the term “obese,” which is a “loaded, medical determination” (Solovay 2000: 29). The term “overweight” is probably the most popularly used, and it refers to various forms of excess weight and body fat. The term addresses all forms of obesity and weight levels that “exceed reported normative standards even though the level may not meet threshold standards for obesity” (Roehling 1999: 970). The standards for overweight, recommended weight, and ideal weight most frequently applied by the courts and by insurance corporations are the Body Mass Index and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Height and Weight Tables (Roehling 1999). Their meaning, however, is not accepted by all. Overview of Upcoming Chapters The remaining chapters are intended to give a comprehensive overview of the social aesthetics phenomenon, complete with addresses of stratification, inequality, and social power. To that end, I offer chapters on the history of the phenomenon, types of power (economic and more purely social) that are denied or granted us depending upon our appearance, minority statuses and inequality as they apply to appearance stratification, alterations through which we put ourselves (cosmetic use, plastic surgery, ingestion of growth hormones, and so on), the social forces involved in appearance bias (the media, economy, globalization), methodologies (measurements of the phenomenon), theories to understand the phenomenon, an illustration of human use of non-human animals as symbols of our appearance specialness, the social transformations that societies are undergoing as related to appearance bias (accommodation versus resistance), and some final thoughts in the conclusion. It is my fervent hope that the reader is as riveted as I have been by the unveiling of this newly discussed, but by no means new, form of social stratification. The study of this phenomenon has been for me, and hopefully will be for others, inspiring. I find it inspiring because its examination means that we are closer to gaining a new acceptance of diverse peoples and greater equality accorded to them.

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Chapter 2

A Brief History of Social Aesthetics The history of the socio-personal aesthetics phenomenon is somewhat speculative. We know that humans began to alter their appearance with cosmetics use at least 40,000 years ago, with gives us some idea about when humans began reacting to their own and each others’ physical appearance (Riordan 2004; Kuczynski 2006; Jablonski 2006). The history of the phenomenon is more speculative than that, I say, since it probably dates back to prehistoric times, with its origins likely based in functionality, meaning survival in evolutionary terms. Long ago, clear eyes, good teeth, and ease of mobility were necessary for survival; for example, if one could not see, one might walk off a cliff, if one could not chew one’s food, one would starve, or if one did not have the physical mobility to get away from danger, one would meet with danger head on. These appearance indicators (good teeth,and so on) may not have been viewed in the same way as they are today, but they were (and are) indices of healthy mating material. As Etcoff (1999) has pointed out, healthy looks equals good looks, and this equation has always, as Etcoff reasonably proposes, been the case and remains so today. While we may have once relied upon visible physical features to signify the health and fecundity of potential mates, and while we may have once used these same visible indicators to deny or give scarce resources to our children based on their chances of survival, the functionality of looks has long gone by the wayside. For example, with vision repair as it now exists, choosing people based on their sightedness (the absence of eyeglasses) has more to do with sheer aesthetic appeal. As another example, while small waists have nothing to do with ability to produce viable offspring, contemporary men seek women with small waists (Etcoff 1999). And, as Herring, Keith, and Horton (2004) have pointed out, African Americans stratify themselves by choosing light-skinned marital partners, a pattern which has nothing to do with biological functionality but has everything to do with social functionality, in the form of social stratification. The issue is no longer healthy mate selection so much as it is stratification for the sake of stratification. Such stratification can serve as discrimination, a means to arrange our fellow societal members hierarchically along artificial criteria based on beauty, race, gender, age, ableness, and so on. This is well illustrated by the mostly defunct eugenics movement. As the reader may be aware, the eugenics movement was popular in the US, particularly in the late 1800s through World War II. The movement lost some of its appeal after World War II, partly because it was equated with the Third Reich and its search for the “master race,” but the pattern of preference (exclusion of some and inclusion of others) continues in modified form in many cultures to this day. As testimony to its present-day importance, one of the discoverers of the double helix, James D. Watson, remarked on the topic of

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selective breeding by saying that it would be wonderful to be surrounded exclusively by beautiful females. While we may admire his work on DNA and his scientific acumen, his comment gives the more thoughtful among us pause to wonder what would be so wonderful about a monoculture of beautiful females.1 Further on the topic of selective breeding and appearance, we have sperm banks located on the west coast of the US that supply the much-in-demand sperm of blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tall Nordic men (Black 2003). Essentially, the eugenics movement was and is a justification for racism. It was, in fact, a “dangerous … worthless and expensive undertaking devoid of scientific value” and entirely political (Black 2003: 392). The intended goal of the eugenics movement was to sterilize millions of people worldwide, 14 million people in the US alone, until only a pure Nordic super race remained (Black 2003: xvi). The methods of the eugenics movement were harsh, involving involuntary medical experimentation, involuntary sterilization, and involuntary incarceration. Through incarceration and sterilization, the “inferior” races, non-white or non-Aryan, were prevented from breeding, leaving only the “best” breeding material: white, Northern European stock with distinctly Aryan features (white skin, light-colored eyes, narrow noses, and light-colored hair). As an aside, the eugenics movement was not only about racism and the physical attributes associated with race. It also intended to deal with disabilities such as feeblemindedness, deafness, and blindness, ordinarily by preventing the breeding of differently abled people. The basic idea of the eugenics movement is that some people (those of superior “true Nordic stock”) are better than others (immigrants, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, First Nation Americans, epileptics, alcoholics, petty criminals, the mentally disordered, poor urbanites and rural “white trash”), with one indicator of superiority/inferiority being physical appearance (Black 2003: 30). We still stratify by appearance, but in the case of the eugenics movement, we stratified using the concrete and startling techniques of incarceration and sterilization. A more general historic note refers to the way in which societies have changed over time as to what is considered attractive. As mentioned in the Introduction, it was once acceptable and even desirable to be fat, but now fatness is greatly devalued (Stearns 1997). Stearns writes that: [in] 1890 success was embodied in corpulence, failure in emaciation; by 1900 they were drawing even; and now success is thin. … Intense beliefs in the disgusting inferiority of fat join more traditional revulsions against sexual deviations or uncontrolled drunkenness. … [A]ppalling ugliness [is related to] a fundamentally flawed character. But corpulence is a different target from some of the more traditional taboos in that it is so visible (Stearns 1997: vii). 1 Watson, who continued to work at the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory, where the early US eugenics work was conducted, resigned in October 2007. He resigned after being publicly chastised for making racist remarks. Specifically, he was quoted in The Times of London as saying that people of African descent are not, overall, as intelligent as those of European descent (Dean 2007). Perhaps we may take this as support for the notion that looksism is a form of intolerance, or at least narrowmindedness, similar to racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and other “isms.”

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Western art had long touted full figures, as visible in Rubens’ well-rounded women, and this image of full-bodied beauty was maintained throughout the nineteenthcentury. Art was mirrored in reality and, specifically, in gender ideals and class aspirations. For instance, mature women were supposed to be linked to motherhood and thus were supposed to be plump (Stearns 1997: 8). Before the 1880s, prosperous men were represented as rotund, and with a “decent belly” (Stearns 1997: 9). Part of the explanation had to do with food availability. The US in particular among cultures thought of itself as the land of plenty, where we could eat abundantly and could compare ourselves rather smugly with the lesser offerings in Europe. Nonetheless, and largely having to do with changing social attitudes toward self-control and selfdiscipline, the tide turned in the 1890s and there grew a powerful stigma against the fat (Stearns 1997: 3). The result of this change in attitude toward body size, post World War II, was a vast increase in sales of diet books and diet foods. Diet books multiplied and, as today, appeared on the bestseller list. Diet soda sales increased by 3,000 times between 1950 and 1955, and national chains of weight-reducing facilities appeared (Stearns 1997: 107). The diet culture’s impact is complex, however, and did not operate as expected. Paradoxically, when plumpness was in, people were thin; when thinness became the desired standard, people grew fat, leading Stearns to remark, “Clearly, waves of diet advice and the pervasive cultural hostility to fat have not been fully effective” (Stearns 1997: 127). As part of the anti-fat crusade, the profit-hungry business community, in league with faddists and some doctors, created an atmosphere rife with commercial exploitation. This newly created exploitation began in the 1920s and emerged more prominently after World War I (Stearns 1997: 51). And it is still with us today as we will examine more closely in Chapter 6, in the discussion of capitalist economic forces. The combination of hostility toward the fat, hucksterism, and commercial exploitation created a capitalists’ dream: using our fears about social aesthetics to make enormous profits, with little or no impact on actually changing our appearance (losing weight in this case). History and Gender, Class, Age, and Race Cultural attitudes toward women’s body size vary widely, and are “shaped by ethnic, national, class, and other factors” (Bordo 1995: 102). In the nineteenth century, as just mentioned, we admired voluptuous women. Although not just any voluptuous women. Joyce Huff (2001) reminds us that Victorian beauty manuals frequently advised women on how to cultivate plumpness, as fatness was not necessarily a bad thing. But even here, we find strictures regarding the arrangement of fat on the body. Fat, as appearing just anywhere on the body, was not good. Fat in certain places and arranged on a “properly” shaped body was a good thing, and Victorian body management standards for the “properly” shaped body were dependent upon class, age, and gender (Huff 2001: 44).

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In addition to gender, attitudes about the body have intricate relationships with demographic traits such as class and race. In this way, the body indicates social identity or “place.” As to class: [the] bulging stomachs of successful mid-nineteenth-century businessmen and politicians were a symbol of bourgeois success, an outward manifestation of their accumulated wealth. By contrast, the gracefully slender body announced aristocratic status; disdain of the bourgeois need to display wealth and power ostentatiously. … Subsequently, this ideal began to be appropriated by the status-seeking middle class, as slender wives became the showpieces of their husbands’ success (Bordo 1995: 191–2).

As authors on the topic of body size point out, excess body weight has come to be interpreted as moral or personal inadequacy, a lack of will power and self-discipline. We continue to believe this, and this belief explains our intolerance toward fatness. Currently, we seem to assume that excess weight results entirely or almost entirely from deficiencies of self-control. We also and relatedly associate fat and lower-class status, usually mediated by moral qualities such as laziness, lack of discipline, and unwillingness to conform. Muscularity also has undergone a change in social attitudes associated with it. Muscularity has been associated with physical labor and proletarian status, with insensitive, unintelligent, and animalistic traits. More recently, however, the athletic, muscled body has become the desired cultural icon, and working out “is a glamorized and sexualized yuppie activity” (Bordo 1995: 195). As to race, class, and changing appearance standards, Etcoff (1999) describes African American patterns of hair straightening as dependent upon socio-economic status. The majority of African American women and men straightened their hair until the 1960s. Contemporarily, about 75 percent of African American women continue to straighten their hair with chemical relaxers or straightening combs. However, uppermiddle-class African American women are far more likely to arrange their hair in dreadlocks, twists, and Afros, wearing their hair naturally instead of straightening it. This class and historical difference can be explained by increased economic power among minority women, allowing them to feel free to leave their hair in its natural state. Alternatively, hair straightening may be an attempt at conformity for those still striving for upward mobility, with hair straightening representing the hope of rising to the middle class (Etcoff 1999: 129). History and Homogenization Michel Foucault (1977) has argued that, at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, there emerged the idea of the norm and, with it, a new type of coercive power. At this time period, the body became subject to social judgment that both normalized and homogenized individuals. Universally applicable standards were set, and people were ranked according to their variation from appearance ideals. Foucault seems to be saying something akin to my early statements in the Introduction about mediated anxiety and unfulfillable expectations when he writes that there is a certain degree of coerciveness to this normalizing

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and homogenizing process. Our bodies are being judged and arranged hierarchically according to some culturally formed composite picture that reflects more of an unachievable ideal than an average. When we fail to achieve this ideal, the measured difference from this ideal is experienced as failure and as an aberration. Globalization, a modern phenomenon, can be discussed in terms of its effect on the cross-cultural homogenization of acceptable looks. As I will mention throughout, over time, across cultures, socially desirable looks have homogenized, largely through advancements in visual media (TV, movies, magazines, and billboard advertisements), such that currently the most prevalently accepted looks are white, Northern European looks. In 1995, I lectured to graduate students at Tokyo Metropolitan University. I had noticed that the downtown Tokyo department store mannequins and the models in Japanese beauty magazines were Caucasian in appearance. I foolishly asked the graduate students, based on these observations, why the models did not resemble the Japanese. The students told me the obvious: Japanese standards are the same as global standards, which are white Northern European standards. Presently, tall, thin, white, blonde, light-eyed people are valued for their looks more than short, dark people. This will be made more evident in Chapter 6 on social forces, where I discuss globalization, and in Chapter 5 on alterations, where plastic surgery and other appearance-changing procedures are discussed. Imposed homogenization is not working out so well for the majority of the world’s inhabitants, as we advance in time. One journalist refers to our adoration of thinness as “tyranny of the skinny” and writes of fashion’s anti-fat bias and obsession with thinness. She acknowledges that plus-size clothing is increasingly available, but also notes that high-fashion designers do not make women’s clothing in sizes greater than 12. And models keep getting skinnier. In 1985, the average model was a size 8; today the average model is a size 2 or 0. The paradoxical part is that the audience to whom this image is aimed keeps getting bigger (Betts 2002). Clearly, the homogenized standards to which we are to adhere—to be white, thin, and so on—are pervasive and mostly unreachable. History and Alterations You will read more about the changes through which we put ourselves in the chapter devoted solely to the topic, but I will say a word about the history of appearance alterations here. Plastic surgery, especially in the form of reconstructive (versus strictly aesthetic) surgery, is not new. The first reported rhinoplasty was performed in India as early as 1000 AD, and the first book about plastic surgery was written in 1597. Plastic surgery for purely aesthetic or cosmetic purposes, undertaken for non-medical reasons and entirely for “improving” the appearance, is a more recent development, having emerged in the US and Europe (Germany, England, France) at the end of the nineteenth century. Several developments propelled the advancement of plastic surgery. Notably, casualties from World War I provided a large number of disfigured faces and bodies, burns, and lost limbs requiring reconstructive surgery. As an equally important historical development, the discovery of antisepsis and anesthesia

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The Power of Looks

in the nineteenth century made plastic surgery much more popular, since the risks were largely removed. At the beginning of the twentieth century, cosmetic surgery began to be performed on a large scale (Davis 2003: 24; see also Gilman 1999). The mass beauty culture, which flourished at the beginning of the twentieth century, allowed for the dropping of cultural prohibitions against older women attempting to look young and beautiful. Plus, there developed a democratic ideology of self-improvement that permitted all women, not just well-off ones, to “improve” their looks via surgery, cosmetics, hair dressing, and so on. Beauty parlors and hairdressers proliferated, as did surgical practices to lift faces and realign noses (Davis 2003: 24; see also Riordan 2004). You will read in Chapter 5 about the myriad changes we impose on ourselves (skin lightening, skin darkening, the use of cosmetics and cosmeceuticals, surgery, steroid and hormone ingestion, and so on). It is a fascinating trip, that some of us engage in as voyeurs, reading about it and watching TV shows about it, and some of us engage in directly. To say that many of the techniques and materials are new would be true. To say that the practice of appearance alteration is new is hardly the case. Summary Across time, there have been not only changes in definitions of physical acceptability and desirability, but also changes in diet (to inexpensive, readily available, largeportion, high-fat foods) and in more sedentary work and lifestyles. In addition, there have been changes in political and economic structures that affect not so much what we look like as how we are reacted to. The question of whether we, as a people, have progressed in our looks-tolerance is not easily answered. This question deserves serious analysis, which I hope to offer, followed by changes in policy, legislation, and social awareness. It would seem that we have not progressed since we once engaged in footbinding as a beautification (and thus power-enhancing) strategy, while presently we have foot-beautification surgery for the same purpose. It would seem that we have progressed, since we now have social movements and policy changes, small in size and slow in coming, suggesting a movement toward acceptance of looks-diversity. Just when we think perhaps we are becoming more enlightened in appearanceequality, we are smacked in the face by a novel indicator that equality is not in the offing. In April of 2007, a US sports announcer referred to the Rutgers University women’s basketball players (largely African American women) as “nappy-headed hos.” This unthinking remark, with its combination of sexism, racism, and looksism, resulted in punishment (the announcer was fired). The punishment would seem to be a step toward enforced equality. But the fact that it happened at all also makes clear that the man who said it assumed his comment would be met with amusement and agreement.

Chapter 3

Two Types of Appearance Power: Economic and Social Networks Looks-based social stratification refers to the socially constructed placement of people into greater and lesser power strata based on physical appearance. Such placement is artificial in the same way as many other forms of social stratification, as immediately comes to mind with hierarchies founded on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other meaningless yet very meaningful traits. The last remark about meaninglessness yet meaningfulness is a theme that runs throughout this book, and begs the question of what, precisely, is superior about being tall, evenfeatured, Caucasian, and so on. Other books on the topic, while not referring to the meaninglessness of physical traits in the blunt manner in which I do, at the same time also reference the meaninglessness of physical traits. For example, Jablonski (2006) details how dark skin is actually physiologically superior to light skin (it can handle heavy doses of UVR without being so easily subject to cancer), but societies have almost universally denigrated dark-skinned people compared to light-skinned people. Suffice it to say that, arbitrariness aside, we are stratified socially by our appearance, and this stratification denies and grants our access to power. The social power that is related to physical appearance is of two forms, economic and more purely social, the former having largely (but not entirely) to do with employment, and the latter having to do with marriage markets and social networks (such as club memberships, friendships, educational opportunities). The unequal access to these avenues of social power is at least partly determined by our physical traits. Some people do not need to climb socially or economically since they already have economic and social power. Such socially privileged people do not need, generally, to concern themselves so much with their physical appearance. Paradoxically, they are better able to afford appearance changes (plastic surgery,and so on) should they want them. By virtue of their already-made-it status, they are the least in need of impression management and of building an attractive image. Conversely, for the notprivileged, appearance can be everything: “the more your identity is dependent on first impression, the more appearance counts” (Blum 2003: 132). That ever-important initial impression made during job interviews or first dates is far less important for the financially and socially endowed. Most of us are not so privileged and must therefore be at least partly reliant on our physical appearance to get ahead. Judgments about our looks occur early on, as early as nursery school, with body size having an enormous impact on judgments. At pre-school age, it has been found that children prefer drawings of disabled peers to those of fat children. By elementary school, children attribute dirtiness, laziness, stupidity, and sloppiness to silhouettes

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of fat children. Fat students are less likely to go to college, and their parents are less likely to pay for it. Once in college, fat students face still more hostility from their fellow students (Freed 2003). Attractive students, size aside, get better grades than do less attractive students. When graded objectively, with the grades based on standardized measures, the advantage of looks dissipates (Etcoff 1999). Respondents in a study of sizeism stated that they would rather marry an embezzler, a cocaine user, or a shoplifter than an obese person. In the workplace, studies show that fat women earn significantly less than their thinner counterparts; for example, highly obese women earn up to 24 percent less than not-fat women. Surveying 81 employers, about 16 percent considered obesity “an absolute bar to employment,” and 44 percent considered it grounds for passing over an applicant (Freed 2003). Attractive people are assumed to be, overall, socially better (smarter, more socially skilled, and so on) than the less attractive. They have more friends and romantic partners, they get better jobs with better incomes. Their daily lives, in short, have far fewer problems (Katz 1995). Much of the bias that unattractive people, including fat people, face is not subject to legal recourse. Daily hassles such as being denied airline seating, or being forced to pay for two seats even if they can fit into one, cruel taunts from strangers, medical professionals who refuse to treat them or who ridicule them, and insurers who refuse to insure them are among the difficulties faced by fat people (Goldberg 2000). The disabled, the disfigured, and the unattractive are all denied the relative ease of access to power and instead commonly encounter obstacles to gaining social and economic power. Economic power, the power to gain and keep monetary wealth, comes about through employment primarily, although it is not the only means. A second kind of power is access-to-social-networks power, a more encompassing form of power. The two kinds of power are interrelated, for example, in the gaining of economic power through a financially advantageous marriage, with such a marriage being gained through one’s physical attractiveness. Numerous are the examples and several are the studies of the pursuit of good appearance in order to marry well, to gain access to a wealth-laden marriage market; see, for example, Wang Ping’s work on footbinding in China (2000), about which I will say more later. Economic Power Tall, thin, young, attractive white people get better jobs and hold on to those jobs more readily and more commonly than do those with less socially valued physical traits. Some corporations refuse to hire people on the basis of their looks, as we see in Mark Roehling’s findings: when asked, some corporate managers told him flat out that they would not hire a person-of-size. Roehling found that size affects not only hiring, but also promotion, discipline, wages, and job placement (Roehling 1999). It is unknown how many employers do not retain people, do not place them in advantageous positions, or do not promote people because of their looks. Reportedly, Abercrombie and Fitch, the clothing retailer, has a very poor record of hiring only

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white, young, pretty people as models in their ads and as sales staff in their stores. Their unapologetic “explanation” is that the chosen ones fit the Abercrombie and Fitch “image” of American beauty (Greenhouse 2003a). In the case of a L’Oreal cosmetics counter employee, the employer refused to retain an employee when she aged and was no longer “hot” (Greenhouse 2003b). Some employers release employees from duty if they gain weight, as has happened (until lawsuits prevented it) with airline flight attendants and still happens in other workplaces (Roehling 1999). Some are not promoted, regardless of their skills and experience, because of disfigurements, as happened with Samantha Robichaud and her desire to be a manager at a McDonald’s restaurant. Ms Robichaud has a “port wine” stain on her face that prevented her being promoted to the position of manager, where she would be more publicly exposed than she had been in her other (more hidden) McDonald’s jobs, such as food preparation and operating the drive-up window. Her McDonald’s superordinates told her that her appearance would frighten children if she worked in the front, serving in the public eye (Greenhouse 2003c). Employment discrimination is probably more rampant than any of us know since we are not ordinarily told when we are not hired or are fired because of our looks. Although the fact that we sometimes are told in no uncertain terms is testimony to the attitude of “rightness” about looksism. Roehling, for example, cites a case in which an employee’s job application was rejected with the words “too fat,” which the applicant saw, written across the top. Among the explanations offered for employment-looks bias are rational bias, valid discrimination, BFOQ (bona fide occupational qualification), and the new meritocracy. Rational Bias The rational bias explanation states that perceived external pressure, for instance, from superiors or clients, provides justification for employment discrimination. In other words, even though the employer may personally prefer to treat people as equals regardless of their appearance, expected or perceived pressure from others to discriminate may result in employment discrimination. To put a finer point on it, the employer who engages in rational bias seems to believe that there are disadvantages, “side costs,” associated with not discriminating against the overweight, the old, the disfigured, and the generally unattractive. Employment decision makers may also be concerned about negative co-worker reaction to overweight and other appearance-undesirable employees (Roehling 1999: 1004). This form of discrimination is a less-than-courageous way of dealing with bias. To say that other people (customers, co-workers, and so on) would be troubled by a person with stigmatized appearance (“it’s not me, a fair-minded person, who is denying employment”) fails to address the prejudice at its roots and fails to address the consequences of this prejudice. If disfigured people want to work in public view, the public needs to grow accustomed to them and their appearance. We once used this same “rational bias” to refuse employment to racial minorities and women. While sexist and racist employment discrimination persists, we no longer use the rational bias explanation, since we have recognized that it is the responsibility of all

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of us (co-workers, clients, and superiors) to get over our “isms” and accept women, non-whites, the disabled, and all capable workers as employees. Valid Discrimination Valid discrimination refers to the supposition “that some stereotypes have a basis in fact, and that in some circumstances, reliance on stereotypes can promote predictive accuracy” (Roehling 1999: 1007). This form of discrimination is somewhat at odds with our traditional views of stereotypes as necessarily erroneous and as misjudgments. With valid discrimination, there is at least some factual support for the stereotyped inferences about stigmatized people. For example, with overweight employees, research indicates that they may indeed have higher levels of healthrelated problems and absenteeism (Roehling 1999: 1008). Although other research calls into question this health-size association and suggests, instead, that size prejudice is precisely size prejudice. The PBQ and the BFOQ Prior to women comprising a large proportion of the labor force, a number of them were confined to work in the “display professions”—actresses, dancers, models, sex workers—who were explicitly paid on the basis of their appearance. Professional beauties such as models now have greater pay, prestige, and respect, which is a positive improvement. But these beautiful women are now the yardstick against which we are all encouraged to measure ourselves: we are expected to be attractive regardless of whether we are in the display professions. One could say, as Naomi Wolf does, that all or most of women’s jobs have been reclassified as display professions (Wolf 2002). Sex discrimination laws in the United States refer to a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) as a gender-specific necessary qualification for a job, such as femaleness for a wet nurse or maleness for a sperm donor. So far, no arguments. But what has happened and is happening now is a parody of the BFOQ. This parody Wolf refers to as the professional beauty qualification (PBQ) and is being “extremely widely institutionalized as a condition for women’s hiring and promotion” (Wolf 2002: 27, emphasis in original). In essence, appearance-biased employers are saying that beauty, at least for women, is a BFOQ. They say that their appearance-based employment practices are non-discriminatory, with the disclaimer that beauty is a “necessary requirement if the job is to be properly done” (Wolf 2002: 28). Not only is this reasoning fallacious, since almost all jobs have nothing to do with appearance and have everything to do with skills, it is also sexist, since the “ever-expanding PBQ has so far been applied overwhelmingly to women in the workplace and not to men, using it to hire and promote (and harass and fire) [and] is in fact sex discrimination” (Wolf 2002: 28). The real outcome and purpose of applying the PBQ to women’s employment is discrimination against women, litigation-free. So it seems that a sexist employment system responded to the “threat” of women’s employment by imposing this new and, for most of us, unreachable threshold of employment qualification. Once it became clear that women can do the same job as

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men, a new criterion (beauty) had to be applied, even though that same criterion did not apply to men seeking employment. Besides being an unreasonable condition for employment, beauty is subjective and thus highly suspect as an employment criterion. Legal cases cited by Wolf describe a legal Catch 22 in which a woman can be fired for not being attractive (with attractiveness open to interpretation) and for being too attractive (Wolf 2002: 33). In the case of the former, we find that in 1979, a federal judge decided that employers have the right to set appearance standards. In the case of the latter, we find that women can be too sexy, too pretty, too dressed-to-please. A young, beautiful, carefully dressed woman (in other words, everything she was supposed to be according to the PBQ) was subject to sexual harassment, fondling, and rape by her employer. The court ruled against her, citing her appearance as the problem, suggesting that her manner of dress was provocative and that she invited the abuse. In another case, in which a woman did not want to be provocative in the slightest, she lost her job because she would not “walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely,” or “wear makeup” (Wolf 2002: 39). Clearly, such practices intend to keep an uneven playing field uneven. When the former rationale of legal sex discrimination became illegal, it was substituted with the PBQ as the new rationale and the new double standard to which men were not subject. The New Meritocracy and Access to Power Greater beauty leads to greater status, power, and upward mobility. All this equals the new meritocracy, as cited by Reischer and Koo (2004). The new meritocracy serves to justify and maintain women’s secondary status in the workplace, since it is based on beauty rather than, and in opposition to, women’s capabilities. The PBQ and the new meritocracy encourage us to alter our appearance in order that we may better access economic power. It is understandable that women (and men) would undergo surgical and other alterations in order to be attractive and thus to be competitive in the employment market. Yet, such an understanding does not answer the question of whether we should comply with such employment-centered dictates to be attractive, or whether compliance reinforces an unhealthy lookscentered system. As Kathy Davis puts it, “We might conclude that advocating a woman’s right to a youthful face does little to dismantle the inequalities of a society that treats older women as unfit for work.” One might see cosmetic surgery as a solution to women’s unequal access to employment yet such a viewpoint represents a “feminism of compliance and accommodation rather than a feminism of rebellion and resistance” (Davis 2003: 37). Unresolved and much-dealt-with in this book (see the Introduction and Chapter 10 on accommodative and rebellious reactions to social aesthetics) is the issue of whether we should (a) alter our appearance in order to advance ourselves in the economic and social power structure, with the alternative being (b) to make a statement against looks-based dictates and demand that we all be treated as equals, regardless of appearance. As I have stated and will revisit later, the choice is an unpleasant one: we hurt ourselves if we do not comply (since we lose or never gain social power) and we hurt ourselves if we do comply (since society is not forced

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to accept people for what they look like naturally). Or, as Etcoff puts the question, “isn’t it possible that women cultivate beauty and use the beauty industry to optimize the power that beauty brings?” (Etcoff 1999: 4). Very likely, and this same reasoning applies equally to the drastic measures that we take when we undergo plastic surgery. Here, we find, as one example, that the Chinese undergo leg-lengthening surgeries to gain successful employment and successful marriages, at the risk of losing physical mobility and becoming crippled (Smith 2002). The cost of gaining an approved appearance, in order to gain power, can be high. Since we are on the topic of economics, the capitalist culture cannot be ruled out as a tremendous force in influencing people to do everything they can to appear socially desirable, in order to gain economic and social advantages. Kaw (1994) addresses surgery to achieve the double eyelid among Asian American women, and points to the intersection between capitalist consumer culture and racial ideology. As Kaw observes, Asian facial features have historically contributed to bias against Asians in the United States and elsewhere. When asked about their eyelid surgeries, however, Kaw’s Asian subjects indicated that they were not attempting to appear more Caucasian, but were instead seeking the socio-economic advantages that come with Caucasian-appearing eyes. Challenges to Economic Discrimination There have been moves to challenge the legality of employment discrimination based on looks. Such challenges serve two functions. The first and obvious one is to mandate equal treatment (equal pay and equal opportunity, primarily) to all regardless of appearance. The second, my own argument, serves a far more significant and farreaching social purpose: to increase the visibility of the physically stigmatized. A prominent example is airline flight attendants. In times past, female flight attendants had to be, as conditions of their employment, young, thin, pretty, and unmarried (that is, beautiful and sexually available). After legal battles, they now do not have to possess any of these traits and resemble more closely the average population, which is not wholesale attractive. Having demonstrated that female flight attendants who are not thin, not pretty, not young, and not single can do the job as well as those who are thin, pretty, young, and single—and it was shown that male flight attendants were not subject to the same strictures—the matter was self-evidently resolved. The salient social function of non-discrimination against appearance is to make available to the public eye all manner of workers as a fairer representation of the populace, and to make clear that capability is unrelated to physical appearance. If Paul Steven Miller, a law professor of unusual height (4’5”), and Deborah BurrisKitchen, a sociology professor (at 4’9”), had been denied university employment, their students, their co-workers, and the public with whom they interact would be deprived of the obvious knowledge that height is irrelevant to capability (Ellison 2004; Burris-Kitchen 2002).

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Social Network Power In addition to the employment market, we have the more purely social network access markets—marriage markets, educational systems, and other social access markets—operating as power brokers. As Sidney Katz stated in his work on the importance of being beautiful, “If you’re attractive, you are granted all sorts of social favors and given the benefit of the doubt, you have many friends and lovers, and you get better grades than smarter but less attractive people, you get better jobs at better pay, you have fewer daily-life hassles than less attractive people” (Katz 1995: 301). As mentioned earlier, in educational settings, attractive students receive better grades. When grades are objectively based, as when they are based solely on standardized tests and the subjective aspects of grading removed, the advantages of attractive appearance disappear (Etcoff 1999: 48). We also know that overweight high school students are less likely to get letters of recommendation for college education and that their parents are less likely to pay for their education. Indeed, fat women have only one-third the chance of being admitted to prestigious colleges as do thin women with similar school records (Millman 1980: 90). More pointedly and astonishingly, we learn in 2007 that some members of a university sorority were asked to leave because they did not fit the appearance mold. At DePauw University in Indiana, the Delta Zeta sorority were seen by other students as “socially awkward.” What was meant by socially awkward, in truth, was that a number of the Delta Zeta women were fat and of minority race. The 23 members who were asked to leave the sorority were overweight, black, Korean, or Vietnamese. The Delta Zeta members who were allowed to remain in the sorority were slender, popular with the fraternity men, and conventionally pretty. The purpose of the purge was to get rid of unappealing members and attract better-looking ones, thus increasing the prestige of the sorority. In recognition of the bias involved in the sorority’s exclusion of the members based on their appearance, the university closed down the sorority (Dillon 2007). The university did the right thing. But the fact that such a phenomenon can happen at all, that people can be removed from a social club because of their appearance, is startling. Considering the marriage market, prettier people, as socially defined, are more likely to marry well and to marry in an upwardly mobile direction. This can get fairly specific, as with the example of footbinding: the smaller the feet, the more valuable the women were on the marriage market (Ping 2000). “Ironically, it was her reduced feet that helped her to find a foothold in a male-dominated world,” since it led to self-improvement (Ping 2000: 6). Women gained power via bound feet, just as they do with other physical manifestations of what we consider beautiful. The bound feet, besides being a measurement of beauty, were also a symbol of social status for the women who had them and the men who married the foot-bound women. Footbinding was as essential for women’s upward mobility as learning was for men, in the areas of China where footbinding was popular. And it did not end with achieving upward mobility. Among upper-class women, footbinding served as a stratifier, as a marker of their ranking in the hierarchy of other upper-class women. Among lower socioeconomic status girls, footbinding provided the means of upward movement in the marriage and service markets (Ping 2000: 32).

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We still do something similar today in the US with foot beautification surgery, which involves lopping off toes, improving toe cleavage, inserting collagen pads under the foot to enable wearing of high-heeled shoes (which I will describe in Chapter 5). The reason for this surgery, according to my readings, is that women (and it is women who have this surgery) want to attract the attention of men. “Better-looking girls tend to ‘marry up,’ that is, they marry men with more education and income than they have” (Etcoff 1999: 65). Before marriage, goodlooking men and women are more popular with the opposite sex than are the unattractive or plain. They have more dates, more opportunities for sexual activity, and they get more romantic attention. Cross-culturally, based on studies involving thousands of people and tens of cultures, appearance counts in mate selection. So does kindness and health, but appearance is in the top ten reasons for mate selection across the board. Appearance matters more for men than for women, with men valuing looks more than do women in all cultures where the question has been asked. In personal ads, gay men and straight women (people seeking men) advertise their looks. Thus, we see that male interest in beautiful partners is not solely about men objectifying and denigrating women. The evidence about same-sex partnerships suggests that men interested in men are just as focused on the beauty and youth of their male partners as men seeking heterosexual relations with women (Etcoff 1999: 50–62). Racial features matter in the context of romance and marriage, which is not unexpected since it is well known that racial features speak, incorrectly, to social dictates of attractiveness. Given that Caucasian features, including light skin tones, are more socially prized than non-white features, it is not surprising that lightcomplexioned marital partners bespeak social power accrued to the person married to the light-skinned person. Lighter-skinned African Americans are more likely to be married, and those with lighter skin tones are more likely to be married successfully, to have a higher earning spouse (Herring, Keith, and Horton 2004; Edwards, CarterTellison, and Herring 2004). Fat people are less likely to be married than thin people. In an examination of 10,000 people in their early twenties, it was found that fat women were 20 percent less likely to be married, and fat men were 11 percent less likely to be married than their thin counterparts (Wann 1998: 168). On romance and the differently abled, Paul Longmore (2003: 120) writes on the “popular misconception of the asexuality of disabled people”; they are viewed as incapacitated not just physically but also sexually and emotionally. As obsessed as we are with appearance, disabled people, who may look different or function differently, are not uncommonly rejected outright as romantic partners, and are on the whole greatly stigmatized regarding sexuality and romance. Fictional depictions in movies do not offer realistic portrayals of the differently abled as romantic and sexual partners. Instead, they “fly in the face of real-life experiences of many handicapped men and women who find that even the most minor impairments result in romantic rejection” (Longmore 2003: 142).

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Summary In sum, women are expected to be much more attractive (young, pretty, and so on) than the men with whom they network. There is also evidence that educational systems (particularly universities), housing (especially rentals), and social clubs discriminate against those with less-than-optimum looks (Wann 1998: 154). Fat jokes are abundant, as are allegedly humorous remarks about the aged, the unattractive and plain, the disabled, and the disfigured (Hartley 2001: 65; Berry 2007: 1–2). From this, we can guess that the joke-tellers and their audience accept as appropriate the social denigration of fat, aged, unattractive, plain, disabled, and disfigured people. Clearly, we discriminate against people economically, based on their appearance, denying them access to important means of socio-economic advancement. It would be difficult, and I know of no attempts, to document prejudice and discrimination on the more informal networks such as friendship bases. Very probably, we do discriminate against would-be friends based on their appearance, not permitting or not inviting them to join our happy hours, parties, lunches, study groups, and so on. All of these networks—economic and the more purely social—allow or disallow access to advantageous social systems of power.

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Chapter 4

Minority Statuses, Inequality, and Social Aesthetics Shown in profile was a woman, her face is completely in shadow, so shadowed that it is blackened. Her hair, highlighted by camera light, is beautiful, long, smooth, abundant, luxuriant, and … silvery white. Such was the cover of the New York Times Magazine, a special issue devoted to “the new middle ages,” addressing mainly baby boomers and their attendant topics of interest such as sex and the middle aged, social isolation and the middle aged, TV and the middle aged, and medication and the middle aged. Focusing on the front cover photo, and knowing that the issue is devoted to the middle aged, we are to assume that the profiled woman is not young. Her notyoungness is substantiated only by her silvery white hair. From the shadowed profile, we cannot tell if she is attractive or not, although her hair certainly is. Her profile shows no sagging jaw line, no eye creases, no age spots, nothing associated with the ravages of age. Perhaps we are to assume that middle-aged women can get on the cover of this magazine if they are beautiful. Inside the magazine, there is a section entitled “Boomer Babes,” showing five full-page photos of former supermodels, all in their forties and fiftees. They are exceptionally beautiful women who do not look their age. Note that I used the word “exceptionally.” They are, after all, former supermodels. According to the brief descriptions of them (their names, their ages, and their careers), we learn that they were discovered as girls or as very young women, by virtue of their striking beauty. They were and are special, outstanding, and unusual in their physical appearance. I emailed the editors of the magazine and asked why these women were selected to appear in an issue about the middle aged, and received no answer. Are they supposed to be representative of middle-aged women? Is it to prove a point that it is possible to be middle aged and still be gorgeous? Or was it merely a way to attract the reader’s attention and sell the high-fashion clothes as advertised and as being worn by these former supermodels? Probably the latter. But one likely consequence to the viewers of these middle-aged women is the invitation to comparison and a sinking feeling of failure-to-measure-up. Such a viewing experience is a stratifying event in itself with most of us, young or not so young, not near the top of the beauty heap (New York Times Magazine 2007). In this chapter, apart from the above brief sojourn into the relationship between age and beauty, I will limit my discussion to the relationships between appearance and race, and appearance and socio-economic status. Clearly, there are several other important inequality-relevant traits, notably gender, age, ableism, culture, and nationality. Gender, age, and ableness, as they apply to numerous issues related

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to social aesthetics, are discussed throughout this book. Likewise with culture and nationality, with these broad appearance-related topics presented throughout and particularly in the chapter on social forces. One of the foci of this chapter is the lengths to which we go in order to “pass” as members of a powerful stratum. Minorities (women, the disabled, the not-young, ethnic minorities, and others) are stigmatized by their looks and often, as a result, resort to artificial means of “passing” as something they are not, in order to gain or keep social power. Sander Gilman (1999), Kathy Davis (2003), and others describe “the desire to eliminate the difference and belong to a more desirable group” (Davis 2003: 91). We do so through “surgical passing,” as when we undergo facelifts to appear younger than we are, and when we attempt to blunt our strongly ethnic features. For some, although we would want to pass, we are prohibited from doing so due to our lack of financial stability. In these cases, people without funding are exposed for being poor and for being physically unacceptable. At the end of the chapter, I address the turning upside down of social standards of beauty. That is, some segments of society, such as the fat pride social movement, hope to turn topsy turvy the notions of what is beautiful and what is not. This is a socially functional exercise in that we, globally, could benefit from a re-examination of our appearance standards, their meaning, and their oft-destructive consequences. I will argue, however, that any stratification, if it involves fat people at the top or thin people at the top, is not socially healthy. Inequality and Appearance, in General Appearance alone can be a determinant of social power such that any appearance deficit can reduce one’s social status. For example, a tall white man with bad teeth may find his otherwise-advantages reduced. Moreover, the social disadvantages of unacceptable physical appearance can compound a minority status, such as we might find with being poor and unattractive, being from a racial minority and unattractive, being an unattractive woman, being disabled and unattractive, and so on. Furthermore, being of an unequal social status can lead to poor physical appearance, as we shall see. When we cannot afford dental care, hair styling, and so on, we are multiply disadvantaged. Class bias and appearance bias were clearly evident in the policy and practice of Ugly Laws, as aptly described by Susan Schweik (forthcoming). Ugly Laws, to get ahead of myself, permitted legalized prejudice against the poor, with these city ordinances using physical appearance as the means to discriminate against the poor. As another general observation, consider the numerical quality of minority status. Statistically speaking, the ordinary-looking are in the numerical majority, yet they are a minority in terms of social power. This puts them in the same position as other minority statuses, like women, who do not have the social power that power-majority group members have (men, the wealthy, attractive people) even though the wealthy, the attractive, and the male are in the numerical minority. Racially, whites are in the numerical minority worldwide (Smith 2007a). Yet, white appearance standards are the ones to which we are all, regardless of race, compared. Any appearance that

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strays outside of Caucasian, tall, thin, beautiful, youthful, healthy (abled) features can result in social prejudice and discrimination. This is not to say that, for example, Africans or Asians cannot be successful (well-employed, well-connected) members of society. It is to say that, particularly if people are subjected to evaluation on their appearance for a job or social networks, they are far better off if they have features that are not “too ethnic” or too visibly astray from the ideal. It seems as though, as the world gets smaller through globalization, we are now a global community with global judgments rather than a collection of highly distinct cultures with a wide range of acceptable appearance standards. Our strictures on acceptable/unacceptable looks, perhaps always narrow and strict, have narrowed and become stricter. In general, we can say that, “In Western culture, the white, propertied male has enjoyed the normative position against which all others—women, the working classes, or the ethnically marginalized—are measured and found wanting” (Davis 2003: 5). In a classist, racist, or sexist society, some categories of people, notably ethnic minorities, women, the not-young, gays, the disabled, and people-of-size are marginalized by a process called the “aesthetic scaling of bodies” (Young 1990: 123–4). Those who are not or do not appear to be white, Western, and middle class are defined as the “Other,” largely through their physical appearance traits. They also are pressured to do all that they can to appear “normal” (Davis 2003: 5). Race/Ethnicity and Appearance Skin Color Skin color is one of, if not the, most obvious way people vary. It is also a false but primary way of classifying people into genetically distinct “races.” Skin color, however, is a very poor method of categorizing people by race, since skin pigmentation is environmentally adaptive to solar conditions and a product of evolution by natural selection. Skin color tells us about the past environments in which our ancestors lived, but skin color tells us nothing about racial identity (Jablonski 2006). Nonetheless, skin color is used popularly as a means of identifying us racially. It is also a significant part of what determines attractiveness. Blondes are preferred not necessarily because of their hair color but because of their light skin, which often corresponds to blonde hair. Light-skinned women are preferred universally by men in African, Japanese, and other societies. To accommodate, Japanese women use light-colored make-up and African women bleach their skin. Light skin, for women, grants privileges, both romantically and professionally (Etcoff 1999). White skin is not inherently better than dark skin. In fact, it has a lot of disadvantages: it shows freckles, gets cancerous, is hairier, and so on. Yet white skin is the standard for beauty because it represents power. According to sociologist Harry Hoetink (1967), the standards of physical appearance have always been determined by appearance traits of the dominant group. Those who can “pass” as members of the more powerful group are considered more attractive by the dominant group’s standards and have a greater chance of rising in social status.

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Racial and appearance dominance can be imported and overlaid on an indigenous population. As an illustration, when the Portuguese invaded Brazil in the 1500s, light skin became the standard in a country full of dark people. Four hundred years later, that standard still holds, with the rich and powerful being white and constituting only 40 percent of Brazil’s population (Etcoff 1999). However, while dominant races determine what is considered attractive, Nancy Etcoff predicts that the “AllAmerican beauty will look different as we head into the next century and … the iron grip of the northern and western European blonde will give way to greater diversity” (Etcoff 1999: 119). I wonder. The preference for light skin within the African American community did not end with the civil rights movement and the “Black is Beautiful” sentiment, as they took place in the US during the 1960s and 1970s. Skin tone among African Americans continued to effect stratification outcomes, and it still does. There was an interesting reversal taking place at that time, though, and it persists contemporarily: during that time and lingering somewhat today was (is) a greater acceptance of, and even preference for, darker complexions among non-whites. During the 1960s and 1970s, dark skin coloring served to unify non-white races. Some African Americans began to: view their light-skinned co-ethnics as inferior because of their mixed ancestry. This response may be a defense against the dominant tendency to prize lighter skin—an effort to counter the stigma of not being white enough. It may also be a form of nationalism—a manifestation of the belief that visibly unmixed Blacks are culturally and intellectually superior. In any case, this type of intraracial colorism can also lead to discrimination (Herring 2004: 9).

This latter point is an extremely important one, to which I will return in various places throughout this study. Regardless of the appearance traits, be they traditionally stigmatized or not, appearance bias is still appearance bias. Colorism Stratification by skin color, or “colorism,” is a long-standing legacy in European cultures, with light-skinned people being the most socially desirable and possessing the most social status. Oddly, the preference for light-skinned people has existed among the peoples of Africa and Melanesia (generally dark-skinned people) long before contact with light-skinned Europeans, thus belying the equation of whites as powerful and therefore better (Jablonski 2006). In Cedric Herring’s words: “Colorism” [in the sociology of race literature is usually defined as] the: discriminatory treatment of individuals falling within the same “racial” group on the basis of skin color. It operates both intraracially and interracially. Intraracial colorism occurs when members of a racial group make distinctions based on skin color between members of their own race. Interracial colorism occurs when members of one racial group make distinctions based on skin color between members of another racial group (Herring 2004: 3).

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Either way, with intraracial or interracial colorism, color preferences are commonly measured against Caucasian standards, although skin color is not the only dimension along which we are stratified. Other racially charged appearance features include hair texture, eye shape, lip thickness, eye color, nose shapes, and other phenotypical features. African Americans with European features (light skin tones and straight or “good” hair, for instance) for centuries have placed higher in the social hierarchy than those African Americans with dark complexions and nappy, kinky, or “bad” hair (Herring 2004). Restricting her study of colorism to women of color, Margaret Hunter (2004) examines the benefits and downsides of light skin for women of color, and confirms my point about appearance bias being appearance bias regardless of its targeted audience. She found that there exist covert disadvantages of light skin, particularly in relation to identity and ethnic group membership, since light skin is associated with whites, assimilation, and a lack of racial consciousness. When this occurs, light-skinned people of color can be made to feel unwelcome in their own racial communities. The issue seems to be one of ethnic authenticity, of not being “black enough” or “Chicano enough” and of lacking racial consciousness. Colorism brings forward the many and complicated dimensions of dissatisfaction with our skin color. The more puzzling of the two forms of colorism is the phenomenon of intraracial colorism, referring to people of the same ethnicity judging and being judged by the hue and color of their skin. We can be too black or not black enough. We can be too Chicano or not Chicano enough. Colorism, in other words, proves the antithesis of the simplistic appearance-relevant arguments such as white skin is better than dark skin. Let me offer a twist on colorism that has been recently illustrated in Japanese comic books. In these comic books, the Japanese characters make offensive and unapologetic remarks about other Asians, specifically the Chinese and Koreans, illustrating worsening relations between Japan and other Asian countries. Historically, over the past century and a half, Japan has been guided by the principle of becoming more Western and less Asian. Coupled with that we find that, currently, China and South Korea are challenging “Japan’s position as Asia’s economic, diplomatic and cultural leader” which has inspired renewed xenophobia against the Chinese and Koreans (Onishi 2005: 1). If Japan has hoped to emulate the West and to denigrate other Asian cultures, perhaps that explains the pictures used in the comics. The drawings of the Japanese comic characters show people who are not only very attractive but who look white. They have large, round eyes and at least one of them has light-colored hair. A Korean depicted, however, has exaggerated Asian features, with eyes reduced to slits. Besides looking distortedly Asian, he is singularly unattractive, with messy hair and blubbery lips. The words in the bubbles are unattractive in their own right, referring to the Chinese as “a depraved people” and stating that Chinese art, literature, principles, institutions,and so on, have “nothing attractive” to offer (Onishi 2005: 1). In short, the Japanese comics state uncategorically that the Japanese culture is far more advanced than the Korean and Chinese cultures, and the drawings of the people of those cultures show the vast differences in the superiority of the Japanese over other Asians in physical appearance and otherwise. These comic books are popular in Japan. In 2005, the “Hate Korea” series has sold over

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a third of a million copies. Curiously or not, the Japanese media, public officials, and “intellectuals” have no problem with the comics (Onishi 2005: 6). Overall, the desire for Westernization as a form of superiority is not new to Japan. Over 100 years ago, popular drawings in Japan showed the Japanese as having Caucasian features. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905, for example, drawings showed the Japanese as taller than their Russian enemies and with straight noses and other European features, features that “made them look more European than their European enemies” (Onishi 2005: 6). Stratification by skin color has been evident as a predictor of educational attainment, occupational status, and income, with light skin color consistently providing higher status than darker skin color. This pattern of colorism is true among dark-skinned people such as Mexicans, South Americans, and Asians as well as African Americans. Interracial colorism also operates, of course, with skin tone being a more accurate predictor of social placement than factors such as parental socio-economic status, with the effect of skin color on African Americans’ socio-economic status being as strong as the impact of race itself. Light-skinned blacks were more likely to marry in an upwardly mobile direction, marrying spouses with higher socio-economic status than darker skinned blacks. Darker skinned African American males are 52 percent less likely to be employed than lighter skinned African American males. Furthermore, skin tone influences attractiveness ratings assigned to African American women, but has far less impact on attractiveness ratings of African American men (Herring 2004). As a means of leveling the playing field, African Americans buy into the multimillion dollar skin-bleaching industry, purchasing and using skin-bleaching products (Herring 2004). It pays to be white in terms of social and economic power. In Latin American societies, Eurocentric favoritism is extended toward people of mixed indigenous Latin and European blood (mestizos) who, as expected, have a lighter complexion. Darker complexioned Mexican Americans with more indigenous native Indian features are more socially disadvantaged than those with lighter skin tones and more European physical features. The more native-appearing Mexican Americans (with darker complexions and native phenotypic traits), for instance, earn significantly less pay than those with lighter skin and more European phenotypes, and the more European-looking Mexican Americans achieve more education than the more native-looking Mexican Americans (Herring 2004). The same is true for Asian Indians: prejudice and discrimination is prevalent against darker skinned Indians compared to that faced by lighter skinned Asian Indians, and lighter complexioned marital partners are preferred (Herring 2004). In sum, dark-skinned African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians were all found to experience more employment discrimination, according to the studies by Cedric Herring and his colleagues (Herring 2004). Race and Size Female beauty has, for most of history, been equated with slimness, and slimness has been equated with success. Such formulae have disallowed alternative ideals of beauty. The zaftig body has enjoyed a “legacy of reverence,” for example, among

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Jewish women (Bordo 1995: 63), and in non-Western cultures, fatness often was associated with high status. Polynesian kings were frequently quite fat, and East African girls were deliberately fattened in preparation for marriage (Angier 2000). More recently and in Western cultures, we have become unforgiving about body size, particularly for women. Young African American women, while having a traditionally relaxed relationship with body size, have learned that upward mobility depends on their being slim. As Bordo writes, “Arguably, a case could once be made for a contrast between (middle-class, heterosexual) white women’s obsessive relations with food and a more accepting attitude toward women’s appetites within the African American communities” (Bordo 1995: 103). Black women continue to be more likely to be overweight than white women, by about 66 percent compared to 47 percent respectively (Angier, 2000). But acceptable limits of body size are now restricted regardless of race. The cultural reality for most women today, regardless of race and ethnicity, socio-economic status, and sexual orientation, is a troubled obsession with food and body size. Race, culture, and physical appearance (size, for instance) are inseparable. Acceptability aside, we are globally becoming larger. The “obesity epidemic” as depicted in the news is not restricted to any race or ethnicity, socio-economic status, or culture. On the topic at hand, obesity is no longer seen as a minority issue, with minorities now sharing company with the majority-race population. Moreover, the obesity epidemic is international. England and Scotland are experiencing their own obesity epidemic, which is especially worrisome as to its impact on children’s health (BBC News 2002; Jones 2005; Carvel 2006; Revill 2006). The French are growing fatter, but by no means on the same scale as US fatness (Critser 2003a; Sciolino 2006). Even Asians, especially children, are growing fatter (Mydans 2003). Racial “Remedies”: Racial Stigma and Appearance Alterations The globalization of beauty standards as Euro-American has led to the fascination with skin lightening, nose lengthening, and eye reshaping, as seen, notably, in Japan and Vietnam today. The desire on the part of Asians living in the US to appear more Caucasian is “directly shaped by the notion of fitting into a niche of an acceptable ‘American’ physiognomy” (Gilman 1999: 108). Jewish noses are reshaped according to WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) ideals: at her mother’s direction, author Virginia Blum (2003) endured rhinoplasty to get rid of her Jewish nose and, in turn, in order to marry well, that is, in order to marry a successful Jewish man. Ironically, “it was just these Jewish men who, supposedly, were most desirous of the too-small imitation-WASP noses. In other words, our bodies weren’t being honed and refashioned for a gentile market of prospective husbands. It was our own cultural and ethnic ‘brothers’ for whom we were being redesigned in the conventional WASP image” (Blum 2003: 10). A similar cultural schism exists in the Asian American population, with teenaged girls being encouraged by their mothers to undergo surgery on the epicanthal fold, to achieve the Caucasian double eyelid. Yet, as in the Jewish rhinoplasty example, eyelid surgery on young Asian women is “intended to appeal to the aesthetic taste of young Asian men, who presumably share the very racial traits they want changed” (Blum 2003:

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10). Eyelid surgery among Asians was and is performed for economic reasons, as mentioned previously in Kaw’s (1994) reference to the intersection between racial ideology and capitalist consumer culture. Ethnic cosmetic surgery is not new. Since the turn of the twentieth century, people in the US and Europe have used cosmetic surgery to “minimize or eradicate physical signs that they believe mark them as ‘Other’ ” (Davis 2003: 89). In the nineteenth century, in central Europe, the “Other” was the Jew. At the end of the twentieth century, in the US, cosmetic surgery became a widespread practice resulting from large-scale immigration. The Irish immigrants had their “pug noses” reshaped. Jews, Italians, and others of Mediterranean and eastern European descent likewise underwent rhinoplasty. After World War II, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and Asian Americans have had their eyelids altered. More recently, African Americans have had their noses and lips altered to appear more Caucasian. In Rio de Janeiro, women had their “pendulous breasts” reduced because large breasts were associated with the “lower classes, which are imagined as black” (Davis 2003: 90; see also Gilman 1999). In the nineteenth century, cosmetic surgeons “not only tried to correct the ugliness that results from diseases …, but they also tried to correct the ‘ugliness’ of nonwhite races” (Gilman 1999:16). Gilman finds, similarly to Davis, that surgeons operated on ethnic noses: the Irish nose, the Jewish nose, and the “Oriental” nose. They also fixed the bat ears and jug ears thought to be common to the Irish. And they operated on the Asian eyelid fold. At the end of the nineteenth century, altering the African American nose became a chief concern of US cosmetic surgeons, occurring along with other race-denying procedures such as hair straightening and skin lightening, as took place at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the end of the twentieth century, it became the intent not to be too visibly black or too ethnic, instead of attempting to deny altogether one’s racial identity (Gilman 1999: 111). That is, there was a move toward “ethnic-specific” cosmetic procedures in the 1980s, such as lipthinning and nose tip flattening. Dermabrasion, the removal of the upper layer of the skin, became a procedure of choice among African American men, but rhinoplasty in the form of tip flattening is the procedure of choice for African American men and women (Gilman 1999: 114–15). Historically and culturally, “African Americans who undertook aesthetic surgery in the 1940s and 1950s did so in order to ‘pass.’” In the 1970s, however, when the “black became beautiful” sentiment was in full swing, there was a change in the meaning ascribed to cosmetic surgery for the African American: “One ‘passed’ now by looking like a socially more acceptable (read: white) version of the black nose” (Gilman 1999: 116, 117). As Elizabeth Haiken (1997) has written: “If white northern European features constituted that standard against which all other ‘races’ are measured, it was hardly surprising that individuals with features that marked them as ‘Other’ than white or northern European would want to hide the visible clues that they saw as having unfavorable or stigmatic connotations” (Haiken 1997: 186). Perhaps that explains the present-day practice among Iranian women in the US and in Iran of undergoing rhinoplasty in order to appear more acceptably non-Middle Eastern (Gilman 2005). (This may also be partly a class issue, since only the affluent can afford it, as Kathy Davis has pointed out.) Cosmetic surgery, while providing the solution to

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marginalization of immigrants and members of disenfranchised groups, also offers the means to upward mobility and assimilation in cultures that define certain people as, by virtue of their appearance, different and inferior (Davis 2003). Or, as Haiken puts it, cosmetic surgery permits us to become “ethnically anonymous.” There is the occasional, culturally and politically meaningful, backlash. We saw it in the “Black is Beautiful” movement. We saw it in the Vietnamese reaction to American occupation during the war, when assimilation was the order of the day, followed by a backlash upon American withdrawal. After 1975, following the US withdrawal from Vietnam, Westernizing plastic surgery declined markedly, notably eyelid epicanthal fold surgery and breast augmentations, which were prominent procedures during the Vietnam war (Gilman 1999). Now, in contemporary Vietnam, the pendulum has swung again and plastic surgery is back to Westernizing noses, increasing the size of noses to make them more European-looking, and creating an epicanthal fold. In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), after the death of Mao Tse-tung and the commensurate social liberalization, there was a vast increase in cosmetic surgery, largely a consequence of the increased affluence of the Chinese population (Gilman 1999: 106). In the 1990s in the PRC, eyelid surgery was and remains the most popular cosmetic surgery performed. Once again, we see that the major reason for Westernizing cosmetic surgical procedures refers to the pursuit of the two forms of power described in Chapter 3: the search for economic power (the ability to increase one’s income) and social network power (for example, marriageability) by looking more Western (Gilman 1999). As with the African American concerns with looking “too black,” Japanese and Vietnamese desire to not look “too Asian.” Those who choose to alter their appearances do so through skin lightening, nose lengthening, and eye reshaping in an attempt to fit more closely the globalized standards of beauty rooted in EuroAmerican stereotypes. Japanese-Americans and Vietnamese-Americans living in the US may undergo these same alterations in hopes of representing an acceptable “American” physiognomy. A similar pattern exists among South Koreans, and among South Koreans living in the US. South Korea, incidentally, has had, as part of the new economy of Asia, the largest group of aesthetic surgeons practicing in Asia in the 1990s, primarily doing nose and eyelid alterations. In the 1980s, Korean advertising brought globalized images of Western facial features into the Korean culture as part of the new middle-class ideal. These Westernizing surgeries, as undertaken by the middle-class Japanese, Vietnamese, and Koreans, may be more about signs of achieving middle-class status than achieving an “American identity,” confirming once again that the desire to look a certain way is motivated by the pursuit of economic and social network power (Gilman 1999). For those who view cosmetic surgery as “wrong,” ethnic cosmetic surgery (surgery that alters racial features) can be seen as more wrong than cosmetic surgery for other (for example, beautifying) reasons. Kathy Davis has posed the question: “Isn’t any recipient of cosmetic surgery, regardless of gender, ethnicity or nationality, sexual orientation or age, engaged in negotiating her identity in contexts where differences in embodiment can evoke unbearable suffering?” (Davis 2003: 88). When asked this question, Davis’s feminist colleagues felt that surgeries to make one more feminine

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(for example, breast augmentations) are generally wrong, but not always wrong in individual cases. However, they felt that ethnic surgeries to Westernize eyes, and so on, are always reprehensible. Yet Davis’s question raises the same “solution” or “remedy” issues that she has brought forward in discussions of women wanting cosmetic surgery to advance themselves powerwise. In the Introduction to this book, I addressed the “choice” issue and found supporting evidence from Davis and Naomi Wolf (2002) that women should have the freedom to choose to alter their appearance or not. Women are discriminated against because they are women, and they are doubly discriminated against if their appearance is not what a patriarchal system demands (for instance, when they age). Ethnic minorities, obviously, face overt discrimination also in the workplace, educational settings, and elsewhere. It can be easily argued that they feel the need to participate in controversial practices such as skin bleaching and hair straightening. If ethnic minorities want to gain access to social power, they are greatly pressured to look a particular way, to choose wisely whether to lighten the skin, straighten the hair, readjust the nose, or round out the eyes. At the same time, they may be accused of denying their identity if they undergo these changes in order to gain the same level of power as possessed by majority members, the power that ought to be granted automatically but which, realistically, is not. What a bind. By altering their racially marked features, non-whites place themselves at risk of being viewed as race traitors. They may be accused of denying their ethnic heritage, of attempting to gain power by passing as more Caucasian instead of standing their ground as an ethnic (Haiken 1997). Call it “passing” or cultural assimilation, ethnics are given less leeway than whites in rationalizing their decisions to undergo cosmetic surgery. Ethnics can explain, as white women do, that they merely want to look better or that they are trying to reverse the effects of societal discrimination by fitting in, and that they are victims of racist norms (Davis 2003: 84; Haiken 1997: 213). Summary Perhaps the epitome of the racism and beauty disconnect can best be seen in American beauty contests, where we find racism, sexism, and looksism all wrapped up in one event. The Miss America pageant is “not merely about pageantry, or kitschy culture, or the objectification of women, or overt racism, or reactionary nationalism. It is about all these things and more” (Banet-Weiser 1999: 3). Within these pageants, the traditional and well-known contradictions of femininity, such as the need to be protected while being exploited, become more complex when non-white contestants are introduced. Banet-Weiser describes the non-white body as functioning “as a specter—the marked other—against which the ideal female citizen is defined” and points to an increasingly multiethnic society such as the US as threatening the traditional function of beauty pageants as “sites for the control of nonwhite identities through the enforcement of dominant, universal norms of beauty” (Banet-Weiser 1999: 9). Though the US may be becoming more ethnically diverse, with whites now in the racial minority, the US is, simultaneously, an increasingly segregated nation. However, and here is the hypocritical part, because the Miss America contest now

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has non-white contestants, white Americans can believe that they are open-minded and tolerant. The language of diversity in popular discourse, Banet-Weiser points out, is not the same thing as a real recognition of diverse cultures and traditions. What we end up with in the Miss America pageants is a “slick, commodified image of diversity. Instead of real diversity, we have a cover story for the material and cultural conditions of a society that assuages national tensions about race and legitimates the ideas of” hard-core right-wing racists (Banet-Weiser 1999: 21, emphasis mine). Miss America is alleged to represent the face of America and the face of diversity. More truthfully, though, the non-white contestants competing on a stage do not “dismantle the privilege of whiteness that frames the pageant. On the contrary, this presence, harmoniously situated alongside white female bodies, works to include whiteness as a key player in the game of diversity” (Banet-Weiser 1999: 21). Minority Misses America serve to make the US beauty contest seem fair and non-racist, while confirming, in reality, the opposite. This confusing contradiction makes the racists who support the contest feel comfortable about themselves, without confronting their racism. Socio-economic Status and Appearance Socio-economic Status and Dental Care A person’s smile is a sign of general well-being and is an important factor in landing a job. Unfortunately, dental care is not available to all and is indeed becoming ever more unequal (Abelson 2004). What we have in the US is a double standard of care, with the financially comfortable sporting beautiful teeth and the less fortunate burdened with decayed, stained, crooked, and missing teeth. Being poor affects our physical appearance and our options to improve our appearance. Moreover, economic conditions are not uncommonly related to other minority statuses, such as membership in a racial and ethnic minority. Research by Hudson, Stockard, and Ramberg (2007) finds, not surprisingly, that socio-economic status and ethnic identity are significantly related to the number of decayed and missing teeth. African Americans, more than Mexican Americans and well ahead of white Americans, are more likely to have decayed and missing teeth. It has long been known and is well documented that socio-economic status, ethnic minority status, and morbidity and mortality are related. The poor and minorities get sick more often, get sick more seriously, and die from lack of medical attention more often than the better-off and the white. Whites, more likely to have greater economic resources, have better healthcare and thus better health. (I would interject here that white middle-class people in the US are increasingly suffering from a lack of medical and dental care since they are increasingly lacking health insurance, their incomes are effectively dropping, and they cannot afford to seek medical attention.) Dental health not uncommonly serves as an indicator of general health, and poor dental health can directly cause other medical conditions. But for the purposes of this book, let us focus on the impact of dental health upon social placement. As Linn (1966) and Chavers, Gilbert, and Shelton (2002) remind us, attractive dentition

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facilitates positive social interactions, while unattractive dentition inhibits it. People with bad or missing teeth may avoid meeting people. When they meet people, they may avoid talking to them or laughing, out of fear of embarrassment. Attractive dentition is associated with economic and social success, in other words, high or upward social mobility. Absent dental care (such as visible cavities, stained and crooked teeth) as well as visible dental treatment (extractions versus fillings and replaced teeth) create a socially unacceptable appearance and decrease one’s social and economic opportunities. Socio-economic Status and Size Susan Bordo describes anorexia as a cultural phenomenon and a “class-biased disorder, appearing predominantly among the daughters of families of relative affluence” (Bordo 1995: 62). From its known origins in the nineteenth century, eating disorders such as anorexia have become more prevalent among all socioeconomic categories (Bordo 1995). Mostly, however, we are concerned about increasing obesity rather than eating disorders of the anorexia variety. Here let us consider the association between obesity and socio-economic status, as it occurs internationally and within societies. In contemporary society, poor people, including the working poor, are more likely to be fat. Indeed, obesity is consistently found in households with incomes of less than $10,000. More African Americans and Mexican Americans, who are also more likely to be poor, are fat compared to whites. For instance, 33 percent of African Americans are obese, 26 percent of Hispanics are obese, and 19 percent of whites are obese. Mexican Americans face a particular obstacle with obesity because of the thriftygene interaction. The thrifty-gene theory, to be discussed more fully elsewhere, refers to starvation diets being replaced by high-fat diets. Essentially, poor people, like Mexicans, who are used to a starvation diet develop a metabolism predisposed to retain fat. When they immigrate to a society that has plentiful high-fat food, their metabolism reacts by storing the fat more efficiently than people accustomed to a plentiful diet (Critser 2003b). There are the obesogenic explanations also. That is, environmental factors can determine who is fat and who is not, with poor people bearing the brunt of such environmental factors. People living in low income neighborhoods have less opportunity to partake of the healthy life than do the wealthy, since there are few safe places to walk, fewer athletic facilities, and less access to healthy and low-fat food as would be found in the better supermarkets with fresh produce (Angier 2000). A 2007 study of the reasons that childhood obesity in the US has not abated, given a recent campaign to encourage children to eat healthily and exercise, found, among other things, that socio-economic status plays a large role. Specifically, poorer children are at greater risk of obesity because unhealthy, high-fat food is cheaper and more readily available than healthy food. Poor and working-poor parents often need to work more than one job, leaving children unsupervised to get their own snacks. Children are unlikely to exercise on their own and, as mentioned, the local parks are not safe in poor communities, and sports teams cost money (Associated Press 2007). England has had a similar experience (childhood obesity) with similar

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outcomes (childhood obesity-related medical conditions). English children eat junk food and are sedentary, and this is more true for those of lower income status (see, for example, BBC News 2002). Weight-control products and services are expensive. The drugs, diet, and exercise programs, and weight-loss surgery (for example, bariatric surgery) are financially out of reach for many people. Bariatric procedures cost, on average, at least $25,000. With complications, which are not uncommon, the surgery can cost $100,000 (Freudenheim 2005). Weight-loss surgery of this kind (versus liposuction) has almost entirely to do with seeking an improvement in health; that is, people seek this surgery because they suffer the medical effects of obesity. Whether or not we see the fault of obesity lying within the responsibility of the patient (to lose weight or not become fat in the first place), denial of healthcare to sick people because they cannot afford it presents a problem with moral and ethical conundrums. It also presents a problem with illogic: we say that we have an obesity epidemic, yet we do not address this epidemic with practical, workable, affordable solutions. If we were serious about treating obesity and its effects, we could at the very least encourage pharmaceutical companies to price medicines appropriately (within reach of all income levels) and put forward a national healthcare system in the US for all medical needs, aesthetic and other. The effects of body size are not just in terms of health. More to the point of this book, body size greatly affects access to social power. A review of 144 studies of socio-economic status and weight found a “strong inverse correlation between a woman’s weight and her social and economic status in … virtually all developed countries” (Etcoff 1999: 200). The studies also found an inverse relationship, in developing countries, between food scarcity and higher-status men and women being heavier, such that higher status is signified by more pounds. But in developed societies, thin is good and the thin ideal is maintained by diet and exercise, values and practices that are lacking among poorer people. The thin ideal is also maintained by social network mobility. Notably, thin women are more likely to marry in an upwardly mobile direction. Heavier women marry men of the same social class or lower (Etcoff 1999). Socio-economic Status and Skin When skin color became associated with outdoor labor versus leisure time, it became a sign of socio-economic status. Hard physical outdoor labor can darken the skin and belies the wealth and status of light-colored skin. In the mid-twentieth century, when it was the case that the poor and working poor had to work outdoors in the harsh elements, dark skin signified their lower status (Jablonski 2006). By the late 1950s and 1960s, the majority of non-agricultural working people did not work outdoors, but worked instead in the home, the office, or the factory. At this point, a contradictory social phenomenon came into being, such that tanned skin (on white people) represented higher status, as though the tanned white people had been sunning themselves during their leisure time, and tanned skin became associated with luxury vacations. “Suddenly, a look that had been reviled for centuries became chic because it was unusual and a sign of privilege” (Jablonksi 2006: 159).

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Since about 1990, as has been the case for cosmetic surgery, skin rejuvenation procedures have been greatly democratized (Berry 2007). Many of the new skin treatments in the form of cosmeceutical treatments, such as dermabrasion and Botox injections, are less expensive than face-lifts. This democratization has permitted those in the middle class to pursue the ideal of youthful skin, formerly reserved for the wealthy. Slightly different from, but relevant to, democratization is normalization. Because so many highly visible and well-known people, celebrities and media figures, have not only undergone rejuvenating procedures but are upfront about it, they are seen as role models to emulate rather than the subject of jokes. Surgical and non-surgical cosmetic procedures to improve the appearance are the topic of entire TV programs, and are now relegated to the status of “spectator sports” (Jablonski 2006: 161; see also Berry 2007). Socio-economic Status, Grooming, and Dress Thorstein Veblen (1899) analyzed the manner in which people used clothing to establish their social position, to state a particular social status image. He famously argued that it is not enough merely to possess wealth or power but to display this wealth and power. The collection of valuable things, things that other people cannot afford, and displaying those valuable things is referred to as “conspicuous consumption.” One’s clothing, for instance, can convey “conspicuous leisure,” if they appear to signify that the wearers engage in upper-status leisure activities such as hunting, golf, yachting, or polo. Leisure and higher social status is also obviously displayed by jewelry, long fingernails, and the wearing of high-heeled shoes— fashions that make hard physical labor impossible (Riordan 2004). Similarly, Erving Goffman (1951) remarked that objects that we attach to ourselves become status symbols when their purchase indicates membership in an upper economic stratum. Amusingly, if people who are not wealthy buy and wear these objects, their value as status symbols is lost. Ugly Law I mention Ugly Law here because of the intense socio-economic feature in devising these ordinances. As the term implies, unattractive people were once, in a limited fashion, criminally and civilly punished for appearing in public. They were so treated not simply because they were ugly, though. In fact, the intended victims of Ugly Law were not necessarily unattractive. They were, however, not uncommonly disabled and in need of financial resources. Basically, the ordinances, dating from 1867 to 1974 in the US and her imperial territories, attempted to round up “unsightly beggars,” and were in effect in a number of US cities (Chicago, San Francisco, Lincoln, Denver, Columbus, Omaha, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles) and the state of Pennsylvania. The consequences of being ugly in public were real and quite punitive, notably arrest and punishment in the form of fines and incarceration (Schweik forthcoming). Ugly laws were generally part of vagrancy laws, which are relevant to loitering and anti-begging laws, with capitalism being a big part of all these laws. Merchants did not want ugly (mutilated, maimed, diseased, and so on) beggars, or any beggars,

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to inhibit trade in the vicinity of their stores. Vagrancy laws, as the reader knows, impose punishment on those people lacking a visible means of support and who are (often wrongly) assumed to have criminal intent. The infamous Chicago municipal code 36-34 of 1966, repealed only in 1974, imposed fines on persons appearing in public, loitering and presumed to be begging, who were “diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” (Gilman 1999: 24). These laws, Sander Gilman points out, were equivalent to the “Jim Crow” laws of the southern US, disallowing African Americans from appearing in particular places or using white-only facilities (drinking fountains, restaurants, and so on). They were also similar to Nazi sign postings ordering Jews not to enter parks (Gilman 1999). Though Chicago adopted “unsightly beggar” ordinances to ban the disabled from public places, the police often refused to enforce the laws. Paul Longmore, an expert on disability, reminds us that “whether local ordinances banned or allowed alms seeking, all regarded cripples as natural beggars” (Longmore 2003: 58). The Chicago ordinance warned that no one who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed shall expose herself or himself to the public, as though the public sensibilities could not withstand such an assault. But as Longmore, and in more detail Susan Schweik, point out, enforcement was difficult and mostly absent because the public would not stand for such blatant discrimination. A key point that continually crops up in Schweik’s work is the ambiguity of ugly law and the ambiguity of ugliness. Nowhere is there a description of what constitutes ugliness precisely. At the same time, we find lists of traits (maimed, diseased, deformed, mutilated) that may be targeted. But even the adjectives in the list are vague, begging the question of whether the authors of the ordinances, moral entrepreneurs that they were, wanted to keep ugliness ambiguous so that they might target whomever they wanted. The criteria for appearance were vague, but the discrimination was not. The powerlessness of those of lower socio-economic status was also not in question. Clearly, there is a relationship between disability, “ugliness,” and begging (being poor), at least as far as they pertain to Ugly Law. What this means, more significantly, is that Ugly Law clearly targeted poor, “ugly,” disabled people. Wealthy “ugly” people, obviously, were not subject to Ugly Law (Schweik forthcoming). In November 2007, I conducted my own small survey of street laborers (beggars, entertainers, and vendors) in downtown Seattle to ascertain whether they are bothered by the police or the public. As the reader can see from my field notes (Appendix), they mostly are not bothered. But of those who are, as per my observations and as clearly stated by two of the laborers without my prompting, physical appearance matters a great deal. The disabled, the poorly groomed, and the unattractive receive more hassle and less money. The Superior State of Inequality: Hierarchies and Reversals of Hierarchies First, let us consider what is meant by “pride,” as in fat pride, gay pride, white pride, black pride. Technically, it does not mean and does not have to mean a

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state of supremacy. But, informally, it sometimes does mean supremacy, at least connotatively. The need to make a denigrated minority status seem superior to the majority status is intended to operate for fat people as it did for the “Black is Beautiful” movement prominent in the 1960s. The notion of and social movement surrounding Fat Pride suggests more of Marilyn Wann’s (1998) point of view that fat is a good thing, fat people should be proud of being fat, and we should strive to be fat. Fat acceptance, by contrast, has more of an anti-discrimination intent. Fat people should be accepted for what they are, for their capabilities, and for their qualities as societal members, regardless of their size. Society and its many components (the medical community, fashion community, and so on) should not try to change fat people (make them lose weight or feel ashamed) and fat people should not be ostracized socially, economically, or otherwise. Acceptance is a socially healthy objective and practice. But to say that any category of people is superior to another is not helpful to the pursuit of equality. Second, let us consider some other examples of categorical superiority and the issue of being “too” something and “not enough” something. In the above section on race, we saw that blacks, for example, can be “too black” in appearance and thus feel pressured to change their appearance to a whiter one. The same is true for other ethnicities such as Asians, Mexicans, and First Nation peoples. At the same time, we saw that members of a particular ethnicity can practice and experience intraracial colorism and denigrate those among their number who are not sufficiently (and thus not authentically) black, Mexican, and so on. In the latter case, we might say that members of any categories (majority or minority) may experience pressure to demonstrate in an extreme fashion that they are sufficiently whatever (white, black, Mestizo, and so on). Aesthetics aside, this pressure to be something enough is not restricted to race and racial appearance. It may apply in other social categories. Gays who are not out but who keep their orientation secret may be ostracized for not being prideful about their orientation. A very small faction of feminists claim that “true” feminists must be lesbian as a demonstration of their shunning the sexist patriarchal social system. The failure of such reversed hierarchies is that they are still hierarchies. They are not equality-accepting social systems. Hostility Toward the Attractive (For Example, the Thin) At a fat-acceptance meeting, Debra Gimlin, the author of a book on beauty, was confronted with hostility from some of the members because she is not fat. As one member explained to her, the members of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (who are mostly women) were “suspicious of thin women in their group, fearing that they will compete for the scarce male resources that the organization offers” (Gimlin 2002: 113). By Gimlin’s account, members believe that because “fat admirers” have learned to feel ashamed of their sexual preference for fat women, they will pursue a thin woman almost by reflex if one is present. (As an aside, “fat admirers” are generally men who prefer fat women for romantic and sexual partners. Not surprisingly, they attend fat-acceptance gatherings looking for women.) Gimlin

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is not fat and was considered a threat to this romantic set-up. She also attended the Fat Feminist Caucus (FFC) conference. After contacting the organizer of the group, she explained that she was studying fat acceptance as part of a research project. She was granted permission to attend, but was warned that she would need to introduce herself and explain her presence to conference participants. That seems fair enough; any outsider might be asked to explain her or his presence. Gimlin’s point, though, was the hesitance with which she was granted permission, which is probably not commonly the case with outsiders seeking permission to attend a meeting. As an organization with the express purpose of asserting “the political rights of fat women, the FFC argues that fat is essentially meaningless and, by implication, has few ramifications for identity” (Gimlin 2002: 115). If that is true, and I agree that it is, why the hostility? Furthermore, at least some thin people cannot help being thin. A website and a support organization is devoted to the occurrence (see Natural Tendencies, a naturally-thin-based focus group and part of the International Size Acceptance Association). Some people really cannot put on weight for the same reasons that some fat people cannot take it off and keep it off: metabolism and genetics. Physiological explanations aside, we read in fat-acceptance literature missives about the superiority of fat people over thin people. Fat people, it is said, are more attractive, healthier, and less vain (Wann 1998). Thin people, it is said, engage in unhealthy practices such as induced vomiting to stay thin, and are referred to variously as “stupid, thin people” (Frater 2005). I will say more about this later, in the chapter on transforming social aesthetics. Suffice it to say here that reversing the hierarchy is just as dysfunctional and destructive as retaining the current hierarchy. Stratification is stratification, and bias is bias.

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Chapter 5

Alterations: Making Our Appearance More Suitable We, as a society and individual members of it, react to our own physical appearance and society’s assessment of our appearance (discolored teeth, misshapen noses, cellulite, and so on). These assessments can be experienced as mightily punishing. In response to the social pressure to be attractive, we do many things to not be the ones with these visible shortcomings. Here I describe the things we do to comply with social directives to fit the standards of attractiveness as closely as possible. Non-compliance with these directives is an option, a significant social reaction that is gaining endorsement. While commendable as a social and personal protest, non-compliance (which I will discuss at length in Chapter 10 on transformations) carries with it notable punishment. Thus, most of us acquiesce to social pressures, using a number of means to alter our appearance. All of these alterations cost money, small amounts or large amounts. But money is not the only resource we expend to change our looks; time and energy are also expended in small and large amounts. For those of us who are not naturally attractive, which is most of us, we must spend time, energy, and funds to make ourselves as acceptable as possible if we want to capture social and economic power. Time is limited and not evenly distributed: some of us have more of it than others. And time can be related to financial resources, such that if one has plenty of money to pay for child care (for instance), one has more time to spend on beautifying oneself. Some of us are more appearance-obsessed than others and as a consequence spend a great deal of time and effort on our appearance. As Blum points out, spending more than an hour per day on one’s physical being constitutes “body dysmorphic disorder” or BDD; such a person, Blum says, has an “extreme dissatisfaction with one’s appearance” (Blum 2003: 15). Kuczynski describes BDD as, per the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV, a “preoccupation with a slight or imagined defect in appearance that causes significant distress or functional impairment and that cannot be accounted for by another mental disorder” (Kuczynski 2006: 197). Certainly, people can spend a great deal of time on their physical appearance, with styling their hair, applying makeup, and so on. And this is time not spent doing something else, something perhaps more worthwhile. These tasks, the time they take, and the money they cost, range along a continuum. Some of us merely brush our teeth with ordinary toothpaste, while others of us pay a little extra for tooth-whitening toothpaste, and still others of us have our teeth whitened professionally and expensively. Some of us receive veneers for our teeth (which must be replaced not infrequently) and new snap-on temporary teeth to give us large, white teeth temporarily (Kuczynski 2006). Many of us color our hair at

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home with hair-coloring kits that we buy at the pharmacy or the grocery store; others of us have our hair colored at expensive salons for large sums of money every few weeks. Some of us use self-tanning lotions or skin-whitening solutions that we buy at the drug store, while others of us buy these products at expensive cosmetic counters, and others of us spend a great deal of time and money to become tanned in tanning salons or by sunning at a fancy resort. And so on. Some of these methods of alteration are simple, temporary, and commonplace while others are dangerous, semi-permanent, and life-threatening. The one thing they have in common is the search for social acceptance and power, a practice occurring in every known culture and with a very long history. Cosmetics have been in use for over 40,000 years (or, as Jablonski confirms, over 75,000 years ago), as evidenced by the discovery of red ochre in southern Africa, used for the purpose of decorating the face and body (Kuczynski 2006; see also Riordan 2004; Jablonski 2006). The first known plastic surgery, a nose realignment, took place in 600 BC (Kuczynski 2006). Footbinding—a practice limited to women in late imperial China—evokes a “concept and practice of enduring violence and pain, mutilation and self-mutilation in the name of beauty [and] can be found in almost every culture and civilization” (Ping 2000: xi). We may deride the practice and concept of footbinding today but, cross-culturally and across time, we can compare footbinding to cosmetic surgery, African Americans conking their hair, athletes taking steroids, women starving themselves, men undergoing hair transplants, and women waxing their bikini area. We can consider alterations in terms of the features that we wish changed, that our surrounding society tells us need to be changed to be more socially acceptable. These features include our height, weight, skin color, hair (texture, abundance, color), facial features (eye shape, nose size and shape, lip fullness), teeth, and skin (color, wrinkles, sagging). Moreover, we can consider the changes we apply to these features, to “correct” our “faults.” These alterations include the use of cosmetics and cosmeceuticals, surgery, ingestion of hormones, diets, and so on. We can, more meaningfully and scientifically, consider these alterations in terms of their social significance, such as the intervening influences of race, class, gender, and status-seeking. We need also to deliberate on how appearance alterations relate to homogeneity (as in “cookie cutter” plastic surgery) and volition (whether we should alter our appearance or not). Cosmetics and Cosmeceuticals Cosmetics are products applied to “improve” the appearance of our physical being. They constitute anything that is “rubbed, poured, sprinkled or sprayed on, introduced into or otherwise applied to the human body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness or altering the appearance without affecting the body’s structure or functions” (US Food and Drug Administration 2006). The effects are superficial and short-lived. Examples would include hair color, makeup, cellulite gel, cleansers, and nail polish. Marketers are careful to say that cosmetics can only aid “in the appearance of” specific flaws: cosmetics cannot remedy those flaws.

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Cosmeceuticals differ from cosmetics in that they have a less temporary effect, may require medical or technical assistance to be used, and often may not be purchased without a medical prescription. Cosmeceuticals, a blend of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, have a more lasting effect and do more to actually change the physical feature at which they are aimed. A good illustration of the difference between cosmetics and cosmeceuticals is deodorant. Deodorant is a scented substance ordinarily applied to the underarm with the purpose of masking the smell of perspiration. It is a cosmetic. A deodorant becomes a cosmeceutical when it contains an antiperspirant. Antiperspirants shrink the sweatglands temporarily in order to reduce sweating. In other words, they make a change in the physical function of the body rather than merely mask the normal bodily processes. Examples of cosmeceuticals include baldness treatments, anti-wrinkle creams, dermabrasion, and glycolic acid peels. Some are available for purchase and use by ordinary consumers. Others, like Botox and dermal fillers, are available only through and applied by licensed professionals. These licensed professionals are not necessarily plastic surgeons; in the US, they can be dentists, dermatologists, and an increasing number of other healthcare professionals. Plastic Surgery Plastic surgery is not new. The reconstruction of noses was practiced as far back as 600 BC by Asian Indian surgeons, with later rhinoplasties documented in 1000 AD (Kuczynski 2006). Rhinoplasties became more common after World War I among the Irish, Jews, and Mediterraneans who sought ways to camouflage their ethnicity (Gilman 1999; Kuczynski 2006). They are increasingly common today among Iranian women for the same reason (Gilman 2005). As another example of long-entrenched plastic surgery, face-lifts have been available since the 1800s and are remarkably unchanged in procedure today, although new techniques have been introduced. There are two kinds of plastic surgery: reconstructive and strictly cosmetic. The line between them is blurrier than one might think. For example, to remake a shattered and misshapen nose is reconstruction. Though clearly the effect is not only to correct a defect and even improve breathing, the aesthetic appeal of the nose is also improved. Or think of women’s breast reduction. (Men undergo breast reductions also, but solely for aesthetic purposes.) Clearly, the reduction will alter a woman’s appearance, but the reduction can also alleviate serious medical conditions related to large breast size (back problems, grooving in her shoulders where the brassiere straps cut because of the weight of the breasts, and so on). Reconstructive surgery is viewed as serious while cosmetic (or aesthetic) surgery is viewed as frivolous. Cosmetic surgery is elective by definition, with elective procedures deemed unnecessary, or at least not immediately necessary. Cosmetic surgery patients are seen as not really sick, and the surgery is viewed as non-medical and a sign of vanity (Gilman 1999). Looked at somewhat differently, Kathy Davis (2003) describes cosmetic surgery as an attempt to fit in, to be normal. Davis has a forgiving perspective on women (her primary target of investigation) undergoing plastic surgery. It is not just a matter of vanity, she points out, even if the surgery is purely aesthetic in Sander Gilman’s terms.

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Davis describes her interviewees, women who have had plastic surgery, as engaging in equality discourse. Such discourse considers plastic surgery as a “celebration of individuality and erasures of systematic embodied differences” leading, presumably, to a kind of equality (Davis 2003: 7). That is, we may undergo plastic surgery in order to be socially acceptable, and this purpose (to be socially acceptable) is nothing to be ashamed of and has nothing to do with the frivolities usually associated with cosmetic surgery. If women are to gain or retain social power, surgery is a tool by which to do that, in the same manner that getting extra training and education is a tool for advancement. Of course, Davis recognizes the feminist criticisms of cosmetic surgery as dangerous and against feminist ideology; for instance, it is well argued that cosmetic surgery is a form of succumbing to a patriarchal, chauvinistic social system. And it is true that, at best, cosmetic surgery “may provide temporary relief for an individual woman’s problems with her appearance. At worst, cosmetic surgery represents a capitulation to the cultural norms that victimize women in the name of beauty. As such, cosmetic surgery is often viewed as ‘unalterably opposed’ to the goals of liberation and emancipation” (Davis 2003: 35–6). Echoing Davis(2003) and Naomi Wolf (2002), Alex Kuczynski writes that “Looks are the new feminism, an activism of aesthetics. As vulgar and shallow as it sounds, looks matter more than they ever have—especially for women” (Kuczynski 2006: 5). From my readings, I would be forced to agree. New Surgical Procedures Cosmetic foot surgery, as opposed to orthopedic foot surgery, is intended to make women’s feet more attractive or to make the feet amenable to wearing high-fashion (high-heeled, narrow-toed) shoes. We can have our toes shortened and plumped and our feet narrowed or straightened for $12,000. We can have collagen injected into the balls of our feet to restore padding lost from years of wearing high-heeled shoes. We can have our toes lopped off at $2,500 per toe. We can have our toe cleavage improved. The purpose, as described in news articles on the topic, is to be more attractive to men, to get whistled at. Such surgery is not good for the feet, not good for the wallet, and not good for women’s struggle for equal rights (Trebay 2003; Harris 2003). We can have leg-lengthening surgery, such as Chinese men and (mostly) women are undergoing, which adds a few inches of height at the risk of permanently crippling us, and at some cost ($6,000 to $7,000). The procedure involves breaking the long bones of the legs; the legs are then placed in braces, with the patients turning plastic dials on the contraptions four times per day to winch their broken bones apart. It takes 15 days to grow one centimeter, or less than half an inch, of new bone. The legs and feet can become grotesquely warped and twisted, and weakened bones can again break. The purpose, according to those who undergo it, is to get better jobs and to attract better marriage partners, since China, like much of the world, values height (Smith 2002; see also Gilman 2005). Hair transplants, which involve transplanting individual hair follicles from the back of the head where hair is more plentiful to bald spots, are now replacing hair

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plugs and toupees (Hurley 2004). We can have eyelashes implanted from various hairy parts of our bodies for fuller and longer eyelashes. Since the implantation in this case uses a strong glue, one can easily imagine the already documented dangers (Scelfo 2006). Moreover, because eyelashes are specialized hairs that do not grow lengthwise and do not need curling, the implanted hairs, not being so specialized, must be trimmed and curled to prevent their growing too long or getting into the eyes. Barbed sutures are replacing the old-fashioned face-lift. The barbs resemble small fish hooks which are inserted under the skin and pull the skin up and back for a tighter (and younger) facial appearance (Gorman 2004). Similarly, Parisian doctors administer the “gold-thread face-lift” by sewing filament into the tissues of the face, and then pulling the filaments into place to hoist the skin in an upward direction. The “Russian thread lift” also uses barbed threads pushed beneath the skin, pulled back, and anchored to provide a lifting effect. There are at least four other forms of the barbed sutures technique used throughout a number of cultures (Kuczynski 2006). The advantage of the suturing technique is that it is not nearly so invasive and the recovery is far less, even though the effect may be less drastic and less permanent. Also to “improve” our facial appearance, there are now available injectable fillers and molded silicone face implants (Gorman 2004). These techniques have not panned out so well since the implants can relocate themselves and the fillers are of questionable medical quality. Another noteworthy change in rejuvenating faces is the fact that younger people are engaging in it. Concern over youthful skin was once the province of middle-aged women, but now face-lifts, surface treatments, injectable compounds, and Botox injections have spread to men as well as teenagers and young adults of both genders (Jablonski 2006). All of these procedures are costly and not without danger. Botox procedures, for instance, involve injecting a toxin that blocks “the action of the neurotransmitters at the neuromuscular junction, thus preventing contracting of the muscle. The effects last only three to four months,” requiring repeated injections. These repeated injections “eventually lead to muscular atrophy and a reduced ability to produce facial expressions” (Jablonski 2006: 162). For those who want more fullness and a more youthful appearance in genital labia, a new surgery offers labial rejuvenation, in which the labia around the vagina are “snipped and sculpted” (Kuczynski 2006: 5). With labiaplasty, the female external genital structures are surgically reshaped, with fat removed from other body parts and injected into the labia. Fat can also be liposuctioned from the socalled mound-of-Venus, if one prefers a flatter appearance in this area (Kuczynski 2006: 128). Men are not immune from genital cosmetic surgery, as we see with penis enlargement surgery. This surgery has not been met with much satisfaction, however. Most men who have had penis enlargement surgery are not happy with the results, largely because the surgery does not make the penises much bigger (with the average increase in length being 1.3 centimeters or 0.5 inches), which has not met the patients’ unrealistic expectations (Reuters 2006). Other new techniques in this seemingly endless supply of surgical alterations are umbilicoplasty, or belly button enhancement, and breast nipple enlargement (Kuczynski 2006: 9).

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Non-trivial and definitely falling into the category of reconstructive surgery is the full face transplant. As the reader is aware, several face transplants have taken place, with remarkable success and for legitimate medical reasons, in order to replace a badly damaged face (Smith 2005; Radford 2004; Mason 2005). Not all reconstructive transplants have worked out well; for instance, penile transplants have been fraught with problems having to do with psychological rejection of the transplanted part. It is not uncommon for recipients of transplanted body parts to be dissatisfied, even horrified, by the transplant, to the point of asking that the part be surgically removed again, even if it operates perfectly well. This has been the case with transplanted hands and with transplanted penises. In the case of the latter, a Chinese man who lost his penis in an accident received a transplanted one which functioned well for urination and sexual intercourse. The new organ was not rejected medically by the body, but was rejected by the man and his wife; it was later removed (Sample 2006). Gastric bypass surgery can be considered reconstructive, cosmetic, or both. It can occur in two forms. The more common of the two involves stapling the inlet that allows food to come into the stomach, leaving the stomach pouch much smaller than it previously was, restricting food intake. Two and a half to five feet of the upper portions of the small intestine are then bypassed, reducing calorie and nutrient absorption. The less common technique removes portions of the stomach to create a smaller pouch, reducing food intake, followed by the bypassing of 12 to 15 feet of small intestine. In this more extreme case, the duodenum is completely bypassed and sealed off (Grady 2000). Those who undergo either of the bypass procedures, for the most part, are not trying to become thin but to become healthier (for instance, to reduce hypertension, reduce the risk of diabetes, and prevent further damage to their bones and joints that have had to support enormous amounts of weight), and to save their lives. The surgery is risky. About 10 percent of patients suffer serious complications, including infections resulting from gastrointestinal leaks, abdominal hernias, metabolic bone disease, anemia, osteoporosis, gallstones, blood clots, bleeding, and respiratory failure. A small number (0.1 to 2 percent) die during or following the procedures. Between 10 to 20 percent of the patients require additional surgery to address complications (Kuczysnki 2006). The patients do lose, however, 100 to 200 pounds within the first year after surgery. Such dramatic weight loss results in massive amounts of loose skin and deformed muscle, thus requiring surgery to remove the skin and restructure the muscle. Thus, lower body and full body lifts are in order. No-longer-needed flesh that used to cover the torso, stomach, back, neck, arms, and thighs now comprise yards of skin that hang from the bodies. The full body lift, largely an American procedure, is among the fastest-growing procedures today and involves “a circumferential abdominoplasty, a lower body lift, an inner thigh lift, a reverse abdominoplasty, a back-roll removal, and breast reshaping. All are performed in a single surgical session that lasts nine or ten hours” (Kuczynski 2006: 177). Less drastic is liposuction, the most popular cosmetic surgery. But it is expensive and not without significant danger. People die from liposuction, largely due to the too-rapid loss of hydration. And liposuction, a method of vacuuming fat out of the body, does not cure cellulite, the fat deposits under the skin giving forth a

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dimply appearance (Smith 2001). Since cellulite gels and creams have shown no positive results in the reduction of cellulite, something called mesotherapy has been developed. Theoretically, it makes more sense than topically applied cosmetics, because cellulite occurs under the skin and mesotherapy involves injecting a cocktail of drugs under the skin to dissolve the fat. However, although this procedure makes theoretical sense and it costs a great deal of money, it is probably an ineffective treatment for cellulite (Lennon 2005). One would be remiss to discuss extreme plastic surgery without at least mentioning Michael Jackson, who has undergone numerous alterations to his face and skin. Yet, compare him to the French performing artist Orlan. She uses her own face and body as a canvas, which she has repeatedly changed using plastic surgery as her medium of choice. Her objective is to become a “synthesis of classical beauty” by totally reconstructing herself according to traditional ideals of female beauty. For example, she has re-made her features in the image of classic beauties such as Mona Lisa and others, borrowing the lips of one beauty and the eyes of another and nose of yet another. It is not her purpose to be made more attractive. Instead, she hopes to illustrate that our chasing of beauty standards is “unattainable and the process horrifying,” while denoting that accepting what we look like naturally, without alterations, is outdated as a concept and practice. Our features, as suggested by Nina Jablonski, “exist to be altered at will” (2006: 163). One of Orlan’s objectives is to question the social and legal meaning of identity. If one becomes a different person visually, she supposes, one is a different person with an entirely new social and legal identity (Gilman 1999; see also Blum 2003). Cookie Cutter Looks and Homogeneity There has been a growing social acceptance of plastic surgery and growing numbers of people engaging in it. The stigma is gone. Many of us are unhappy with our appearance and we greatly exaggerate to ourselves what we consider to be defects, with this dissatisfaction very likely culturally or socially generated. We compare ourselves to mass media images of beauty and we come up lacking. And many of us want to look like these icons of physical beauty; indeed, we want to look exactly like them, as it turns out. If full lips are in fashion, we can have them. High cheekbones? Tan skin? Blonde hair? Blue eyes? Full lips? No problem (Kuczynski 2004). Corresponding with the growing social acceptance and use of plastic surgery is an equalization, a democratization, of beauty. This has happened partly because costs of cosmetic surgery have declined, allowing the distance between “those who can afford to maintain a youthful-looking appearance, increasingly a sign of privilege, and the merely plain, the unretouched have-nots”—usually wide—to shrink (Kuczynski 2003). If attractive people are commonplace and are in the majority, my question is whether unattractive people will be even more discriminated against. I suspect they will. The search for mostly unattainable beauty and the resulting anxiety, to which I referred in the Introduction, is a part of the homogenization process. Homogenized images normalize what we expect to look like, what we compare ourselves to, how we are judged and how we judge ourselves in terms of our looks. Aging yet beautiful

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actors like Jane Fonda and Cher “have not made the aging female body sexually more acceptable. They have established a new norm—achievable only through continual cosmetic surgery—in which the surface of the female body ceases to age physically as the body grows chronologically older” (Bordo 1995: 26). The obsession with cosmetic surgery “has turned Beauty into a kind of physiological sameness” (Riordan 2004: 278). This is not really a new phenomenon and it is not restricted to cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic use and wardrobe contrivances (such as girdles, corsets, push-up bras, and heel lifts) have molded us into a collective, hoping-to-be ideal form. Growth Hormones and Steroids Young boys are increasingly ingesting steroids, for purposes of appearing bigger rather than for increasing their athletic prowess (Egan 2002). That is, they take steroids for appearance sake, to get girls’ attention, not for sports. Men and boys who use steroids seem nonplussed by the medical risks, since appearing strong and muscular clearly outweighs the hazards (Kolata et al. 2002). The female gender, particularly in the US, is also participating in this dangerous activity and for the same reasons: to look toned, sculpted, and buff; not to gain a competitive edge on the sports field (Associated Press 2005a). Growth hormones, debatably safe, are being administered to children who show signs of not growing tall “enough” when they mature. Most societies value tallness, especially in men (Angier 2003). Tall men get better jobs, make more money, get more dates and marry well, and are mentally and physically healthier. In short, they do not face the height discrimination that short men do (Hall 2006). So worried parents, to head off any future problems for their small children (notably boys who are expected to reach no more than 5’3” in adulthood), administer a growth hormone called Humatrope. The drug manufacturer, not surprisingly, refers to shortness as a “growth failure problem” and the rest of society also seems to view shortness as a pathology, a problem requiring a remedy (Schwartz 2003). Virginia Postrel (2003) rightly points out that we are treating normalcy as a disease. Short people who are otherwise healthy and not in need of any questionable “treatment” for a physical difference are nevertheless being treated as though they are deficient. It is understandable that parents want the best for their children and that they want their children to have all the social and economic advantages that they can possibly accrue in their lifetimes. But against expectations, short children do not necessarily suffer poor self-esteem or poor quality of life, according to new research. True, they are often treated as younger than they are because they are short, and they face some limitations in sports requiring significant height (Reuters 2003). But these forms of prejudice beg the questions of what is so valuable about sports (in contrast to, say, intellectual achievement) and, far more importantly, what is it about the public that we cannot accept people for a physical difference? I have elsewhere (Berry 2007), perhaps idealistically, called for a change in social acceptance of all manner of physical differences (disabilities, and so on) and do so again here. If the aforementioned Paul Steven Miller (a professor of law at the University of Washington

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who is 4’5”) and Deborah Burris-Kitchen (a sociology professor at Tennessee State University who is 4’9”) had been subjected to Humatrope treatments, their students would never have had to face the fact that height matters naught in ability, worth, and likeability (Ellison 2004; Burris-Kitchen 2002). Diets and Diet Culture The reader is no doubt aware of the many diets, diet programs, diet pills, diet books, diet foods, and diet spas (also known as “fat farms”) available to presumably help us lose weight. The reader is probably also aware of the staggering cost of all these services and products (see, for example, Solovay 2000), and the absences of unfulfilled promises. It is well known that diet pills do not work (otherwise there would be no fat people) and are dangerous. Controlling food intake and exercise may help, but mostly not to our satisfaction. Perhaps this is so because we backslide and do not do as we are directed. Perhaps, as is increasingly becoming evident, many have genetic structures that disallow permanent weight loss, no matter how much they diet and exercise. In addition to genetics, another barrier is our obesogenic environment that encourages weight gain by making accessible large portions of high-fat food, while making physical exercise inaccessible. An alternative to weight loss is size acceptance. There is no “fat culture,” laments Marilyn Wann (1998). But there is a “diet culture” as well described by ethnographer Jean Renfro Anspaugh (2001). She refers to the “diet culture” in Durham, North Carolina, known as the diet capital of the world, and indeed there certainly seems to be an entire culture in Durham with all the services, programs, community, and so on—not to mention the sheer number of dieters—that make up the culture. While the objective presumably is to lose weight in this diet culture, the culture provides something else: a sense of belonging. “The weight that once separated us from the dominant culture now united us in diet culture,” as Anspaugh puts it (2001: 3). With the reader’s indulgence, permit me to quote at length from Anspaugh: Anthropologists believe that a culture is composed of shared knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, language, and religion of a particular group of people. Culture is learned and shared through behavior and oral traditions. To be truly powerful, a culture must distinguish itself from the others around it and form its own community. Through isolation, the community becomes homogeneous and solidifies its core values, which results in a group identity or belief system. This is especially true of disenfranchised minority groups. Obese people are ostracized from the main culture and constitute such a group. In the United States today, dieting is a separate culture. It has its own values, language, and modes of behavior, which are passed on orally through dieters’ personal narrative experiences. This shared understanding guides behavior and informs dieters of the meaning of diet culture. … We members of diet culture value the same ideals that thin culture does, but not to the same extent. Though Western society prizes weight loss and thinness, to a dieter thinness is a relative concept. A person can be thought of as thin in Durham but fat anywhere else. … As diet culture’s capital, Durham is unique because it is the only place in America where the obese can feel truly normal and at ease. We can move

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Here is an intriguing thought: fat culture can make weight loss harder. In the above quote, Anspaugh writes that fat people are not necessarily considered fat in Durham, but may even be considered thin, relatively speaking. Thus, they do not experience the scathing comparisons to truly thin people or the constant pressure to conform to the outside world’s standards for thinness. Anspaugh goes on to say: “Because Durham becomes some people’s true home, it also becomes a hindrance to weight loss. It is easier to be fat in Durham than anywhere else because you are not in the minority. The city is full of other fat people on diet programs, and the community is used to seeing really obese people. To some [dieters], this ease of living makes dieting harder” (Anspaugh 2001: 100). Anspaugh’s observations resemble those of Greg Critser (2003b) and others, who say that fat acceptance hinders the prospect of weight loss. Elsewhere, I have commented on normalization as a force that allows fat people to no longer feel unusual since they are surrounded by (a majority of) fat people (Berry 2007). Indeed, some dieters never return home, assuming that Durham is not their home, because they are still too fat by societal standards. Many have given up on losing weight and no longer even try. They feel accepted in Durham. Most people, however, do not live in a culture that accepts obesity. Mostly, we live in societies that are very unforgiving if we are even slightly outside the bounds of thinness. Well, since our weight is so important to us, we might as well start at the ground up, at birth. The new scientific field of “developmental programming” maintains that obesity, like many aspects of our physiology, is traceable to the time when the brain and other organs are developing and fine-tuning themselves, in the months just before and after birth. During infancy, metabolism and appetite remain subject to influence. Once set, metabolism and appetite are exceedingly difficult to change. This is a functional benefit, in the evolutionary sense, since fetuses or newborns know at this early stage whether they are entering a world of scarcity. If so, they need to develop a metabolism that allows for efficient calorie usage, for example, fat storage. Given this, we can, theoretically, program babies’ metabolisms to resist putting on excess weight. This is possible with a new baby formula that has been developed “with an astonishing property: to turn newborns into those enviable people who can eat what they want without getting fat” (Paul 2007:18). The formula contains the hormone leptin, which may increase the body’s long-term tendency to burn calories instead of conserving them as fat. Leptin does this by changing the levels at which the hypothalamus suppresses hunger and stimulates calorie-burning activity. Not all scientists agree that this is such a good idea. One scientist, who works at the Energy Metabolism Lab at Tufts University in the US, says that there is “something disturbing in the idea of permanently altering children’s physiology.” However, the scientist who is developing the formula, working at Clore Lab at the University of Buckingham in the UK, disagrees and says it is no different than giving children a vaccine to prevent infectious diseases, further pointing out that obesity is a lifethreatening disease. Changing the age-old survival mechanisms, namely efficient fat storage, is “more feasible than altering the environment humans have created,” the

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British scientist notes. In other words, it is easier to change us as humans and our internal fat-producing mechanisms than to change the environmental factors that have created an obese world. Should we go this route? We could, instead, attempt to change the obesogenic environment (the lack of value placed on exercise and the overvalue placed on plentiful, high-fat food) and therefore have a healthier society. We might also encourage society to be more accepting of those whose metabolisms use caloric intake so efficiently and who, as a result, become fat. Social Statements We Make with Our Skin [Our skin] conveys much more than just the bare biological facts of our lives. Because of our unique human ability to deliberately alter its appearance, our skin proclaims our identity and individuality as we wish them to be known. For millennia, skin has served as a statement affirming an affinity to a group or a belief, as a shorthand message of how we can view the world and how we wish to be viewed (Jablonski 2006: 141).

So writes an authority on the subject of skin, Nina Jablonski. We use our skin as a canvas. Our skin advertises our identity, our social status, and our social and sexual desirability. We have been deliberately altering it for at least tens of thousands of years with skin decoration (tattoos) and so on. The first modifications may have been temporary and superficial markings, constituting the early use of cosmetics and body art. Later, we applied more permanent modifications, such as scarification, piercing, and tattoos (Jablonski 2006). In modern times, we retain a contemporary preoccupation with “body work” as when we alter our flesh through dieting, bodybuilding, plastic surgery, and gender reassignment. The past century, Jablonski writes, “has witnessed startling technological developments that allow us to make personal statements with our skin” (Jablonski 2006: 143). Witness plastic surgery to repair and then to reconstruct disfigurements, injuries, and defects. Also, in industrialized countries currently, we have the means to alter our skin by adjusting its color and texture through skin tanning and lightening, as well as through a variety of methods for making the skin look younger. Take body paint and cosmetics, for instance. Naturally occurring pigments have been used to add color to skin, since at least 75,000 years ago. Body paint used specifically on facial skin was applied in ancient Egypt to decorate the faces of both genders, living and dead. White lead, an extremely toxic substance, was applied to faces to whiten them in ancient Egypt and in classical Greece and Europe until the early nineteenth century. Japanese geishas also used white lead to whiten their faces, and to cover wrinkles and smallpox scars (Jablonski 2006). Tattooing dates back to 1200–1100 BC and seems to be a near-universal human practice. Unlike other alterations we make to our skin, the “appeal of tattoos is that they represent a lasting inscription, conveying the importance of belonging, commemoration, and protection. Tattoos can declare a person’s affiliation to a social unit” (Jablonski 2006: 150). Tattoos can represent unique associations (for example, gang membership) or, equally importantly, disassociation. Because tattoos

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are permanent, they set the tattooed person apart (or at least that is the intention) in an homogenized, cookie cutter, globalized world. Tattoos are supposed to reflect the unusualness of the tattooed person’s personality, core beliefs, and sentiments, and thus make “a uniquely powerful statement of individuality” (Jablonski 2006: 151). Tattooing is more often used by light- and moderately skinned people, while piercing, scarification, and branding are more commonly found on dark-skinned people. Piercing, scarification, and branding are ancient and widespread practices found on all continents, with ritual scarification (for instance) serving to mark significant phases on a person’s life. Contemporarily, body artists use surgical lasers to inscribe “brands” (Jablonski 2006). Skin color prejudice has an old and sad history. Humans judge each other—our character, potential, and desirability—on skin color. For example, in the “centuries during which European powers colonized Africa and used the continent as a source of raw materials and labor, dark skin was associated with a suite of undesirable personality traits and moral deficiencies in a self-serving effort to rationalize the trade in human slaves” (Jablonski 2006: 157). We used skin color to legitimate our prejudices, as when it was claimed that, because blushing was not visible on dark-skinned people, they must be devoid of moral feelings, notably shame. As a consequence, dark-skinned slaves were thought to have no sense of morality and were relegated to sub-human status. On this basis, the slave trade was rationalized, as was the harsh and brutal treatment of the slaves. As a final thought on the social statements we make with our skin, consider that even if we do nothing to our skin and choose instead to adopt a “natural look” without adornment, we are making a social statement. In other words, when we do not fix up, our unadorned skin sets us apart as surely as when we do change our skin’s appearance with tattoos and other skin markings (Jablonski 2006). Men and Alterations Mostly, it is women who have cosmetic surgery, who apply cosmetics and use cosmeceuticals, who spend money on hair dressing and grooming (manicures, pedicures, and so on). But increasingly, men are attending to their physical appearance by wearing makeup, getting their hair colored, getting facials, having surgery, and becoming anorexic (Yamanouchi 2002; Wolf 2002). We do still have a highly genderized ideal of alterations, but that is changing. Erving Goffman’s (1976) analysis of advertisements describes how, while feminine and masculine images may come from any number of agents of socialization, popular culture nevertheless is still very important in the construction of gender. Women and girls have long been pressured with unrealistic expectations to remake their bodies as tall, ultra-slim, large-breasted Barbie dolls. Now men and boys experience a similar anxiety between the hypermuscular G.I. Joe action-figure image found in popular culture and the reality they see in the mirror. To give the reader an idea of how unrealistic these hypermasculine ideals are, if the “G.I. Joe Extreme” doll were a real person, he would have a 55” chest and 27” biceps (Alexander 2003). Supermales exist not only in male action figures, but are found in other outlets such

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as video games, sports (for instance, the World Wrestling Federation), movies, advertisements, and the growing number of men’s magazines (Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia 2000). To achieve these bodies, men diet, exercise, and use steroids. Indeed, men are not above succumbing to marketing strategies that convince them to buy beautifying products and to use them. And now we have a recent (circa 2006) innovation in body shaving, marketed to men only. The “Bodygroom” is one of four new body-hair maintenance products designed as a “product to help men shave areas of the body other than the face” (Walker 2007: 16). To give an idea of the fast-paced and growing field of this cosmetic device, we have had nearly 250,000 body-hair trimmer purchases in the United States in the last year alone. Men can be convinced to make these purchases via marketing and “repurposing technology.” The Bodygroom is made special (read: spun) to seem like a “musthave” device precisely because it is a product with a very specific purpose (belowthe-face shaving). Electric shavers have been available for generations, used for the face and neck, and they can also be used for body-hair trimming as well. But these new devices are marketed solely as body-hair trimmers, thus making them seem novel and essential (Walker 2007). Both genders are targeted for beautification, may be easily fooled into spending time and money in its pursuit, and want very much to be socially accepted for their appearance. Summary Do we have a choice to alter our appearances? Of course, but if we desire access to social and economic power, mostly we do all we can to “improve” our looks in order that we may achieve a good life. Should we feel pressure to change and succumb to this pressure? Of course not. But until or unless society advances to a point at which we are no longer judged and stratified by our appearance, only the bravest of us will not “fix up.”

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Chapter 6

The Media, the Economy, Globalization, and Other Forces Associated with Social Aesthetics The social forces associated with social aesthetics include the media, the economy, socio-political events such as migration and war, and globalization. These forces, as the reader will see, often work interdependently. Social forces such as these, at any given historical moment, affect social aesthetics (how we feel about, value, and disvalue physical features) and they affect the actual physical features themselves. Visual Media Every year on September 9, the World Association of Ugly People gather at the “Festival of the Ugly” in Piobbico, Italy to vote for their new president. I looked at the photos of the 2007 presidential candidates and found them to be average-looking people, mostly men. The 2007 winner is a woman who is by no means ugly (Reuters 2007b). So now we must deal with the question of what constitutes ugliness in the media’s eye. Ugliness in the media’s perspective is not necessarily ugliness in everyone else’s perspective. With some caveats, we all know ugly features when we see them and, while there is room for some debate, there is not a lot of disagreement about ugliness (or beauty, for that matter). Yet, in the media, ordinary-looking people and even attractive people can be presented as ugly. In the US, we have a TV show called “Ugly Betty” (Heffernan 2006; McFarland 2006). The woman who stars as Ugly Betty, America Ferrera, is not at all ugly. In fact, she is rather attractive. She is plump, which does not make her unattractive except possibly in the media’s viewpoint. But she is made up as “ugly” with thick eyeglasses, braces on her teeth, and mismatched, out-of-date clothing. These accoutrements are all it takes to be considered unattractive. Social messages are sent through the media. The movies, TV, books, popular music, advertisements, and so on determine to no small degree the importance of physical appearance, how we “should” look, and what we “should” do to achieve a particular appearance. As media forces, I generously include social messages as put forward through bumper stickers, greeting cards, license plate holders, T-shirt messages, and the like, since they also, in a third-person, almost-anonymous way, send social messages about physical appearance. As I observed in Beauty Bias (Berry 2007), all of these sources provide indicators of what we should and should not look

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like, the physical features that we should be ashamed of and should strive for, as demonstrated by license plate holders that pronounce “No Fat Chicks.” Many are the studies, some of them reviewed in Beauty Bias, documenting the distorted and distorting social messages about people based on their appearance; notably, fat people, the disabled, and the singularly unattractive are not portrayed as romantic or sexual partners. They may or may not be nice people, good co-workers, and good friends. Charisse Goodman’s (1995) research, for instance, on social attitudes about fat women discovered a stark gender difference in how fat people are portrayed in movies and TV commercials. Fat, bald, short, older male characters wearing eyeglasses are presented as normal, attractive human beings. Fat women were “typically presented as shrill, obnoxious, asexual, mean, and unappealing” (Goodman 1995: 74). Besides the notable absence of women-of-size, the most obvious pattern in television and movies illustrates that fat men, who, like fat women, experience size bias, are not so severely censured as fat women. There are more men-of-size represented in the mass media than women-of-size, Goodman finds. And size, for men, is often considered of little consequence, while it is considered a matter of extreme importance for women. Media-endorsed social messages are more formal and have more widespread social impact than, say, personal opinions stated among friends, remarks made to strangers, and personal discussions that influence employment (and other social power) decisions. Formal media messages (such as advertisements) clearly influence the plentiful and equally salient informal messages (such as unkind remarks) sent us every day as societal members. Both the formal and the informal means of communication give forth important social messages about physical appearance. Both are publicly generated and publicly endorsed, more or less. They have enormous impact on us as individuals and on societies’ views about physical appearance, whether or not we actively know it. Let us consider the Miss America contest, an extravaganza broadcast on a major TV network and viewed by millions, until recently. (Its viewership has dropped dramatically and it is no longer broadcast on a major network.) The Miss America pageant is just one example of a media event designed to showcase exceptional beauty. The Miss America process, though its real function is to gain viewership (and thus money) by offering us beautiful women to look at, is rationalized by its rewards to the contestants. The winners receive scholarship money, to be used solely for educational purposes (Banet-Weiser 1999). To qualify for this scholarship money, the contestants have to be beautiful, poised, and conforming. They have to parade around in a swimsuit and display a talent. Confusion immediately arises: if the purpose is to grant money for education, the money should be granted based on academic merit. From a socially functional perspective, education should be available for all and not subject to winning beauty contests. But of course the purpose of the pageant is not to educate women. The purpose is sexist and commercial: TV producers made a lot of money on the pageants and the pageants provided a template for what all good American young women should be like (white, virtuous, with proper deportment, and so on).

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We might also wonder about the selection process for the Miss America contest. The young participants self-select in that they make a decision to undergo a grueling and highly competitive process just for the slim chance of becoming Miss America. And the pageant itself of course imposes its own selection process, choosing from the beautiful contestants (on largely subjective criteria since all the contestants have been minutely screened for specific traits and thus are fairly homogenous) to select the very best one. Having read about the contests, I came away with an exhausted impression of how much effort and sheer hard work the contestants must undergo in order to be considered for a scholarship. They go through a lot, not just in terms of maintaining their beauty but also in terms of learning how to behave (walk, talk, smile) properly, cultivate a talent, attend numerous public events where they display their best behavior, and engage in smaller contests leading up to the Miss America contest. My point is: besides beauty, one thing the contestants all have in common is the willingness to participate in this contest. One wonders what social forces make for this willingness. The answer may, circularly, lie in media forces. This willingness and the pressure to be subjected to grueling and not uncommonly unfair appearance criteria is not limited to beauty contests; rather, it is found in surprising media outlets such as the opera, where, one would think, the key ingredient would be singing and acting talent. The visual entertainment industry of all sorts is rife with examples of prejudice against fat people. Deborah Voigt, the worldrenowned soprano, was fired from her role in the opera “Ariadne auf Naxos” by the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden because of her size. This particular production called for the lead soprano to wear a tiny black cocktail dress. Although her size has nothing to do with her ability to sing and perform, Ms Voigt did the career-saving thing: she underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost 100 pounds (Pogrebin 2004; Tommasini 2005). As further evidence that fat does not pay, the Broadway show “Fat Pig” is a story about a young man who loves a fat woman, but gives her up because of the shame she brings him due to her size. The show elicited no reprisals from the public, thus endorsing the message that it is appropriate to reject people because of their size (Parsons 2004). Movies are replete with sizeist themes. But some movies have a more open-minded storyline, including the “Shrek” movies (I and II) and “Muriel’s Wedding.” “Muriel’s Wedding” is an Australian production depicting a fat woman who wants desperately to get married and, naturally, is having trouble finding someone to accommodate her. Through a circuitous route, she does find a very goodlooking man to marry her, he disrespects her, and she very triumphantly dumps him. The first two “Shrek” movies tell a tale of the unimportance of appearance. Shrek, a green, fat, unattractive ogre, meets a beautiful princess. As it turns out, she is beautiful only part time. In the day, she is beautiful. At night, she looks very much like Shrek. They fall in love, she has the option, through magic, of being beautiful full time, and she decides to not exercise that option. In the end, they remain together and are very much in love, while both are, societally speaking, quite unattractive (see Berry 2007 for an overview of appearance-relevant movies). A new dance troupe provides a means of stating a social message that fat people can dance beautifully and, by inference, may be considered beautiful. Danza Voluminosa is a Cuban dance troupe in which the participants weigh in the 300pound range. They are breaking stereotypes about size and dance, redefining the

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aesthetics of beauty, and raising the self-esteem of people-of-size. Their dances have the usual themes of love, death, and erotic longing, but also some usually-notconsidered themes such as the downsides of gluttony, romance between fat couples, anti-fat bias, and the psychic toll of obesity. Interestingly, the choreographer says it would be a mistake to think that his work was intended to glorify or sanctify obesity, or even to deliver a moralistic message that one should not discriminate against the overweight. Instead, the troupe’s art faces the reality of obesity head-on while giving fat people a chance to express themselves. The dancers, in fact, share society’s abhorrence of obesity and are always trying to lose weight. The fat dancers say that dancing has allowed them to accept, if not admire, their bodies; meaning that they are definitely not in the fat-is-beautiful faction. The audiences’ reactions have been positive, although that was not always the case. When they started out in 1999, they faced ridicule and laughter. Nowadays, the audiences take them seriously as dancers (McKinley 2007). With few exceptions, we can conclude that most media presentations are unforgiving about physical appearance. Fat people and unattractive people are seen as different, set apart, and socially marginalized. And, as we have seen with Deborah Voigt, the Cuban dance troupe, and others, these marginalized people experience social pressure and are encouraged to change their appearance. When they change their appearance, they solidify the message that appearance matters. When they do not change their appearance, we get the message that resistance can be punishing. The Economy Another important social force acting on public perception of and reaction to physical appearance is the economy. Airlines that charge an extra fee for passengers-of-size (double the ticket price), or force them to leave the airplane if they refuse to pay extra or cannot afford to pay, provide a very concrete indicator of bias. The economy also affects us more broadly and more directly as when our socioeconomic status is strongly correlated with our appearance. As described in Chapter 4 on inequalities, poor people in the US are more likely to be heavy than rich people. They place different values on exercise activities and healthy diet than do middleclass and wealthier people (a cultural difference), but, more significantly, they are directly affected by an inability to live a thinner life. The poor, rural and urban, do not have access to exercise facilities, school athletic programs, or even safe places to walk as one would find in wealthier suburbs. Poor people are, as a result, heavier (and less healthy) than wealthier people. The economy, particularly as it operates in the US, with its emphasis on profit seeking, directly affects the foods available to us, as I will describe below. Being profit-oriented, the US economy also rewards us for being fat by supplying plus-size products and services. Historically, the economy affects our appearance and what we do about it. In lean times and in lean cultures, such as economic depressions and poor societies, people may simply not have enough to eat and for that reason are thin, may not have enough money for dental care, and may not be sufficiently financially endowed for cosmetic purchases. In richer times and cultures, more of us engage in looks-altering

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practices, such as surgery, because we can afford to and because, in the case of surgery, cosmetic surgery has become less expensive and therefore more accessible to the masses. The Cost of Beauty There are many, many statistics on the cost of beautifying. Since these figures can be overwhelming, I will offer only a few to give the reader an idea of the sheer enormity of the costs. To start with, consider the title of a recent book: Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery (Kuczynski 2006). More important than the sheer cost, though, is the proportion of our money that goes to beautifying ourselves. Cosmetics are a multi-billion-dollar industry in the US (Reischer and Koo 2004; Gilman 1999). Skin-bleaching products alone are a multi-million dollar industry in the US. Not all who want to use such products and services can afford them; for example, there is an earnings chasm between lighterand darker-skinned African Americans who may want to buy such products (Herring 2004). And, as mentioned in Chapter 5, cosmetic products do not always work as advertised. In 1996, thigh creams were a $90 million business, and there never has been any evidence that they work to reduce cellulite, which is the purpose of the creams (Etcoff 1999). Worldwide, cosmetics and toiletries comprise at least a $45 billion industry (Etcoff 1999). Cosmecueticals, unspecified by type, constitute a $40 million market (Seigel 2005). While women are greater consumers of beauty products and services then men, men are closing the gender gap in their purchases: in 1997 it was reported that men spent roughly $95 billion a year on grooming aids and plastic surgery (Alexander 2003). When we consider the disparity in what we spend our money on, we find the depressing fact that, in the US, more money is spent on beauty than on education or social services (Etcoff 1999). This fact shows the vacuousness of our society, but also may explain why we persist in the mainly pointless behaviors of buying beautifying products and services. If we are not educated, we may believe that physical appearance is more important than being learned, and we may rely on looks to accrue social power instead of using our brains. Size and the Economy The diet industry brings in vast profits, even though the results in actual weight loss are mainly non-existent. Consider the money made from three diet centers in Durham, North Carolina (the Rice Diet Program, the Duke Diet, and Fitness Center and Structure House). Dieters pour more than $51 million a year into the local Durham economy via fees at the diet centers, new eyeglasses (when their diabetes abates and their vision improves), new clothes, plastic surgery (to tuck up their loose skin after weight loss), rentals and purchases of homes because the programs require that the dieters live there (Saul 2005). In Richard Klein’s research on “Fat Beauty,” he finds that:

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The Power of Looks diets don’t work. Never have; never will. And it is precisely that fact that makes dieting such a perfect vehicle for launching a critique of capitalism. … Since capitalism depends on consumers consuming, the more they diet the more they frustrate desire, thereby magnifying its imperious demands. More diet means more appetite, and more appetite means more consuming (Klein 2001: 36–7).

Similarly, Hillel Schwartz writes, “The diet is the supreme form for manipulating desire precisely because it is so frustrating” (Schwartz 1986: 328). In confirmation, Sondra Solovay writes of medical and weight-loss industries: it “is not just the medical establishment that has an interest in keeping fat acceptable. At $33 to $50 billion per year, the weight-loss industry is a powerful market force completely dependent on convincing people that losing weight is … crucial” (Solovay 2000: 28). There is money to be made in encouraging people to lose weight, especially if the weight loss does not happen. There is money to be made in weight gain too. People-of-size now have access to and can purchase large-size caskets, vacations at plus-size resorts, larger towels, larger furniture, larger clothes, larger jewelry, larger beds, seatbelt extenders, larger umbrellas, larger clothing hangars, weighing scales that accommodate up to 1,000 pounds, workout video tapes for the obese, size-friendly medical equipment (larger blood pressure cuffs, plus-size stretchers, heavy-duty and extra-wide hospital beds and toilets), heavy-gauge steel and high tension office furniture, and automobiles with interiors that can accommodate large people without giving up cupholders, consoles, built-in DVD screens, and air bags (Pressler 2003a; 2003b; Associated Press 2003; Scheiber 2003; Erman 2002; Bellafante 2003; D’Amato 2005; Hansen 2004; Critser 2003b). One perspective is that we need a solution to obesity rather than encouraging obesity by offering products and services befitting heavy people. Profit-seekers, hoping to make money off of obese people, feed the problem by issuing a social statement saying that it is okay to be fat. As expected in a capitalist society, the thinking goes: if it were not okay to be fat, these products and services would not be so readily available. The plus-size market is hardly a niche market, since so many of us (worldwide) are big. But is it the right thing to do, to encourage bigness? A plus-sized entrepreneur replies to this charge by saying, “The fact of the matter is that we’re big, and we need the same things that thin people do” (Chakravorty 2003). True enough, but such a statement ignores the fact that profit is being reaped at fat people’s expense. Besides the size-friendly products and services available for purchase, large profits have been and continue to be accrued by making food cheaper, high-fat, plentiful, and sold in large portions. Capitalism made the “obesity epidemic.” Internal to the US but quickly spreading to other cultures, we see capitalism’s great interest in profit, to the exclusion of all other and more positive social functions (such as health) as illustrated by our fast food industries, food producers and manufacturers, and our offerings of huge portions of food. “Price is a powerful influence,” writes Erica Goode (2003) and apparently far outweighs concerns for health safety. In the US restaurant industry, the industry leaders figured out that mammoth serving sizes

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make the consumer feel like they are getting a bargain. It is called “value marketing,” and it has been making people fat and ill (Goode 2003). Food service industries are also making great profit by exchanging high-sugar sodas and high-fat snacks, via the vending machine concession, for educational resources that the high schools need. There is a prevalence of commercial interests in our educational systems (Coke, Pizza Hut, and so on) with “little or no regard to the health of the students” (Winter 2001: 1). Greg Critser (2003b) describes how public schools in the US make lucrative business contracts with fast food industries that then offer, in exchange for the contracts, school textbooks. The schools allow, in exchange, fast food marketers to sell their unhealthy food to schoolchildren. Beyond school lunches, Critser details the historic economic and governmental relationships that promoted the import, manufacture, and sale of palm oil (instead of healthier oils) and high fructose corn syrup (instead of pure cane sugar). The US agricultural industries, for instance, produce corn. Corn can be distilled into high fructose corn syrup much more cheaply and easily than pure cane sugar can be produced from sugar cane. High fructose corn syrup, however, does grave damage to the metabolism, such that those who ingest it gain a lot of weight. It is now the chief ingredient in sodas because of its inexpensiveness. The cheaper fats and sugars offered by the food manufacturing industry have had a hand in producing cheap, fattening, and tasty food with a long shelf-life. Moving beyond the US and quickly spreading to other cultures, we see the profit motive excluding all other social functions (such as nutrition). Capitalism itself, as a philosophy and a practice found in the US and multi-nationally, is inseparable from an examination of social aesthetics in light of economic structures, for two reasons. One reason is that US capitalism has affected other cultures and the physical appearance of their inhabitants: imported US food, such as fast food but also prepared foods like spam, have created a crisis of obesity for Chinese children, Pacific Islanders, adult and child-age Europeans, and others. Migration Migration from cultures with a close-to-starvation diet to one where food is plentiful, cheap, and high-fat has caused the “thrifty gene” to kick in. Without putting too fine a point on it, people become adjusted to a near-starvation diet and their physiologies accommodate by making the most efficient use of calories as possible, in order to survive. (Those who did not develop such a metabolism did not survive.) When these starvation-adjusted people, like Mexicans, immigrate to the US, they face serious health problems and size stigma. They were, anthropologically, adapted to a lesser diet, and when they adjust to American high-fat food, they are met with increasing obesity via their thrifty gene which is still operating as it did in their society of origin (Shell 2001; Critser 2003b). Less disastrously, apart from the interaction between migration and body size, economic forces can impel poor people to migrate for better work opportunities, thereby making interbreeding more likely and resulting in mixed-race (and mixedlook) offspring. With immigration as a social force, people of various ethnicities interbreed, creating a new, mixed breed with very different features than their

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parents and more remote ancestors, thus distancing themselves, looks-wise, from the category of people (nationality, ethnicity) from whence they came. As we saw in Chapter 5, Asian and other cultures’ shifting economic statuses have impacted their perceptions and behaviors associated with social aesthetics. A culture’s own internal economic structure impacts their aesthetics, such as the case of China becoming more involved in the global market and adopting, as a result, white, Northern European values on looks. They are competing in a global economic market, where they are judged by Caucasian standards. They have greater access to money and can more easily afford to make cosmetic and surgical changes. And so they make the suggested changes. The Chinese, for instance, are now judged on such standards not only in terms of height but also breast size (for women) and features associated with Nordic beauty. They react by trying to look more globally acceptable, meaning white. In sum, the economic pay-off is huge for the beauty, weight-loss, food, and cosmetic surgery industries. These industries pressure us to feel dissatisfied with our appearance and offer the feint hope of altering our appearance in order to be more socially successful. As documented, enormous profits are made when we reject our own looks and strive, instead, to be looks-acceptable. Quizzically (or not), capitalism accepts, accommodates, and encourages physical diversity in terms of size, by making available for sale large clothes and other size-friendly products and services. In this sense, by making such goods and services available, capitalism (the manufacturers and service providers) encourages size diversity and its acceptance. In an alternative way, capitalism rejects physical diversity via the marketing of diet books, diet pills, gym membership, exercise equipment, surgeries (liposuction, gastric by-passes), and so on. In essence, capitalism rejects and simultaneously supports size diversity. This duality is hardly surprising, given that the goal of capitalism is to amass as much capital as possible for those with the capital to invest. Profit can be made by encouraging increased body mass and by punishing it. Globalization “The global beauty business—an industry that includes products used for the skin and hair—is growing at a rate of 7 percent a year, double the rate of the developed world’s gross national product. The global skin care industry generates $24 billion a year, cosmetics $18 billion, hair care products $38 billion,” so writes Alex Kuczynski (2006: 7). The global cosmetic plastic surgery industry is not so easy to quantify, but some economists put the worldwide figure at $20 billion. Moreover, Americans increasingly have their cosmetic surgery performed in Africa, Malaysia, Jamaica, Brazil, Honduras, Thailand, Costa Rica, and other places. They do so because it is cheaper (Kuczynski 2006). As mentioned throughout, globalization has forced an homogenized sameness in beauty standards, such that we find Iranian women in large numbers getting Anglicized noses, and Asian women undergoing eyelid surgery to gain a more “open” and “American” look to their eyes. We are becoming more alike in terms of skin color, with the advent of skin lightening. Most Asian women avoid exposure

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to the sun and use skin lightening agents to further lighten their skin. Due to global marketing, the social desirability of white or lighter skin is being promulgated throughout more and poorer countries. This is a worrisome trend, since it includes people living in equatorial regions, where dark pigmentation provides important protection against high levels of ultraviolet radiation. Not only is skin lightening destructive health-wise, it is societally destructive since, in multicultural countries, aggressive marketing of skin-lightening products has also promoted the spread of colorism by promoting ideals of lightness (Jablonski 2006). These trends toward homogenous beauty are worrisome enough due to the doubts that they bring up regarding identity and other socio-political issues. But another trend toward global homogeneity is worrisome for strictly health reasons, and that trend is toward becoming fat like Americans and toward risky weight loss. Brazil, home of the supermodels, is experiencing increasing obesity, thus making Brazilians appear more like their neighbors to the north, in the US. The Brazilians now have more sedentary lifestyles and more fatty foods to eat. Plus, they have long had a positive value placed on plumpness. Traditionally, the idealized feminine form in Brazil was the “guitar-shaped” body, a woman with a slender bust and waist and an ample rear end (Rohter 2005: 4). The women were and are encouraged to be fleshy. But Brazilian women who once valued (because Brazilian men and Brazilian culture broadly valued) large hips and buttocks are now reducing, naturally or not, their sizes, thus reflecting the mostly worldwide adoration of thin bodies. Overlapping with economic forces, the New World Syndrome, as epidemiologists refer to it, is the spread of nutritional-related ailments from more to less affluent cultures. Because the US, for example, exports fatty foods to Micronesia, the Micronesians are growing ever fatter and falling ill with diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Obesity and the illnesses associated with it, such as diabetes, have skyrocketed around the globe, but particularly among cultures in transition— Polynesians, First Nation (Native) Americans, and aboriginal Australians; Asian Indian emigrants to Fiji, South Africa, and Britain; and Chinese emigrants to Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Obesity rates among the most susceptible peoples (Pacific Islanders such as Native Hawaiians, Samoans, and Nauruans) are quite high. Disorders related to obesity will continue to occur in newly industrialized and developing nations in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which historically had an unstable food supply. Obesity and diet-linked illness rates are additionally soaring in China, India, and Colombia (Shell 2001). Most visibly and most dangerously for the future, obesity in Chinese children is spreading, bringing a severe form of diabetes and putting these children at risk for years to come. Chinese children are eating deep-fried foods from Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds, and are eating fat-laden pizza. Children (and adults) in Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, and the Philippines are also becoming obese. Yet they, like the rest of us, want to be slim. As Mydans finds: “As in the West, the bloating of Asia has been accompanied by a slimming of the ideal of beauty. As American fastfood chains spread through Asia they are being followed by a proliferation of gyms, slimming programs, diet pills, and liposuction” (Mydans 2003: 3).

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Even the French are getting fatter. They now have an obesity rate of 10 percent (one third that of the US) because they are eating more like Americans, such as betweenmeal snacks, fast food, and convenience food (Critser 2003a). Still, the French have a healthier attitude toward eating and, relatedly, toward work and leisure. People in the US are more faddist than the French, while the French are more concerned with health and looks. Those in the US focus on work, which encourages US workers to eat fast food on the run and on the job. They eat a lot of snacks and convenience foods, whereas the French eat small, healthy meals at leisure (Stearns 1997). There are cultures that have not followed the mostly global trend toward at least worrying about being fat, and these cultures instead revere fatness. In South Africa, a trim figure is regarded as a sign of illness. Women, especially, are encouraged to be fat. They indeed are fat and are not in the least bit worried about it. A hefty girth has long been a sign of well-being in South Africa, where a slim woman is the subject of unpleasant gossip. In South Africa, “a big woman is good and a bigger woman is better” (Cauvin 2000: D1). This is true in spite of the fact that the South African population is exhibiting more diabetes and hypertension. In a study of the aesthetic appeal of female fatness among the Islamic Azawagh Arabs of Niger, fatness is considered such a beautiful and desirable trait in women that young girls (aged five or six years) are forcibly fattened by an appointed female authority figure in the family. The fattening of these young girls is thought to accelerate the process of sexual maturity; and there is some validity to this assumption since fat girls, regardless of culture, do sexually mature earlier than thin girls, as recent studies have found. Fatness in this Islamic culture is closely associated with womanliness. Popenoe, the researcher and author of this study, contends that “in becoming fat, Azawagh Arab women cultivate an aesthetic of ‘softness, stillness, seatedness,’ which is in direct opposition to the aesthetic of men that valorizes ‘hardness, uprightness, mobility’ (Popenoe 2004: 191). Female fatness among these Islamic Arabs, in total opposition to what most cultures think, provides women with power; their fatness proves that they are capable of “exercising agency in their own lives” (Popenoe 2004: 192). More to the point, because these women are fat, they are less mobile. Immobility is seen as a good thing in this culture because immobility expresses the woman’s self-control over her own sexual desire (Reischer and Koo 2004). Another way to put it is: she will stay put if she is fat, and that may be the true reason why the male-dominated culture values fatness in women. After the mid-nineteenth century, most of us did not admire voluptuousness. But some still did and do (see above African examples). Men of Greek, Italian, Eastern European, and African descent, influenced by their distinctive cultural heritages, may still be more likely to find female voluptuousness appealing. Lesbian cultures in the United States continue to be “accepting—even celebrating—of fleshy, spaceclaiming female bodies,” although that acceptance has changed with a growing dislike of unmuscled heft in lesbian communities. If we look more globally and historically, many cultures have admired expansive women’s bodies and appetites. But increasingly since the 1980s, the universality of slender ideals is equated with beauty and success, signaling a decline in cultural and socio-personal aesthetics diversity (Bordo 1995).

Chapter 7

Methodologies: The Means to Understand Social Aesthetics This chapter addresses how we know about social aesthetics, how we study it, and how we measure it. The several methodologies described below have helped us to understand socio-personal aesthetics as a social phenomenon, and allow the development of and the testing of theories to explain the phenomenon (the subject of the next chapter). The methodologies include: interviews and participant observation, surveys, personal anecdotes, ethnographies, diaries, autobiographies and biographies, content analysis, archival data analysis, and visual sociology. It is startling how little we have studied this phenomenon. We study other forms of inequality, social power, prejudice, stigma, and discrimination and have been studying them for some time under the guise of several different disciplines. Perhaps appearance bias has been left out of scientific rumination because the people who are the subjects of this study are not seen as victims of a ruthless and unfair social structure. Instead, we often blame people for their appearance, as though their appearance is within their personal control, and assign fault to them for their looks; whereas, as I have pointed out, much of our stigmatized physical features (such as height, disability, aging, and racial features) are beyond our control. This dearth of scientific study notwithstanding, we are beginning to see that the examination of social aesthetics is a worthwhile scholarly endeavor, since it assists our understanding of the broad and far-reaching social phenomena of social inequality. Interviews and Participant Observation Kathy Davis (2003) interviewed women who had had cosmetic surgery, and then interpreted the findings as narratives and trajectories. None of them wanted to be beautiful, they claimed. They wanted to be “normal,” “ordinary,” and “like everyone else.” They were not, in fact, visibly abnormal looking, but they felt that they were abnormal in appearance. Specifically, she refers to “trajectories of suffering” to discuss how women come to the conclusion that plastic surgery will serve as a remedy for their dissatisfaction with their appearance. Plastic surgery, they seem to believe, will serve as a means to regain control over lives that have lost meaning or that never had positive meaning for them, partly due to beauty loss that comes with aging and which then affects employment and other prospects. In narratives about plastic surgery:

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The Power of Looks The trajectory begins with the recipient’s realization that something is seriously amiss with her body. Gradually, she comes to see her body as different, as uprooted from the mundane world and its normal course of affairs. … Her body becomes a prison from which there is no escape. … In this context, cosmetic surgery becomes a way to “interrupt” the trajectory. … [C]osmetic surgery allows her to extricate herself from what has become a downward spiral (Davis 2003: 79).

So, in Davis’ work we find biographies of women who “interrupt” the trajectory, who change course on the downward spiral of dissatisfaction with their appearance, in hopes of reversing the negative impact that their appearance has on important parts of their lives. An important feature of the decision to undergo plastic surgery, as shown in Davis’s examination of trajectories, is the use of justifications. In their narratives, the women present arguments by way of defending their decisions to undergo surgery, justifying the surgery as necessary in their particular case. They then, sequentially, present counterarguments to having made the decision they did, as a way of distancing themselves from the decision to have surgery. Significantly, Davis writes, “It is almost as if an audience of critics is lurking … just waiting to attack” (Davis 2003: 82). Not only did the narratives reveal justifications and changes of opinion about those justifications for surgery, the narratives further expose the imagined and real audiences who belittle the women for their feelings and for their decisions. Debra Gimlin (2002) also interviewed women who had undergone cosmetic surgery, determining how they made the decision (why they did it) and their level of satisfaction with it afterward. Her findings and her interpretations are not remarkably different than those reached by Davis. Moreover, she interviewed members of fat-acceptance organizations and brought forward some fascinating results, notably the hostility she experienced from some of the members since Gimlin is not fat herself. Recall Davis’s above comment that surgery critics were waiting to attack the surgery recipient. Gimlin experienced something similar when she attended a fat-acceptance conference. Why, the other attendees wanted to know, was she there? The underlying current that Gimlin experienced in this atmosphere was that she had no right, as a not-fat person, to be there, and that she was unwelcome. As I have noticed, regardless of appearance, we can be subject to attack. If we admit to having surgery, we are attacked as being accommodating to a sexist, patriarchal system. If we do not try to improve our appearance, we are attacked by broader society for being unattractive and not doing all we can to be as attractive as possible. In other words, we can be attacked regardless of what we look like, resulting in an uncomfortable anomic state. Insofar as studying appearance bias, a common assumption is that fat women who write about fat discrimination and fat acceptance are defending themselves. Pretty women who write about appearance bias are thought to be voyeurs or to not know what they are talking about. Either way, the audience is present and not always generous. Besides the interviews and attendance at fat-acceptance events, Gimlin also observed beauty salon workers and their clientele in several settings and noted the variations across the settings. Revealingly, more prestigious salons differed from less prestigious (and less expensive salons) largely in terms of worker and client

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satisfaction. In addition, she was a participant observer in exercise classes, aerobics principally, where she noted the lack of diversity in body types. With these varied venues and methodologies (interviews, observation, and participant observation), Gimlin was enabled to arrive at a full and intricate picture of socio-personal aesthetics at least as it occurs in New York, where her work was conducted. Surveys The few surveys that have been conducted are, by and large, not of rigorous methodology, such as those collected by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). This is not to say, however, that the surveys are of no utility, because they do provide, with caveats, a picture of socio-personal aesthetics that would not otherwise have been presented. For example, the NAAFA has surveyed its membership on important questions such as work (and other social) experience and discovered that fat people’s work (and other) experience is far less rewarding than that of not-fat people. One of the key findings of NAAFA surveys is that people-of-size are socially ostracized, which is hardly surprising, but are commonly not told the reason for this ostracism (Solovay 2000; NAAFA 1993). Rothblum et al. (1990) attempted to predict employment discrimination against fat people by sample-surveying 450 men and women. The findings are suggestive but inconclusive. Overall, we can say that we have informal data aplenty, but quantitative measurements of employment discrimination against victims of appearance bias are not plentiful and not easy to gather, largely due to the illegal and unethical nature of discrimination. One methodologically rigorous survey of the effects of body size was conducted by Mark Roehling (1999), in which he meticulously gathered data across many studies and many sources. He reviewed the empirical research for evidence of hiring and other work-related practices as applied to people-of-size; and his literature review crossed law, sociology, psychology, and economics. His findings have proven invaluable in terms, for example, of showing inarguably the historical precedents for weight discrimination (largely from the health insurance industry), work experiences (the manner in which people-of-size are discriminated against in hiring, salary, promotions, firing, and so on), and the non-utility of remedies for weight-based discrimination (namely, the reliance on disability legislation). Personal Anecdotes There are, expectedly, numerous personal anecdotes, often offered by authors of otherwise objective, historical works. Virginia Blum’s (2003) work on plastic surgery describes her own two rhinoplasties and a few tidbits about her own cosmetics use. A university professor, Blum maintains an objective and scientific view of her own alterations, supplying some intriguing interpretations of the practice of plastic surgery, using herself and others as examples. Alex Kuczynski (2006), a journalist, describes her own journey down the road of cosmetic surgery and cosmeceutical “addiction.” During the course of her book, she offers details of her own attempts to change her appearance (Botox, liposuction, eyelid tucks,and so on) as well as

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interviewees’ multiple surgeries. Other authors cite personal anecdotes, less about themselves but as described to them by others who have experienced looksism and who have attempted to change their appearance. Ethnographies An ethnography is offered by Jean Renfro Anspaugh (2001), a folklorist, who describes the diet culture of Durham, North Carolina. A lifelong dieter, she describes the various diet programs in Durham (their histories, medical affiliations, success rates, and so on), was a participant in a live-in diet program, and conducted indepth interviews with other members of the Rice Diet (the program in which she participated). Her findings are numerous and important, such as the evidence that the social life associated with the diet culture is a very significant reason for dieters to stay in the culture. In this culture, they are accepted; outside of it, they are not. Another unexpected (until one thinks about it) finding is the economic cost of living in such a culture. Many of the dieters are wealthy and that is the means by which they can remain in these cultures. These are all important points of understanding. Ethnographies have the advantage of filling in the blanks of the full picture, supplying useful vignettes as descriptions of, for instance, sexual activity among the dieters, cheating (on their diet) behaviors, the relentless exercise regimes that some dieters undergo and that others absolutely forego, and the total emptiness of the dieters’ refrigerators. Diaries There are diaries written by plastic surgeons, such as the one entitled Doctor Pygmalion: The Autobiography of a Plastic Surgeon, published in 1954. Another one, written by a French plastic surgeon, Suzanne Noel, in 1932, is a handbook of groundbreaking surgical techniques. These two diaries, as described by Davis (2003), enlighten us as to how plastic surgeons view their work, their techniques, and the like. Diaries written by ordinary people of their insecurities, the many foibles of their attempts to change their appearance, and the socio-personal events that led them to believe what they believe about their appearance, are more broadly useful to the understanding of social aesthetics. Diaries are immensely handy in understanding socio-personal aesthetics, since they reveal the innermost private feelings of how we think about our looks, feelings that were intended to be unshared with others. Historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg (1998) offers a fascinating trip through American middle-class girls’ lives, prior to and including their college years, and focusing on their feelings (narcissism, shame, and so on) and practices (diets, bikini waxing, and so on) associated with their appearance. This insightful book cleverly uses diaries from the Victorian era to today, to describe a number of body issues relevant to young girls, comparing these issues across time as expressed in the girls’ diaries. One of the several important points made by Brumberg is that: “Today, most adolescent girls control their bodies from within, through diet and exercise, rather than externally, with corsets and

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girdles. Fashion is a major contributor to this internalization of body controls: if you’re going to bare your midriff or your upper thighs, a girdle is not what helps you do it” (Brumberg 1998: 123). That is when the obvious hit me: these historical changes are artificially determined. Yet they are dictatorial all the same. Later in this same book, she describes talking to her present-day students at Cornell University and cannot help but compare their statements to those of girls past, as read through their diaries. In discussing perfecting the body, such as managing the “bikini-line area” and recognizing that they “had taken on the burden of perfecting yet another body part,” Brumberg realized that contemporary young women are not much different in their concerns than those of a century ago (Brumberg 1998: 195). The methods for perfecting the body are different (corsets versus bikini waxing) but the social needs are the same. The present-day students “all revealed that they had internalized the contemporary imperative for a perfect body, even as they stood apart from it and tried to understand it as a social and cultural phenomenon” (Brumberg 1998: 195). While they seemed so savvy, they were also confused. “On the one hand, their parents and teachers told them that being female was no bar to accomplishment. Yet girls of their generation learned from a very early age that the power of their gender was tied to what they looked like—and how ‘sexy’ they were—rather than to character and achievement” (Brumberg 1998: 195). So things have changed but they have not. We have not made significant progress in accepting our natural appearances or in challenging society to accept looks diversity. Autobiographies The writer Lucy Grealy (1994) wrote a spellbinding story of her own life with a facial disfigurement. She detailed the agony of the many, many surgeries she endured and, worse, the humiliation of the disfigurement itself. In her book, Autobiography of a Face (1994), she wrote: “If I had my original face, an undamaged face, I would know how to appreciate it, know how to see the beauty of it” (Grealy 1994: 187). As it happens, she, as an adult, did not appear unattractive by any social standards and indeed had many lovers (one of her greatest concerns) and many successes as a writer. Unfortunately, she died from a drug overdose at age 39 in 2002. Through her autobiography, we come to understand one of the most important elements of social marginalization by physical appearance: isolation. Describing the isolation that she felt was due to her appearance, she wrote: “When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like” (Grealy 1994: 177). Providing a look into the function of social and actual mirrors, Grealy goes on to write that, as an adult, she stopped looking in mirrors: “I felt there was something empty about me. I didn’t tell anyone … that I had stopped looking in mirrors. I found that I could stare straight through a mirror, allowing none of the reflection to get back to me” (Grealy 1994: 221). This is an interesting use of the mirror imagery. As will be discussed in the theory chapter, George Herbert Mead’s (1934) notion

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of the social mirror gives the same impression of the importance of mirrors. They can horrify, as a reflection of how society assesses us. Without them, we may be acceptable. Deborah Burris-Kitchen’s autobiography of her life as a 4’9” woman reveals much. Burris-Kitchen, a sociology and criminal justice professor, recounts the social and physical barriers she has faced throughout life, based on her size. As is true for other issues of size, sizeists make the mistake, unthinkingly, of assuming certain things about short people; for example, that she cannot repair her own car or that she cannot have a PhD because she is short. Burris-Kitchen’s problems are not only her height. As she and I discussed, she is additionally disadvantaged because she is blonde, a woman, and attractive. These features, as she has experienced, mistakenly make her seem more powerless. Content Analysis To understand the “postmodern construct of masculinity in which male identity is based on consumption,” Susan Alexander examined the contents of Men’s Health Magazine (Alexander 2003: 535). Men’s Health is a relatively new magazine (founded in 1987) devoted to displaying articles and advertisements (notably for clothing and other personal-material items) to male readers, instructing them of purchases they should make in order to be a successful male competitor in today’s society. Alexander selected a random sample of ten issues, or 20 percent of the 48 issues covering the time period of December 1997 to December 2001. She examined four areas of investigation: the front cover, cover stories, features (for example, “Ask Men’s Health”) and advertisements. Male gender role socialization is the objective of the magazine, rather than informing men of health issues as the title of the magazine implies. The magazine does have a focus on men’s health to be sure, but as Alexander’s content analysis shows, the main foci are masculine fashion and lifestyle. Archival Data Kenneth Hudson, Jean Stockard, and Zach Ramberg (2007) analyzed archived material stored in databases from 1988 to 1994, to examine dental health, race, and social class. Specifically, they relied upon a large national data survey, the National Education and Health Survey (NHANES III), compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics. Using a sophisticated sampling technique, they ensured that their sample represented a variety of areas of the US and reflected three ethnic groups (African Americans, Mexican Americans, and whites). Through these means, they discovered that socio-economic status determines dental problems and dental care, and thus illustrated that socio-economic status and its effect on dental appearance is an important feature in social access, as I discuss in Chapter 4.

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Visual Sociology I will finally attend to visual sociology as a neglected method of examining sociopersonal aesthetics issues. In the aesthetics literature, we often read of “markers” to designate features that are valued or disregarded, such as the ethnic nose, the obese body, and so on. Mostly, we interpret physical appearance based on visual cues, with those cues being specific features (noses, eyes, skin, hair, body size, and so on). More broadly, we arrive at general evaluations of overall attractiveness (beautiful, plain, and so on) as gleaned from our visual senses. Our judgments about physical appearance being primarily visual, the basic principles of visual sociology aid in framing the stratification of who is visually-socially acceptable and who is not. Viewing an image, animate or not, in real time or in a photograph, we interpret that image in terms of its social meaning. We interpret the visual image of humans and human associations as taking place in particular contexts (Emmison and Smith 2004; see also Chaplin 1994). Thus, visual sociology is not only about the image of objects, be those objects humans or something else. It is also about the specific contexts and spatial existence in which those objects appear. If we see a beautiful woman advertising a car, standing next to it or sitting in it, she is associated with the car and we associate the two (the car and the woman). The same is true for beer commercials and other advertisements. We, the hapless viewers, are supposed to, if things are right in the advertising world, associate the beer with the attractive people in the advertisements and with the fun times, sexual opportunity, successful athletic events, and other positive social occasions as involving beer-drinking and attractive people. To the extent that we are susceptible to the physical desirability of the humans in the advertisements, we are encouraged to believe that if we own this car or drink this beer, we have access to the attractive models, become like them, or in some way are associated with them. These advertisements work so effectively that one British beverage company elected to use an unattractive male model, in association with the very attractive “Lambrini girls,” in order to disassociate drinking Lambrini with sexual activity (Pfanner 2005). So, contexts, an important feature in the study of visual sociology, can refer to the way attractive humans are placed in relation to other objects, such as inanimate objects (cars, drinks, and so on) and in relation to attractive or unattractive humans. These interactions therefore demonstrate the signs that mark identity, status, and social prestige (Emmison and Smith 2004: 190), as we might imagine when we see attractive young women attached to unattractive older men. The older unattractive men in such cases accrue identity, status, and prestige by their association with the young attractive women. Also as part of the visual imagery, consider the beautifying objects (jewelry, wigs, and high-heeled shoes) that humans attach to themselves. These attached objects convey highly significant social meaning. I will discuss this more in the section on dramaturgy in the theory chapter, but suffice it to say here that these objects are hoped-for signs of prestige and uniqueness. These attached status-enhancing objects are part of the “material culture” and are very much a part of socio-personal aesthetics (Schlereth 1985: 3). These objects can serve as social indicators: as esteem

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objects, exotic objects, stigma objects, and social facilitators (Emmison and Smith 2004: 112–13), lending esteem to the wearer, making the wearer seem exotic, and so forth.

Chapter 8

Theories: Explanations of Social Aesthetics Among the useful theories to explain the phenomenon of social aesthetics are functionalism, constructionism, social exchange, critical perspectives, and symbolic interactionism. As the reader will see, these explanations are developed by individual theorists who offer unique points of view that can be usefully applied to the study of socio-personal aesthetics, such as Anthony Giddens with his notions of cultural dopes and agency, George Herbert Mead and his social mirror, and Erving Goffman with his dramaturgy and self-presentation. These sociological theories are commonly not separable from each other. Often they work best when used in combination. Optimally, this is the way scientific explanations work; it is not a failing of any particular theory if its explanation is enhanced by others. Functionalism According to the functionalists, the world is stratified for a reason. And that reason is the unhappy but deserved (according to functionalists) circumstance in which the disadvantaged find themselves, be they poor or, I will argue, less than attractive. In their seminal piece about the functions of poverty, Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) wrote that poverty provides positive functions for society in that (for example) it allows for a steady consumer for day-old bread and used cars; it forces the uneducated, poor, and unemployed to sign up for the military; and it encourages those without money and power to strive for it. In addition, Davis and Moore believe that those who are in positions of power and wealth are there because they deserve to be; that is, they truly are smarter and more qualified. Inequality, it is argued, is a good thing and a natural process that keeps society running smoothly; social inequality, Davis and Moore write, is the unconscious evolutionary process by which societies ensure that positions of power are filled by the most qualified persons. In other words, the people who fill the roles of power (captains of industry, top governmental officials, and so on) in a society ought to fill those roles because they are the best qualified to fill those roles. In terms of the book you are now reading, such a statement assumes that attractive people are actually better at their jobs, their friendships, their marriages, and all social activities. Social stratification in this sense, as a positive function for society, has not been met with complete agreement among sociologists. Indeed, considerable criticism has been leveled at such a notion, with some sociologists having argued that Davis and Moore’s ideology supports social inequality as a practice and is not an explanation for the functional necessity of social stratification at all. Criticism has also been leveled at

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the obvious fact that the grand rewards granted those in positions of privilege merely preserve the entrenched system of privilege and destroy the chances of those who do not have the resources to compete. The privileged attend the best and most expensive universities, have the best networks for social and employment opportunities, and are generally in place for continuing privilege. Their placement has nothing to do with talent, intelligence, and hard work, and they are not necessarily more qualified than other, less privileged people. Their social and economic placement is the result of a system that excludes the have-nots, and in fact (rather than encouraging the less privileged to strive for social power rewards) limits the pool of the available talent and restricts competition. This same process of unfair competition, I argue, operates in social aesthetics as I have described it in the chapter on types of power (Chapter 3). We have very limited control over our physical appearance characteristics, just as we have no control over the wealth of the families we are born into. Yet, those with advantageous appearance, for example, tall men, though not necessarily more qualified than short men or women, have significant advantages in work, romance, and so on, and thus have greater access to social power. I dismiss functionalism as a worthwhile explanation since it is a form of stratification-on-purpose, but it merits conversation anyway, since it does seem to operate in justifying social inequality on the basis of looks in the same way that poverty serves a social function (in a draconian sense), according to functionalists such as Herbert Gans (1971; 1972). Stratification by looks serves a function for those who benefit from such a non-egalitarin structure; these stratifiers do not want social change toward egalitarianism. In other words, looksism is functional in the same way that poverty, racism, sexism, and other broad-scale forces are functional. And as with poverty and other social ills, any social function derived from looksism is a highly limited one. Its function is limited to the benefits accrued to the alreadyadvantaged stratifiers (those who have a stake in maintaining the stratified system as stratified). The reader may wonder what exactly is the social purpose of stratification by physical appearance. If there is nothing inherently good or bad about being attractive or unattractive, as I have proposed, how has looks-based stratification come about and why does it persist? Based on available evidence, determinations made about a person’s appearance serve a discriminating function. To accept or reject people with regard to important social decisions (jobs, housing, healthcare, educational opportunities, friendships, club memberships, marriage, and so on)—to place them in hierarchies, with this placement then determining life chances regarding income/ jobs, marriage/social networks, and so on—makes for an uneven playing field. The purpose of an uneven playing field, looks-wise, is the same as an uneven playing field based on sexism, racism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, and other “isms.” It benefits some to the detriment of many. Those with the power to determine who has access to power and who does not (notably employers, educational institutions, and policy makers) do not always want power to be shared equally. Thus, a discriminating system works in the favor of those already possessing power and who want to maintain that power. In the case of social aesthetics, it is not that the power brokers are necessarily physically attractive and do not want to share power with the plain and unattractive. It is more that they

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want to maintain their influence, regardless of their own physical appearance, to ensure that the attractive fill positions of social power. They decide who gets hired, who gets into university, who becomes a member of prestigious social organizations. They do not want their power diluted. As I have pointed out in my book Social Rage (Berry 1999), it is most likely the traditionally powerful—white, native-born men—who will balk when confronted with social change toward racial, gender, and other equality.1 To level the looks playing field, the trick is to re-define (re-frame, reconstruct) human worth based on something other than looks. This strategy worked in the women’s movement and civil rights movement, where it had to be made clear that women and other minorities are as capable as white men and are as deserving of the same rights. A possible purpose and definite consequence of looks discrimination is to draw distinctions between people, based on their looks, regardless of how artificial those distinctions are. The purposes of that are twofold. There is the monetary purpose, for instance, to sell extra airplane seats to large people who may or may not fill more than a single seat. And there is an attributional purpose, meaning that discrimination is thought to reflect well on the discriminator (about which I will say more below). For example, if Abercrombie and Fitch hires only young, beautiful, Northern Europeanfeatured models and sales staff, the thinking goes, then Abercrombie and Fitch must be a “successful” and “superior” corporation, since the people representing them have “successful” and “superior” traits. Thus, appearance bias is functional under these circumstances. Rationality Rationality can refer to functionality or, more probably, social exchange (to be discussed below). Practical rationality, as one type of rationality, is found in everyday, mundane activities and reflects our worldly interests. We calculate all possible means to achieve what we want out of life among those means available to us, and we choose means that best allow us to reach our goals. We groom, undergo surgery, and engage in a number of beauty processes as a way to reach goals. It would be foolish, in rational terms, not to. Formal rationality can refer to a system in which economic profit is the emphasis, instead of issues of humanity. Capitalism has been discussed in the chapter on social forces (Chapter 6) and will be discussed more below in the section on critical theory. For the moment, suffice it to say that Max Weber stressed the profit-centered disregard for humanity as found in formally rational economic systems, in which the primary concern is capitalism (for instance, making money from dangerous diet products), and issues of ethics be damned (Weber 1903–1906; 1921; Ritzer 1983; 1993).

1 Although some people who have been disadvantaged by an unequal social system, notably women and racial minorities, are opposed to social change toward equality. The explanation for this curious occurrence has to do with fear of unknown social change (fear of failure to live up to new expectations) and the false sense of protection derived from being associated with the traditionally powerful.

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Structuralism Structuralism considers choices and actions of individuals, rational (or not) and functional (or not), a salient topic in this book when we consider the agonizing choices and justifications of those choices having to do with appearance improvement. These choices and actions, of course, take place in the context of social systems that heavily influence the patterns of our choices and actions (Prendergast 2005). Foucault and Post-Structuralism Michel Foucault arrives at concepts like “docile bodies” and “biopower,” and employs them in “exploring historical changes in the organization and deployment of power” (Foucault 1979; 1980; Bordo 1995: 17). Foucault wrote of the female body particularly as an “imaginary site,” to be socially inscribed with meanings. In this context, routine beauty practices do the inscribing to produce the “docile bodies.” Kathy Davis describes the choices that women make when confronted with decisions to undergo plastic surgery for functional reasons (to get or keep employment) and does so applying Michel Foucault’s post-structuralist theory. Exploring “the insidious and ambivalent ways that women’s bodies are disciplined through beauty practices and discourses,” Davis dismisses the simplified “notions of power that relegated women to the role of duped victims of a uniformly oppressive ‘beauty system’,” and instead advocates more of a perspective of women’s “agency as well as for the complexity and ambivalence of their involvement in beauty practices” (Davis 2003: 8–9). Below, we will revisit agency and the possibility of our being duped by a culture that strongly encourages us to do everything within our limited power to make ourselves attractive. Anthony Giddens, Structuration, and Cultural Dopes In his work Capitalism and Modern Social Theory, Anthony Giddens remarks on “structuration” by saying that people are not entirely free to choose their own actions. People are of society, we make society what it is, but we are also constrained by society (Giddens 1979; 1987; 1990). We have agency, meaning that we act as though we are in control of our circumstances, but the other side of the coin is that, importantly, we are also at least partly reflexive. We observe our own actions and tailor them to others’ behavior, that is, in reaction to others’ behavior. In the context of this book, we respond to social pressure to be attractive. When someone (a physician, a rude passerby, a friend, whoever) tells us that we are fat, we may react by trying to lose weight, by being defiant about our weight, by disguising our weight, or by becoming depressed. Discrete, separate, individual actions are not the important units of analysis, according to Giddens. Social practices, ongoing streams of action, are the important units of analysis and can include: weight control, cosmetic use, and other appearancechanging behaviors ongoing in our lives. We may or may not be conscious of our

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motives as they relate to these social practices. A lot of the time, we do appearance improvement as a routine, as a reflex action, without assigning motivation or even thinking about these behaviors much. It is when we do something non-routine, like having plastic surgery, that we may feel the need to give a justification, as Kathy Davis and others have pointed out (Davis 2003). This rationalization of our actions is a normal part of our behavior as competent social actors, expressing our agency and the social structure that influences our actions. Our rationalizations for our actions are the means by which others can judge our competence; indeed, it is a primary basis by which our competence is judged. If we undergo plastic surgery and can make a reasonable case to ourselves and others as to why we would do something like this, we can be adjudged competent social actors. On the other hand, we may be viewed as cultural dopes. Competent social actors know about the social institutions that influence their lives, and this knowledge is not incidental to the operation of society, but rather is part and parcel of the structure of society. Actors who are the mere “bearers of a mode of production,” without a clear and strong understanding of their social environment and the meaning of their actions, are, as Giddens puts it, cultural dopes. Viewed in this way, as culturally unthinking, the attitudes and actions of such dopes can be disregarded by competent social actors and by society as a whole. Cultural dopes and competent social actors notwithstanding, both types of social actors can be said to be controlled by society, or socially imprisoned (although the cultural dopes might more likely be seen as controlled and imprisoned). Of course we are influenced by structural constraints over which we have little control. Some of us succumb to these constraints. But even those of us who succumb to the social pressures to be attractive, and even those who succeed in being attractive and therefore dominant social actors, are socially imprisoned. One might say that those who refuse to mold themselves to social dictates (for example, fat-acceptance advocates) are less imprisoned or are unimprisoned. One wonders, however, if those who defy appearance dictates can really be said to be unimprisoned since they are still, by social definition and social consequence, stigmatized. Pierre Bourdieu and Social Constraints Pierre Bourdieu, not too dissimilarly from Giddens, finds that we internalize social structure by learning from the experience of previous actions. From these experiences, we gain a mastery of how to conduct ourselves (undertake effective actions) by taking the above-named social constraints into account (Bourdieu 1990). As social actors, we occupy positions in social space relative to one another. These positions are determined by our occupations, education, or proximity to power, as influenced (I would add) by our physical appearance. We use these positions to understand our and others’ place in the world. Certain social positions, Bourdieu points out, are designated by manner of dress, our purchases, and the leisure activities in which we engage. For instance, our beauty practices (getting tans, and so on) are intended to speak to social position (leisure time and money).

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Our social actions are guided by strict and loose rules about what to do and what not to do. Loose guidelines, of which we may not even be aware, are flexible but deeply rooted, leaving a lot of room for improvising, but are at the same time shaped by rules and social learning. Consider, for example, changes in styles (the use of corsets, hairdressing styles, and so on) and changes in beauty standards (thin lips, thick lips). Bourdieu writes that we develop characteristic methods of generating new actions based on what we have experienced as meeting with social approval and not meeting with social approval. In this way, we respond to changes in beauty standards and beauty practices. Nipping at the ankles of social exchange theory (discussed below), Bourdieu remarks on various kinds of capital, stratification, and hierarchies that influence our place in society. Our social placement is evidenced by economic capital (material property), of course, but there are also social capital (networks of connections) and cultural capital (social prestige) which we can accumulate or be denied because of our physical appearance. These various kinds of capital can be exchanged, as when economic capital is exchanged for social capital; more specifically, as when a wealthy but older and unattractive man attracts a beautiful, young, but less financially endowed woman. Another example would be the exchange between an employer and employee in which the employer hires physically attractive people who represent the employer well and the employee gains a good job. The issue, as Bourdieu points out, is not just who has more or less overall capital, but the manner in which the different groups relate to each other on the basis of the kind of capital they control. This is true, he goes on to say, at all levels of the social hierarchy. We classify people and this classification defines the tools of social domination. Beauty, as already well argued by Naomi Wolf (2002), is a form of capital. Social Constructionism To simplify, constructionism is, as the term implies, an often shakily founded artificial definition of any social phenomena as put together by a social group. For example, alcoholism was constructed by a group of moral entrepreneurs to be a social problem of such significance in the early part of the twentieth century in the US that, with social action, laws were put into place prohibiting the sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages. A dead giveaway that a social construction is indeed a social construction is that the same phenomenon being defined as a construction in one society is not so defined in another society. Another clue is that a social construction varies across time, suggesting that the phenomenon so constructed at one time is not so constructed at another time. Recall from reading earlier in this book that social views of people-of-size have varied across time; at some times, we revered fat people and thought of them as beautiful or successful or healthy. At other times, like now, we think precisely the opposite. Constructionism necessitates that a large segment of the society adopt the perspective of the constructors, such that we are made to believe that the construction is valid. To define poverty (or any phenomena) in a particular way and to then arrive at ways to act upon poverty (or any phenomena) completes the construction.

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A construction has been successful when a proportion of the society agrees with the definition of poverty (or whatever) as put forward in the new definition by the new definers. Beauty, not surprisingly, is a social construction, as is non-beauty. In Reischer and Koo’s work, we find a discussion of size as a social construction. Size is clearly a construction of beauty, evidenced by the West’s adoration of thinness and Saharan Africa’s adoration of corpulence. More broadly, these authors point out, the body is an icon of social values; a means of social power and control; a reflection of attitude, self (for example, self-control), and willingness to conform. To speak of, for instance, the body as reflecting self-control is clearly evidence that body size is a social construction, complete with positive and negative attributes about body size and the social actors who inhabit certain body sizes (Reischer and Koo 2004). Feminism and Social Construction In their work on the social construction of gendered bodies, Lorber and Martin state: “The feminist view of bodies is that they are socially constructed in material and cultural worlds, which means that they are physical and symbolic at the same time” (Lorber and Martin 2005: 218). Clearly, this means that the actual physical size is meaningless (or artificial in my terms) without a social or symbolic (in Lorber and Martin’s terms) meaning attached to it. Through our social practices, we notice the differences across people in terms of their size. To say that we notice the differences does not go far enough, however. As I have discussed in this book and as Lorber and Martin discuss, we attempt to change our size by exercise, sports, and surgery in order to create the type of masculine and feminine bodies that social groups admire. We are socially reinforced for doing so and stigmatized for not doing so. As Lorber and Martin put it, “In short, by judging, rewarding, and punishing people of different body sizes, shapes, weights, and musculature, members of a social group persuade and coerce each other to construct socially acceptable—and similar-looking—bodies” (Lorber and Martin 2005: 219). Social constructions are not created equally, though, as Lorber and Martin describe, since women and men are held to different standards. The transformations that we undergo are heavily reliant upon our gender, transforming “physical bodies into social bodies.” Such transformations, via social construction dynamics, include dieting as well as surgical transformations (liposuction, breast enlargement or reduction, face-lifts, and so on), and are among the means that women have attempted to fit ideals of feminine beauty. Men also undergo transformations by surgery (such as hair transplants), weightlifting, and steroid use to mold their physical being to the masculine ideal. “These practices … are responses to culturally idealized views of how women’s and men’s bodies should look” (Lorber and Martin 2005: 219). As to construction, cultural beliefs are imposed by societies onto ideals of what bodies of women and men should look like. As to reconstruction, we are witness to subversion of these ideals, often framed in feminist ideology. Subversion, which I will present more fully in Chapter 10 on social transformations (accommodation versus resistance to social dictates), “refers to resistance to and undermining of cultural ideals and practices. … Resisting cultural pressures to adorn, shape, and judge bodies

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according to conventional standards, especially in relation to gender, is a subversive act” (Lorber and Martin 2005: 231). The fat-acceptance movement is a good example of such resistance in social action form. Or, as Braziel and LeBesco (2001) refer to it, fatness can be (re)constructed as a social transgression. Reconstruction can be aided by re-wording or re-branding behaviors and conditions. For example, descriptions of fat people have changed, as I mentioned in the Introduction. The term “obese” is too medical for the fat-acceptance movement, suggesting as it does a medical condition with medical remedies. Instead, the fat-acceptance movement has declared that we should use the word “fat” since there is nothing wrong with being fat. “People-ofsize” has become an objective description meaning merely that some people have more “size” (or pounds) than others. The use of words to describe variations in body size transforms our public views of people of various sizes. Words build or destroy social constructions. Social Exchange Social exchange theory is centered in interpersonal interaction, with the participants learning from each other what types of behaviors are likely to bring success or failure. To illustrate, behaviors like grooming can be met with approval or derision, and thus we are conditioned by the other actors in our social networks. Or, we can look at social exchange more as a transaction, with the participants giving and receiving something from the exchange. In all exchange theory, the emphasis falls on explaining social action intended to effectively result in actors’ realizing their distinct interests (economic, educational, romantic, approval, status, and so on). In other words, we engage in social relations in order to amass resources, such as money, power, prestige, and approval; and other people enter into relationships with us seeking the same or similar rewards. If things work out really well for us, we stand to gain more valuable resources than our associates gain from us; or at least that is the profit-seeking, competitive way of looking at social exchange (Turner 1985; Calhoun et al. 2002). Social exchange theory is particularly useful in explaining why social actors hope to be connected with attractive people. It also explains the reverse: why attractive people are connected to people who are not attractive but who have something else to offer (jobs, financially advantageous marriages, and the like). Consider Richard Emerson’s (1962) essay on power/dependency, which finds that power is relational, with one actor’s power in a relationship being equal to the other actor’s dependency on the rewards or resources that can be derived from the relationship. Recall the above discussion of cultural capital, à la Pierre Bourdieu (1984; 1985), in which social actors, in the course of social interaction, draw from each other various forms of qualitative and quantitative knowledge. Social capital, according to James Coleman (1988; 1990) among others, refers to the pool of favors and obligations that social actors can draw upon in their social networks. What all this means for social aesthetics is best understood via the status that one social actor obtains from association with another. If Abercrombie and Fitch clothiers believe that employing attractive, young, white, Northern European-featured models and sales staff grants

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them prestige by association, and if these models and sales staff derive money and exposure for their work with Abercrombie and Fitch, we have social exchange. If wealthy, older, unattractive men marry financially needy, young pretty women, the man gets status from his association with such a person, as does the woman, even though the rewards that each obtains is different (status versus financial security). Critical Theory In the chapter on social forces, I describe the economic forces at play which maintain the public interest in physical appearance. Succinctly, what is meant here is that economic systems, namely capitalism, benefit from our nervousness about our appearance by selling us a wide range of expensive and doubtful products and services promising to make us thin, beautiful, and white. This same system, because it is profit-oriented, also benefits from our accepting our appearance failures by selling us plus-size clothing and offering plus-size resorts. The best explanation for this economic phenomenon is critical (alternatively known as conflict) theory, with its side concepts of contemporary consumerism. Critical theorists “view capitalism as an irrational, contradictory, oppressive, albeit dynamic and productive, economic system” (Dandaneau 2005: 188). Because of these features, capitalism is assumed to be the main impetus for contemporary social problems, such as (obviously) social inequality in the forms of labor strife, inadequate medical care, and all manner of “isms” (racism, sexism, ableism, and so on). According to Jurgen Habermas (1987), the continuation of capitalism, through a mechanism known as “legitimization crisis,” in turn causes the continuance of unnecessary and unjustifiable human suffering. At the heart of contemporary capitalism is consumerism and materialism. George Ritzer (2005; 1995; 1993) and others analyze our postmodern society in terms of the means of consumption, noting that consumers work with, or assist, the capitalist endeavor by, for instance, focusing on beauty products and services. That is, because we are obsessed with looking the way we are supposed to look, we (literally) buy into a socially dictated set of beauty standards. As a consequence, we keep the profits rolling in to the manufacturers and service providers that convince us that we really ought to engage in these consumerist activities if we are to be socially acceptable. The manufacturers reap the advantages and the consumers commonly are disappointed. The result: we have an unhealthy focus on beauty, buying beauty services and products that can harm us as consumers psychically, medically, and financially. A related concept is the simulacrum, which refers to something mass-produced, a copy of the original and real, a simulation, something unvarying. Illustrations of simulacra that I would offer in the context of social aesthetics would include cookie cutter looks (hairstyles, clothing, skin color, dental work, and so on) and cookie cutter plastic surgery (a predominance of the same jaws, lips, eye shapes, and body shapes that are currently popular). Postmodern consumerism, “McDonaldization” as Ritzer cleverly refers to the phenomenon, produces sameness. We might call the

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same phenomenon as applied to social aesthetics, such that we all want to look the same, “Britney-ization.”2 Harold Garfinkel’s (1967) ideas about consumerism preceded Ritzer’s more recent ones, but are not dissimilar to them. Essentially, he noted that women are cultural dopes if they are “blinded by consumer capitalism, oppressed by patriarchal ideologies, or inscribed within the discourses of femininity.” They may then choose to undergo cosmetic surgery or otherwise play the beauty game. They are the duped victims of a capitalist consumerist system that constrains and inferiorizes them (Davis 2003: 74). Indeed, consumption dominates today’s postmodern economy, as well noted by Jean Baudrillard (1988). Symbolic Interactionism “It has taken me most of my life to understand that what we see, when we look at another person, may reflect absolutely nothing about how they see themselves.” This was written by Cheryl Peck in her book Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs, who, although not a sociologist, expresses well an interactionist perspective (Peck 2004: 5). Interactionism is a micro-sociology, emphasizing interpersonal relations. Though micro in focus, interactionism, as would be true of all sociology, is relevant on a large scale. For example, micro-decisions, each small in themselves, “can be aggregated to have huge effects” (Calhoun et al. 2002: 25). As an aesthetics-related illustration, decisions to not hire a disfigured, fat, or otherwise appearance-stigmatized person can culminate in grand patterns of discrimination against all those disfigured, fat, and otherwise appearance-compromised. Symbolic interactionism, advanced by George Herbert Mead (1934), concentrates on the manner in which people develop their own identities and their understanding of how society works. Besides focusing on face-to-face interaction rather than broad-scale social systems, micro-sociology, moreover, focuses on meanings, as seen in Mead’s interest in the role of verbal and non-verbal symbols; hence the term symbolic interactionism. These two points (face-to-face interaction and non-verbal symbols) are pertinent to the study of social aesthetics since, as I have mentioned repeatedly, the visual is paramount. Non-verbal symbols can be any number of physical traits, such as large breasts, tan skin, rotted teeth, short stature, and the like. Going a step further, we can say that symbolic interactionism examines how people define and experience the reality of any social phenomenon, for instance, beauty and non-beauty. Our understandings and experiences of beauty (as with other social phenomena) can be described by basic interactionist concepts, notably identity, interaction, impression management, frame, and social networks, much as I have presented them herein (and see Fine and Sandstrom 2005). By such social processes, it is shown how the reality of social phenomena, like beauty, are constructed and changed, with collective agreement and disagreement about the meaning of physical 2 I am referring to the pop icon Britney Spears. Of course, she will be replaced, if she has not already been replaced, by other icons such as Paris Hilton (another blonde Anglo beauty). And she is preceded by earlier icons such as Marilyn Monroe. The point is that we strive to emulate them.

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appearance being socially constructed, often through interaction. From this collective meaning, we accommodate to social rules of beauty (light skin, thin bodies, and so on) or we can build resistance against these dictates. As to the former, our face-toface interactions can be so punishing for the plain and unattractive that most of us do all we can to be less unattractive. As to the latter, we can build networks of solidarity, as illustrated by the fat-acceptance organizations, and we can learn to cope with social realities, such as being fat in a thin-centric society. As Herbert Blumer (1969) puts it, meanings (which are derived from interpersonal interaction) that we attach to all that we observe (such as facial features, breast size, skin color, attire, dental health, and so on) are managed and transformed through interpretation (positive and negative attitudes toward people based on their features) and self-reflection. In this way, we make sense of our social world. For example, observing college fraternity boys holding up numerical signs rating the attractiveness of women passersby, we “know” that thin, blonde, and so on, women are valued for their looks and others are not. Yet these signs, these symbols, may be re-negotiated. The women may avoid walking past frat boys, they may chastise them for being boorish, or they may attempt to make themselves more physically appealing and thus not subject to low ratings by the frat boys. Symbolic Interactionism and the Social Mirror George Herbert Mead (1934) is credited with interactionist interpretations primarily through his concept of the social mirror. As Mead noted, we “cannot be ourselves unless we are also members” of a society (Mead 1934: 163). By this he meant that our very identity is determined by how we are reflected in society, by how others see us. Through social experience, we come to know ourselves and our place in society. This knowledge comes from interactions with the Generalized Other. In the above example of the humiliating experience of being graded by frat boys, less-thanbeautiful women come to know themselves as undesirable. Of course, our lifelong interactions, from childhood onward, develop a multiple and composite self-identity as reflected in the social mirror (Van Wolputte 2004). Our self-reflections never come out of thin air. Rather, they are the accumulation of collective representations of the self, the result of the evidence seen in Mead’s social mirror. To pose the ridiculous, perhaps even if we were alone in the world and never to be seen by others, but still knowledgeable about social standards for physical attractiveness, the social mirror would still operate. We might still, out of social- and self-reflection, be concerned about our looks. This would be true because, as Mead maintains, we experience ourselves not directly, but only indirectly, from the perspectives of other social actors and from the generalized standpoint of the social group to which we belong. Self-presentation, Dramaturgy, and Impression Management Erving Goffman (1959) described rules that govern social behavior and social interaction, resulting in his “dramaturgy” approach. According to this theory, social

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behavior can be thought of as a staged performance, with the actors intentionally conveying specific impressions to others. Relatedly, we control or try to control the behavior of others by influencing “the definition of the situation,” in Howard Becker’s (1963) terms, through the staging of our own behavior according to how we want to be seen and treated by others. Dramaturgy is behavior through which we communicate information about ourselves to others, thereby managing others’ impressions of us. We do what we can to enhance the images we emit to others, thereby justifying our claims to resources or power. That is, we discretely hide, alter, or slant our self-presentations when appropriate or advantageous. The subject matter of dramaturgical sociology: is the creation, maintenance, and destruction of common understandings of reality by people working individually and collectively to present a shared and unified image of that reality. … In a play [as in life], actors try to convey to an audience a particular impression of the world around them. Through the use of scripted dialogue, gestures, props, costumes, and so on, actors create a new reality for the audience to consider (Kivisto and Pittman 2005: 260).

We do the same thing in real life with costumes (push-up bras, and so on), props (cars,and so on), and dialogue. Naturally, Goffman’s analysis raises questions about the authenticity of human behavior. If we are always staging our behavior, this suggests that our actions are carefully planned maneuvers designed to create a desired perception in others. Similarly, in the context of the present work, physical appearance can also be inauthentic and designed to create and manage impressions. To this end, accoutrements can effectively be used as stagecraft (Goffman 1974). For example, we undergo hair transplants to hide our baldness and undergo face-lifts to draw up our wrinkles, in order to seem young and vigorous. Such visual manipulations, while perhaps rational, can be thought of as insincere or inauthentic. Sander Gilman (1999), an authority on cosmetic surgery, would call it “passing.” Not unexpectedly, as actors in dramaturgical plays, we adopt roles. In the context of social aesthetics, we may play the role of, say, “beauty queen,” “successful guy” (and owner of trophy wife), “jock,” and a myriad of other appearance-related roles. These roles constitute particular images that we hope to convey, a contrived sense of self that we want to project to the world. Part of the role involves the wearing of costumes, which can involve significant financial resources (with the wearing of fur and jewels) but which can also be accomplished cheaply and creatively, as when we dress in thrift shop chic to create a certain image. The clothing and jewelry that a person wears gives a very quick impression of them and their social status. Think of uniforms, thong bikinis, and any number of obvious costumes that convey strong images. As to accoutrements, consider the items with which we surround ourselves as a means to impress upon others our “specialness.” If we attach to ourselves attractive mates, unusual non-human animals, or expensive items, we are presenting ourselves as worthy and powerful. This sort of behavior is delusional for the most part, but many of us engage in it anyway. A new book describing the changes which the luxury market has undergone is especially insightful here, in explaining the illusions

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we hope to create with our attached luxury accoutrements and how the reality is far different. That is, many if not most people who are not at all wealthy now own luxury items. They can afford to buy (and display) luxury items, particularly if those items are knock-offs (not the real Hermes, Chanel,and so on) or if they possess and display the less expensive items of the true luxury brand. In her book, Deluxe, Dana Thomas writes of the luxury goods industry as a “$157 billion business that produces and sells clothes, leather goods, shoes, silk scarves and neckties, watches, jewelry, perfume, and cosmetics that convey status and a pampered life—a luxurious life” (Thomas 2007: 3). For those who cannot afford the large luxury items, such as a complete set of Louis Vuitton luggage, they buy smaller items such as cosmetics and handbags. Luxury cosmetics and handbags are showy: “pulling a Chanel lipstick from a handbag gives the instant impression of wealth and savior faire” (Thomas 2007: 5). Our manner of dress is designed to reflect our economic, political, and social standing, even if that standing is not accurate. Luxury adornment sets the haves apart from the have-nots. If we buy luxury brands, we are told, we live a luxury life or at least display the illusion of a luxury life (Thomas 2007: 9). Attribution and the Halo (and Horns) Effect Central to much of social ranking that takes place on a face-to-face basis is physical attractiveness. We judge others, and are judged by them, on appearance. Ranking by appearance is ordinarily thought to have little consequence beyond individual matters such as whether or not we can get a date. But actually, appearance has longterm and serious consequences, as we have seen throughout this book. “Fat equals reckless excess, prodigality, indulgence, lack of restraint, violation of order and space, transgression of boundary. … presumably driven by indulgence and lack of control …, the fat body is interpreted and constructed as a body heedlessly embracing proscribed social mores” (Braziel and LeBesco 2001: 3). Disfigurement has long been assumed to be associated with criminality and general evilness; and disability is ascribed with, among other negative traits, asexuality (Schweik forthcoming; Longmore 2003). While ugliness represents badness, immorality, dangerousness, illness,and so on, beauty is goodness, intelligence, kindness, generosity, trustworthiness, sociability, modesty, and sensitivity. We are more likely to do things for pretty people, to be altruistic toward them, to do what they want. Pretty people win arguments and can persuade others of their opinions. We expect attractive people to be better at everything … . We guess that their marriages are happier, their jobs are better, and that they are mentally healthy and stable. For practically any positive quality you can think of, people will assume that good-looking people have more of it, do it better, and enjoy it more (Etcoff 1999: 48).

As noted in Chapter 3 on the types of power (economic and the more strictly social), good-looking students often get better grades, at least when graded subjectively. When graded on standardized tests, the advantages of beauty disappear. If attractive people cheat on exams, they are more likely not be penalized for it (Etcoff 1999).

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This attribution process is lifelong. Children as well as adults are prejudged by their looks. Our appearance affects our lives in many arenas and in many stages: babyhood, early life, school age, college years, marriage, careers, and old age (Katz 1995). Attractive people have more friends and more lovers, get better jobs at better pay, and have fewer daily-life hassles than less attractive people. Attractive people can even get away with criminal offenses, from shoplifting to serious crimes, more than can unattractive people. They are less likely to get reported for their offense; if reported, they are less likely to be formally accused or convicted. This pattern is especially true for attractive women (Katz 1995; Etcoff 1999). Sidney Katz’s research on “person perception” shows “the many ways in which physical attractiveness—or the lack of it—affects all aspects of your life” (Katz 1995: 301). The importance of beauty is not to be underestimated. In short, the scientific evidence is undeniable that looks have greater influence than talent, intelligence, and hard work. This happens through a phenomenon called the “halo effect.” By contrast, the “horns effect” visits itself upon the physically unattractive, who are attributed with meanness, sneakiness, dishonesty, and anti-social attitudes and behaviors (Katz 1995: 302). This brings us back to the earlier-mentioned social exchange theory. Via a phenomenon termed the “generalized halo effect,” the social status assigned an unattractive man increases markedly when he is associated with a stunningly beautiful woman. On the surface and without explanation, it does not make sense that a beautiful woman would ordinarily be romantically connected with a homely man.3 We make sense of such events by supplying the explanation that he must have something to offer. The observers then attribute favorable qualities (wealth, social prestige, or, less likely, personality) to him. Katz suggests that we can change this wrongful, based-on-appearance stratification through increased knowledge about and awareness of the social aesthetics phenomena. We wrongly equate beauty with a range of positive traits, making false assumptions about attractive people having nothing to do with fact. Being armed with awareness, most likely through education, about why we discriminate against the unattractive can prevent this unwitting bigotry (Katz 1995: 307). Conclusion: The Study of Differences Let us now return to the issues of social power and minority statuses, as pursued in Chapter 4. All dimensions of human difference (race, gender, nationality, orientation,and so on), especially in this context of examining physical appearance difference, are fundamental categories of social experience that warrant sociological analysis. We can, and need to, theorize difference to simply correct the false and pervasive generalizations implied in much classical thought about social life. We 3 Of course, the reverse can happen, in which a good-looking man is associated with an unattractive woman. The foregoing example is the more common one since, generally, men have more financial resources than women and thus can “afford” an attractive partner. The explanation is the same in either case.

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need to scientifically challenge the phenomenon of social aesthetics empirically, and understand whether categories of difference (gender, race, disability,and so on), which are often taken for granted, “really have objective and stable meanings” (Calhoun et al. 2002: 307). As scientists, we know that physical appearance does not have objective and stable meaning, but the mythology needs to be addressed in meaningful public terms. The issue of difference is socially problematic, as evidenced by an intense public investment in setting and maintaining social boundaries. Returning to the constructionist approach, we may propose that social movements and social action re-do the meaning of difference. We have little or no control over our appearance and many other differences (gender, race, class, disability); yet the social meaning that we attach by cultural interpretation, though a construction, is not inconsequential. Because of the impact of social stratification, as it visits itself upon us by denying or granting social power, we might envision a claim for recognition of our constructed, artificial, and meaningless differences. Such an occurrence brings us to the possibilities of identity politics, taking place within social movements, laying claims of legitimacy regardless of identity, as will be discussed in the chapter on transforming social aesthetics. Prior to that, let us take an instructive jaunt through “animal aesthetics,” the subject of the next chapter.

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Chapter 9

Animal Aesthetics: An Illustration of Symbolic Interactionism1 This chapter considers the practice of humans associating themselves with nonhuman animals on the basis of the latter’s appearance. These non-human animals are intended to serve as a positive reflection on the humans who deliberately choose them for their “special” traits, which the humans then utilize to enhance their own social standing. This practice can be compared to the same practice used by humans to associate themselves with attractive humans and serves the similar purpose of amassing social status by virtue of the association, as discussed in the previous chapter. This phenomenon, of using non-human representatives to make their human “owners” seem special, is explained in terms of symbolic interactionism, with special attention to impression management and dramaturgy, along with other interactionist features of attribution and social exchange. From the interactionist perspective, this relationship between non-humans and humans provides a novel picture of non-human–human society as a unidirectional, status-seeking interaction intended to benefit human actors. In other words, some (by no means all) humans use non-humans as positive representations of those humans. Assuming that humans want to be perceived by their immediate and broader society in a particular light, they may specifically select their animal companions and animal possessions for traits that they hope speak well of themselves as wealthy, powerful, deadly, exotic, beautiful, well-bred (and so on) humans. These non-human–human associations are intended to rank the humans as equal to or above other humans in a social hierarchy, thus serving a stratifying function. The similarities between what we do to ourselves to be more physically appealing, a main topic of this book, and what we do to animals to make them more physically appealing also speaks to making our animal possessions “better” representatives for us as humans, with the animals having no choice in the matter. Much of this human behavior, choosing certain animals to represent us and altering our animals to make them better reflectors of us, is about power. There is an obvious power differential between categories of humans, the subject of this book, and between humans and non-human animals, the subject of animal-and-society scholarship. The above-mentioned absence of choice for the animals to undergo grooming, plastic surgery, and other appearance alterations speaks undeniably to 1 This chapter appeared, in a slightly different form, as a journal article in Society and Animals 16, 2008, under the title “Interactionism and Animal Aesthetics: A Theory of Reflected Social Power.”

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issues of power. One must wonder, in this context, how relevant (and I would argue that it is relevant) this attachment to “special” animals and the forceful imposition of alterations upon these animals is to human use of other humans as positive reflections, namely trophy partners and trophy children. It might credibly be said that choosing trophy partners is similar to choosing trophy animals. It might also be said that administering growth hormones to our children is similar to administering steroids to our racehorses. Signs of Status One thing that a social actor can confer on another is social status. As Bourdieu (1990) has pointed out, we all, as social actors, occupy social statuses, positions in social space relative to each other. These statuses can be defined by wealth, income, education, occupation, physical appearance, access to or proximity to social power, and so on. Our social positions are identified and made known to others by our possessions (houses, cars), leisure activities (operas, dog fights), the clothing that we wear (jewelry, furs, second-hand clothes), and our consumer choices (paintings, exotic animals). Indeed, the visibility of status has become much more infected by and invested in the postmodern consumer culture, in which consumption dominates the new capitalist economy (Baudrillard 1988). Relevant to the topic at hand, nonhuman animals, particularly those conferring social distinction (exotic breeds, expensive racehorses, animals known for violence), are used as consumer products to enhance human status. Exchange and Attribution Mixing social exchange and attribution theory, beauty can be seen as a commodity, as something to be exchanged if not bought and sold. Recall that Naomi Wolf (2002) refers to beauty as “capital.” We know that all manner of positive traits (such as intelligence, capability, personality) are attached to attractive people and that attractive people are given the benefit of the doubt on many, many things. At this point, we return to social exchange theory to say that attractive individuals are receiving something in exchange for being linked to visibly unappealing individuals, not uncommonly financial security. Non-human animals, of course, have no choice in their associations with human owners. In that sense, there is little or no known benefit for the animals. Perhaps the human owners treat their associated animals well (or not); but clearly, the association is based on human desires and needs, which brings us back to issues of relative power. Whether the non-human–human association is voluntary on the part of non-humans, I would argue that the basic principle of the generalized halo effect, described in the previous chapter, operates in the non-human–human context: this same process works or is hoped to work with ordinary or less-than-ordinary humans associated with exotic, beautiful, and special (expensive, dangerous, and so on) animals.

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Animals in the Social Mirror Symbolic interactionism focuses on interpersonal relationships, with the microlevel principles expandable to societal-wide social relations. At any level, social interactions are developed, altered, ended, and reconstructed via many routes, such as by observing others’ social behavior. For instance, we observe the visual cues, like non-human possessions, put forward by others. In George Herbert Mead’s (1934) version of symbolic interactionism, we are aware of ourselves as objects in a social environment and we hope to be viewed as objects deserving of special treatment. Moreover, we know our selves by what we see reflected in the social mirror: what society tells us about ourselves via interaction determines whether we view ourselves as important or not, as attractive or not, as special or not, and so on. For the purposes of this chapter, if we have “special” animals, then we ourselves are special and are deserving of special treatment. Applying Mead’s mirror perspective, people develop their own identities (for example, as dangerous pit bull owners, as successful racehorse owners, as pampered owners of pampered little dogs) in the course of interaction with others whom they hope to impress as dangerous, successful, and pampered. Animal Ownership as Social Meaning and Social Behavior While Mead emphasized verbal and, significant for this analysis, non-verbal symbols in the creation of social meaning, we might propose that symbols take the form of animal representations. Herbert Blumer (1969), another prominent interactionist, points to the meanings of things as determined from interpersonal interaction. We respond to social objects, like animals, by interpreting their social meaning for us. As is true for words, gestures, clothes, cars, and other social symbols, our associated animals serve as symbols with social meanings, sending important social messages to observers. Most usefully, Erving Goffman (1959; 1974) has described how we use dramaturgy as a form of social behavior to communicate information about ourselves to others, and thus manage others’ impressions of us. In Goffman’s view, social behavior can be imagined as a staged performance, with each actor intentionally conveying specific impressions to others. Part of dramaturgy is the playing of roles. Generally, the roles we play in the dramaturgy, contrived or not, are intended to project a particular image of ourselves for our audience (strangers, intimate friends, and others) to view and accept as valid. Important to the dramaturgical roles are items such as costumes, accessories, and props to create a reality that we hope the audience will adopt. As I have mentioned throughout this book, we alter our levels of attractiveness with cosmetics, surgery, and other means as a way to create impressions, authentic or not. Significantly, associated non-human animals are also part of the stagecraft, as accessories, parts of the costumes, props, ornaments, and other symbols of status. Our presentation of self via our associated animals enhance our self-image and justify our claims to social power. For the same reasons that we hide our appearance

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flaws with toupees and cosmetics, we tote around little specially bred dogs and keep pit bulls as ways of creating a social impression of ourselves, no matter how invalid. We possess “special” animals as a way of impression management. As is a major theme of this book, in human society, we evaluate each other based on a number of factors, not excluding our physical appearance, with this evaluation having enormous consequences on life opportunities, notably employment and social networks. As we have just seen in the previous chapter, we may be judged not only by our own physical appearance, but also by the level of attractiveness of those humans willing to be associated with us. Thus, we seek out physically attractive employees, lovers, and friends, hoping for a spillover of their positive attributes onto us. Similarly, non-human animals, in their relationship to humans, serve as reflections of human needs for positive attributes. Non-human animals’ images may stand in place of the images that the associated humans hope to have attributed to themselves, as successful, athletic, unique, and so on. Based on the animals’ special features, we ascribe social traits to them, value them or not, choose to possess them or not, place them in a variety of roles (as companions, work animals, entertainment animals, breeding material, and so on) or not. And we derive, or hope to derive, social significance through them. As with human–human social aesthetics, the social issues surrounding animal aesthetics are based on our visual sense. The Visibility of Symbols In the human aesthetics literature, we often read of “markers” to designate features that are valued or disregarded, such as the ethnic nose, the obese body, and so on. Mostly, we interpret physical appearance based on visual cues, with these cues being specific features (such as noses, skin, eyes, body size) and, more broadly, general evaluations of overall attractiveness (beautiful, plain, and so on). It is more than visual though. Just the pronouncement that “I own a …” particular kind of animal signifies power and specialness. Or at least that is the intention of the statement. Our judgments about physical appearance being primarily visual, let us reconsider now Goffman’s dramaturgy and uses of “props.” Recall in the methodology chapter, I referred to the use, in advertising, of attractive people associated with the items to be marketed. To the extent to which we are susceptible to the physical desirability of the humans in the advertisements, we are encouraged to believe that if we own a particular type of car or drink a specific brand of beer, we become like the attractive models advertising them or have access to attractive people as represented by the models. Likewise, when we see a human and non-human animal together, we associate the two and that is what the human involved has in mind. Consider the snake handler (a daring human who courts danger); the owner posed next to a champion racehorse (a successful, wealthy human); a decorative woman with a decorative dog (a spoiled woman with time and money and few serious cares); a commonplace human with an exotic animal such as a mixed breed wolf-dog, tiger, ferret, or a rare tropical bird (the human is allegedly exotic as well); a pit bull trainer and his pit bulls (the human is assumed to be similarly physically powerful and

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ready to fight). The non-human animal is intended to reflect well on the human, who hopes to be viewed as daring, successful, spoiled, exotic, and so on. Human and Non-human Constructed Beauty There is surprisingly comprehensive agreement, as there is to human beauty, as to what features constitute an attractive or unattractive animal (see Etcoff 1999 on human beauty consensus). Mostly, we apply the same criteria to non-human attractiveness as we do to human attractiveness: proportionality, healthy appearance, and childlike features. Physical beauty, bear in mind, is a social construction. This is as true for human definitions of human beauty as it is for human definitions of non-human beauty. Largely via visual media (television, magazine advertisements, and so on), we, globally, have come to agree that certain features constitute beauty. Interestingly, what we find beautiful in humans, especially female humans, are the same features we find attractive in non-human animals; for example, large eyes, small faces, and trim, well-shaped noses (Etcoff 1999). Indicators of good health are very aesthetically appealing in humans and in non-humans, including clear eyes, good teeth, good bodily coverings (clear skin, luxuriant and shiny hair or fur, colorful feathers). Likewise, humans value physical prowess (good bone structure and good musculature) and athletic skills in their associated humans as they do in their companion, farm, and entertainment animals. This strong consensus, a social construction to be sure, is also a means by which unappealing humans may become appealing by association with appealing animals. Aesthetic Alterations, the Absence of Choice, and What It Says About Human Reflection Now let us turn our attention to the alterations through which we put non-humans, much like those through which we put ourselves, to “improve” appearance. Keeping with the minority paradigm noted in many works on animal rights, in which the inequality issues encountered by minority humans and non-humans are compared (Adams 1995; Adams and Donovan 1995; Pluhar 1995; Nibert 2002), let us briefly examine the social power differentials that influence our decisions to alter our and others’ appearances. Aesthetics and racial inequality issues are starkly illustrated in the lengths to which racial minorities go in order to appear more white, such as eyelid surgery to round out Asian eyes, hair straighteners to alter the texture of Negroid hair, skin whiteners to lighten the skin of dark-skinned minorities, and leglengthening surgeries as undertaken by Chinese people. As we age, we cover our gray, moisturize our skin, and have our faces surgically lifted, since the not-young are not looked upon as favorably as the young. While humans are arguably free to make these choices to change ourselves, non-humans are subject to human choices to change their appearance. We impose cosmetic surgeries on them, selectively breed them, dress them, apply cosmetics to them, and enter them into contests, all in the name of having them reflect well on us.

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Surgery At the human’s request, cosmetic surgery is performed on non-human animals to make them more aesthetically pleasing to humans. To compete in beauty contests or for personal beautification, non-human animals undergo surgeries for wrinkle reduction, eyebrow correction, eye lifts, full facelifts, ear straightening, Botox injections, breast reductions (tightened mammillae), cosmetic dentistry (teeth straightening and whitening, braces, retainers), tummy tucks (abdominoplasty), rhinoplasty, lip correction, tail correction, and testicular implants. A veterinarian plastic surgeon in Brazil defends his practice by stating that it is perfectly ethical and perfectly reasonable to put animals under the surgical blade in order to make them more attractive to humans (Kingstone 2004; Hopgood 2005). This same doctor says that if the human owner believes that her or his animal is more attractive with surgery, the human–non-human relationship will be improved. Indeed, some veterinarian plastic surgeons promise “a better quality of life” for the humans and non-humans when the latter undergo reconstruction, even though no evidence to this effect is provided (Robins 2005). The surgeon’s declaration that it is “perfectly reasonable” for humans to order cosmetic surgery for their non-humans leaves us to wonder if it is likewise perfectly reasonable for a husband to force his wife to undergo plastic surgery or for a parent to force her child to undergo such surgery in order to win prizes, to be considered a personal prize, or to enhance the marital and familial relationship. One thing is clear: the more powerful of the dyad (the human coercing another human or an animal into surgery) is defining whether surgery is a reasonable reaction to desired change and whether the relationship is improved. It is true that some of these surgeries are for medical reasons, as we would find with some human plastic (reconstructive) surgeries. In the case of non-humans, cosmetic surgery is truly reconstructive as in removing skin folds in order to alleviate bacterial infections, for example. But most plastic surgery performed on animals is purely cosmetic and human-centric. Consider “neuticles.” Neuticles are testicular implants designed to give neutered male animals a more masculine, unneutered look. Mostly the recipients are dogs, but cats, horses, and bulls have also received such implants. The rationale comes from the human owner believing that the animal can “retain his identity and self-esteem in the dog park.” The story of a woman who wanted to neuter her dog is revealing. Her husband refused to have the dog neutered unless neuticles were implanted, and the wife complied. The woman said, “I can tell he [the dog] would rather have them [the neuticles] than nothing.” She cannot reasonably know this; she surmises as much because, as she reports, the dog licks his neuticles. Or maybe she assumes that the dog is pleased with his implants because she and her husband want the dog to have them. The husband is very pleased with the surgical results but, as he complained to his wife, he would have preferred that the neuticles had been a larger size (Robins 2005). One might speculate that the presence and size of the neuticles has more to say about the human’s need for esteem than the animal’s self-esteem.

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Chemical and Mechanical Changes Significant capital and profit are involved in surgical enhancements to racehorses. Racehorses are very expensive animals, bringing in huge sums when they win important races like the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes (Drape 2005). To increase their monetary value, thoroughbred horses may undergo shock-wave therapy, acupuncture, or electro-stimulation to make their throats clearer (indicating breathing capacity) and look fuller. They may have a transphyseal bridge (also known as “screw and wire”) inserted into the knee to make the leg appear straight. They may have their farriers (hooves) shaved and cut for reshaping purposes. They can undergo a periosteal elevation surgery which “encourages bone growth in a different direction in the hope of straightening the leg” (Drape 2005: 18). Or, they may be forced to ingest anabolic steroids to create fuller chests and fuller hindquarters. If the horse looks good, the human looks good. Breeding We tamper with human and non-human breeding to “improve” the species. Eugenicists believe strongly that better humans, usually meaning white European humans, ought to be selectively bred (Black 2003). Similarly, we selectively breed non-humans to create hardier, stronger, bigger, more productive work animals; to improve the entertainment value of racehorses and racing dogs; and to develop “exotic” animal companions. More broadly, some humans value the breeding qualities, per se, of non-humans. For instance, they are impressed by and hope to impress others with the “pure blood” breeding of their non-humans, and some are impressed by and hope to impress others with the non-human’s exotic breeding, notably cross-species breeding. Clothing and Cosmetic Use Humans outfit their animal companions with human-style jewelry and clothing, which may be uncomfortable to the animals but pleasing to the human eye. In Tokyo, a fashion show for dogs (or more accurately for the dogs’ humans) featured poodles, chihuahuas, dachshunds, and others modeling the latest canine fashions. The dogs modeled raincoats, rugby jerseys, T-shirts, sunglasses, and even a wedding dress (BBC News 2004a). It is not an uncommon practice for humans to dress up their animal companions, dye their hair, and paint their claws. In a story about a dog being dyed red for Christmas and dressed in festive Christmas clothing, her human remarked that the dog “enjoys all the fuss and attention. … She absolutely loves the attention” (BBC News 2004b). It is unknown and perhaps unknowable if she does. Beauty Contests Many non-human contests (“best of” shows and the like) are about physical appearance. Balanced head–body ratios, quality of coat, ease of movement, and other

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physical features are among the standards for winning (BBC News 2004c). These contests are about more than looks though; notably, behavior and temperament are important judgment criteria. In the Miss America contests, women are judged on looks which are crucial, but furthermore on virtue, grace, personality, and social ease (Banet-Weiser 1999). Child beauty contests also apply these same criteria. The reader may recall the role that child beauty contests played in the notorious Jon Benet Ramsay case. Jon Benet Ramsay, a frequent winner of child beauty contests, became the victim in an unsolved murder case. Her life and death highlighted the enormous performance pressures placed on such children, often molding them into adult-looking sexual objects. Some parents proudly display their children for their physical attributes as well as for their deportment, talent, decorum, and pliability. Apparently, the same expectations apply to non-human contests: physical appearance is of foremost importance, but good personality traits are also essential. Excitability, forlornness, and grumpiness are not good traits, while willingness-to-please is. The difficulty in determining who is the “winner” in non-human contests is key. We might suspect that the human owner is the winner, with the animal serving as a winning reflection. Summary So we find that some humans put their non-human companions through the same looks-conscious rigors through which they may put themselves and their human companions, going on the assumption that having desirable (human and non-human) animals accrues power to the humans associated with them. The surgeries, the makeovers, the selective breeding, all are designed to mold ordinary beings into desirable, sought-after beings. The social pressure to apply (to others) and to undergo (ourselves) these looks-altering changes, be they hair color, surgery, or ingestion of questionable substances (steroids, growth hormones) are sourced in the need for social prestige. We can cross-refer this address of non-human animal aesthetics with Naomi Wolf’s and other feminist notions of physical alterations and choice (Wolf 2002). Susan Bordo, for instance, says that undergoing appearance changes is not necessarily a “done-to” process involving patriarchal, “totalitarian interference with self-determination” (Bordo 1995: 20), and that as long as freedom to choose is present, according to Wolf, there is nothing anti-feminist about undergoing appearance change. The massive difference between humans putting themselves through appearance alterations and putting non-human animals through these same procedures is that non-humans undeniably have no self-determination in the matter. Certainly not all humans prize non-humans for their physical appearance, their uniqueness, or their abilities. Of those who do, their associated animals serve the role of image-enhancers, as reflections of humans’ hoped-for self images. In sum, the desire on the part of some humans to be associated with unusually beautiful or unique humans is present in non-human–human associations as well, largely because the purpose of the association is the same. Humans impose looks

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improvement on themselves in order to reflect well in the social mirror, as discussed throughout this book. Another avenue by which humans can reflect well in the social mirror, as believed by the more trophy-conscious among us, is to surround ourselves with attractive and select humans and non-humans. The desire to be associated with beautiful and unusual humans and non-humans is not just a frivolous game of vanity. It is about impression-management, constructed stratification based on physical images, and creating inequality where none validly exists.

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Chapter 10

Transforming Social Aesthetics: Accommodation and Rebellion There are basically two types of power-seeking transformations that we, as societal members and as societies, undergo regarding our views about and behaviors surrounding social aesthetics. The first is acceptance of or accommodation to social dictates to look a certain way. The second is resistance to or rebellion against those dictates. Accommodation Acceptance of the social norms of physical appearance is probably the most commonly adopted strategy and is strongly encouraged by marketers and the industries involved in appearance “improvement.” This strategy refers to a willingness to try to be as good-looking as possible, along whatever social dictates are operating in a culture at a particular time. Following the thesis of the social mirror, we want to reflect well in others’ eyes. We know that others judge us on our appearance and we gain and lose power depending upon our looks. Many, if not most of us, apply the simplest procedures (such as hair coloring, makeup application, hygiene, diet and exercise) to be socially acceptable. Indeed, it is a rarity to come across people who do not engage in the rudiments of appearance enhancement; most of us at least bathe, comb our hair, and brush our teeth. Those very few who do not do these minor adjustments are uncommon. Think of Ted Kaczynski, the US mathematics professor turned bomber. Known as the Unabomber, he lived the latter half of his life, before being sent to prison, in the woods of sparsely populated Montana as a socially isolated hermit. When he was finally arrested for sending mail bombs to various people, the public was startled to see a man who did not, apparently, bathe and whose hair was a thick and tangled mat almost resembling a fur hat. Most of us cannot, as social actors, be unaffected by social dictates, social norms, and social mirrors unless we are totally isolated, and maybe not even then. We do our best to appear clean, healthy, and well dressed because it behooves us to do so. A smaller but significant and growing number of us will undergo more dramatic and dangerous procedures, such as cosmetic surgery, and the ingestion of questionable substances such as growth hormones and steroids in our quest for youth, beauty, and social power and marketability. We also impose our appearance anxieties upon others whom we hope will reflect well on us, namely our children and our partners. Height, a false indicator of power

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and capability, is sufficiently important to social power that some of us give our children an expensive and largely unknown growth hormone (Humatrope) to gain them a competitive edge against other children (Angier 2003; Postrel 2003). We might see this as involuntary or imposed accommodation, sending a message to our children that tall is better. We might also see this administration of height-enhancing drugs in attribution terms: if our children are aesthetically acceptable, it says good things about us as parents. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, some of us even make our non-human animal companions undergo appearance enhancement, forcing them to undergo plastic surgery, applying cosmetics to them, and dressing them in clothing and jewelry. We select them for their appearance traits in hopes that their appearance will say something about ourselves as their human “owners”; for instance, that we are wealthy, pampered, dangerous, strong, pretty, and so on (Berry 2008). Accommodation is, fundamentally, a method of power enhancement. We engage in it to be accepted and, more pointedly, to gain economic (mainly employment) and social networks advantages. Some of the accommodations are arduous and dangerous, such as the aforementioned leg-lengthening surgery which involves breaking the long bones of the legs, inserting metal rods, and allowing the bones to knit in an elongated fashion where they were separated. The purpose, as reported by those who undergo this procedure, is to gain a few inches in height, taking the chance on being crippled for life. We do these things for the pay-off, the jobs and the marriages, which may or may not be forthcoming. In sum, we change our faces through plastic surgery and makeup application. We lighten our skin. We darken our skin. We color, straighten, curl, and implant our hair. We surgically round our eyes to make them less Asian. We beautify our feet through foot beautification surgery. We try to lose weight by diet, exercise, and diet pills, and, more drastically, by gastric bypass. We add muscles through the ingestion of steroids or through implantation of faux “muscles.” We enlarge our breasts and our penises. We gain height via hormones and surgeries. The question, a highly debated one, is: should we seek these remedies? Some say yes, we should. Realistically, we have more and better opportunities (employment, social networks, and so on) if we look young, pretty or handsome, white, and so on. So, just facing these very unfair facts, the argument goes, it is wise to “improve” our looks. Some say “yes but …,” meaning that we should only go so far in our efforts at looks-enhancement; for example, it is well to whiten and straighten our teeth and color our gray hair, but not to undergo surgery. Much of the debate of whether we should accommodate is centered on feminist issues of whether women should “blindly submit to such control or choose to make their bodies physical manifestations of their own subordination” (Gimlin 2002: 2). Body monitoring and body disciplining can be seen as an unhealthy and sexist response to social (largely male) attempts to enslave women via a preoccupation with our bodies. Feminists recognize these increased beautifying activities (exercise, surgery, and so on) as a “backlash” against women’s social and economic accomplishments, as a way to keep women repressed. In other words, if we are so occupied with our appearance that we do not have time and energy to pursue economic and political power, we remain at a distinct disadvantage and are set back

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enormously in our progress toward equality. Backlash or not, Naomi Wolf (2002) has argued that women in modern society face particular and intense pressures to meet certain ideals of beauty. Gimlin disagrees with the usual feminist argument that contemporary “body management” (with the emphasis on weight loss), complete with constant selfmonitoring and self-disciplining, harms female participants. She disagrees that “activities like aerobics make women more self-conscious about real or imaginary flaws in their bodies,” and that these accommodating activities contribute to “selfdoubt, insecurity, and personal inadequacy” (Gimlin 2002: 52). Moreover, she disagrees that beautifying activities are submissive activities that make for “docile” bodies, subject to gender oppression. Connecting with the next topic, we can imagine a refusal to engage in beautifying activities as tantamount to civil disobedience. Here, we rely on, among others, Reischer and Koo’s (2004), Wann’s (1998), and Bordo’s (1995) work on fat as a transgression. Maintaining a socially acceptable body in size and appearance, through careful control and monitoring, may symbolize cultural and social cooperation. Not cooperating, then, is socially disobedient and an attempt to resist gender stereotypes. Heavy women present in the workplace, for instance, can signify the female worker’s revolt against sexual objectification (Orbach 1978). Those in opposition to the accommodation strategy say that we absolutely should not alter our natural appearance. We must, instead, channel society into accepting us as-is. If we are old, fat, not beautiful, short, and non-white, accept us anyway as viable social members. Rebellion Rebellion refers to a social- and individual-level rejection of social guidelines to appear a particular way. Rebellion can take place on an individual level, as when we as individuals refuse to “fix up.” It can take the form of legislation and social movements, both interdependent. Recent times have seen some success in passing legislation prohibiting discrimination, determining that people-of-size cannot legally be discriminated against. Such legislation has been passed in the cities of Santa Cruz (California), San Francisco, Washington DC, and the state of Michigan, with the key issues being discrimination in employment and in physical access (for instance, access to public transportation). It remains an uphill battle, though, with well-entrenched prejudices against the non-aesthetically pleasing. Plus, there is the capitalist motivation as seen in corporate profit-seeking. Specifically, we see capitalism at work in sizeist policies such as discriminatory airline seating. The few legislative and policy changes that have been achieved hope to guarantee an acceptance of equal rights not only in the forms of physical access and employment, but also fair housing, fair pricing (on clothes, health insurance, and so on), and a guarantee of broader social acceptance of looks diversity. The end goal would be to re-frame our perceptions of looks diversity, to alter the definitions of

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aesthetic acceptability to allow for all manner of appearance to be acceptable and not subject to discrimination. Another end goal would be to broaden the scope of looks-acceptability beyond size. A few cases have been successfully brought forward to legal fruition regarding age discrimination. Unfortunately, there are as yet no such organizations and movements in support of unattractive people per se. The source of the absence is unknown. It may be because unattractiveness is more subjective and thus more difficult to measure than size (weight and height are easily measurable) and age, and thus more difficult to substantiate. Other looks-related minorities (racial and ethnic minorities, women, the notyoung, the differently-abled) have had success in challenging discrimination leveled against them as based on their minority status and their appearance, as we have seen—for example, with discrimination against female airline flight attendants (on issues of age and weight). It may be the case that age-rights groups, such as the Gray Panthers, recognize that the aged are discriminated against partly on account of their appearance. There is, for instance, some evidence that the not-young are discriminated against for their appearance (not looking “hot”). The differentlyabled, while successful in advancing their cause for equal treatment (physical access, educational and employment opportunities, healthcare, and so on), prefer not to be associated with the one looks-related social movement that has shown a modicum of interest in the overlapping issues of size discrimination and ability discrimination. The fat-acceptance movement has, but not on a wholesale basis, used disability arguments to guarantee employment rights: some fat people have argued under the Americans with Disability Act of 1990 (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (RHA) that they are disabled by their size and therefore entitled to equal treatment under the law (Roehling 1999). But the disability organizations and movements, for the most part, do not want to be associated with the fat-acceptance movement. For that matter, the fat-acceptance adherents refuse to be considered disabled, since they prefer the argument that they are as capable as thin people (Wann 1998; Solovay 2000). As with the aged, ethnic minorities, and women, the differently-abled are subject to differing standards for looks than would be true for those in the power majority (young, white, abled males). But it is also probably true that the differently-abled may be seen as physically unacceptable merely because they are differently-abled. Because the visibly differently-abled are objectively different, they can demonstrate categorically that they are the victims of prejudice and discrimination. Bear in mind that disabilities are not always visible. As Paul Longmore, an authority on social power issues related to disability, has reminded me: so long as the disability is not visible and the disabled do not disclose their disability, they may be treated equitably (Longmore 2006; 2003). It is all about visibility. In any case, the nebulous definitions of unattractiveness and the difficulty in documenting discrimination against the unattractive in their pursuit of employment, educational, and other opportunities remain unsettled and unconsidered. More broadly than legal and policy changes are social movements designed to raise consciousness about the need for accepting looks diversity. These social movements, so far relatively small and centered on size, clearly oppose denial of

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equal rights based on physical appearance, but perhaps more meaningfully aim to raise public awareness about many issues related to looks diversity, such as health issues, disability issues, genetics, the effect of social environment, and so on, as these issues pertain to the diversity itself, as well as the bias faced by those with socially unacceptable looks. On the international level, there is the International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA) which has websites and activities for the fat, the short, the naturally thin, and the tall. On a national level, there is the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). On local levels, there are (for instance) SeaFATtle and similar organizations devoted to size acceptance. These social movements and social organizations stage public events that bring attention to the issues of size, forcing the observing public to consider (often for the first time) the normalcy of size diversity and the problems (stigma in addition to more concrete obstacles) faced by the size-diverse, with the obvious intention being to change social attitudes toward people-of-size. Re-framing, Normalization, and Reversals of Standards Defiance of social demands to fit into rigid appearance strictures is aided by the above-mentioned policy changes, social movements, and social change organizations hoping to advance awareness and acceptance of those who are not “ideal.” The future of looks-bias is changeable and changing, a topic to which we will return in the conclusion of this book. We may note, for instance, that the Miss America contest no longer receives prime-time TV coverage (Ramirez 2004; Hurdle 2005; Gettleman 2005). In addition to the activist refusal to accept biased treatment by social power brokers (such as employers), there are more subtle but equally significant changes of definition; the meaning of obesity as unhealthy versus not unhealthy, for instance. More importantly, there have been changes in degrees of size acceptance. I have reported elsewhere that, perhaps because of activism but certainly because of sheer numbers of fat children, it is no longer unusual for children to be fat; hence, childrenof-size are normalized and not so ostracized in social settings (such as schools) as they once were. There are fat children who look around at their schoolmates and see a wide sea of other fat children. Neither they nor their parents see the fatness of the children as abnormal or troubling (Weil 2005; Berry 2005). Let us consider normalization and homogenization more broadly for a moment. Regardless of how we look at the correctness and incorrectness of accommodation and rebellion, one observation is becoming inescapable: in at least some cultures (the US, parts of Europe, parts of Asia), we are becoming homogenized in our appearance. To say that we are becoming more alike looks-wise can be seen in our increasing body mass and in our racially indistinct features. We have interbred and we have deliberately altered our looks so that more of us resemble the white Northern Europeans that we are pressured to emulate. We are also becoming more homogenous in our body size since, globally, we are gaining weight. Homogenization is a related phenomenon of normalization. Normalization can and often does have relevance to sheer numerical superiority or sameness. If two-thirds of a population are obese, as they are in the US, being thin is, statistically speaking, unusual or “abnormal.”

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In combination with homogenization and normalization is a third phenomenon, the topic at hand, societal-level rebellion. Size acceptance refers to an acceptance of a biased condition, specifically large body size. Unscientific reports have shown that heavy Americans are less troubled about their weight than one might think, as well as less troubled by other people’s weight (Stenson 2005; Associated Press 2006). These unrepentantly heavy are unconcerned about their size and scoff at those who diet and exercise. And those who are not fat are more accepting of fat people and are increasingly likely to see them as not unattractive. In 2007, we find a new and empirical study, conducted by economists at Florida State University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. These researchers find, impressively, that being overweight has become socially acceptable in the United States as the US population has become heavier. The average weight of women in the US has increased, which is no surprise. What is surprising is that their ideal weight, what they wish they weighed, has also increased: in 1994, the average American woman weighed 147 pounds and wanted to weigh 132; ten years later, she weighed 153 pounds and wished she weighed 135. From this, the researchers conclude that, as time has passed and people have become heavier, there is less social pressure to lose weight. The fact that we are gaining a significant amount of weight as a population is, medically speaking and according to the researchers, a dangerous trend. Psychologically, this normalization is a relief since it signals that heavy people are hardly alone. We have adjusted our perceptions of what is “normal” body weight as our surrounding population’s weight has risen. Weight norms change, apparently. As a strong indication of this, 48 percent of obese Americans believe that their body weight is in the “socially acceptable” range (Reuters 2007a). Another 2007 study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, observes that, if one of our close friends becomes heavy, we have a 171 percent increased chance of becoming heavy also. The interpretation is: “friends affected each others’ perceptions of fatness. When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad” (Kolata 2007: 17). The doctors researching this phenomenon concluded that we change our ideas about what is an acceptable body size by comparing ourselves to those around us. Those around us, in more sociological terms, refer to our social network. And the more intimate we are with members of our social network, the more influenced we may be by them. As we see heaviness as okay for them, we, as a result, see heaviness as okay for ourselves. Of course, social networks are not the only factor at play in weight gain, with body size having a great deal to do with genetics and the environment (available food, primarily) in which we live. Re-framing is not a good thing, according to some. There is no more shame in gluttony, writes Greg Critser, as the shame has been banished by the “pioneers of supersize” (Critser 2003b: 29). Critser has written on the ever-growing size of our population globally but as most obviously seen in the US. He blames the food industry and its capitalist ventures for creating an environment where high-fat food is tasty, plentiful, and cheap. He blames the acceptance of excess (large houses, large SUVs, large clothes, large restaurant chairs,and so on) for removing traditional boundaries of self-discipline. He blames fat acceptance for its advocacy of fatness, for its “wishful-thinking, reality-denying, boundary-hating world of modern America” (Critser 2003b: 91–2). The fat-acceptance movement, says Critser, has encouraged

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the availability of plus-size clothing and the demise of rigorous exercise. It has alleviated the social strain that fat people experience and, he feels, such acceptance comes at a price. That price is increased healthcare costs and obesity-related medical problems. He does not believe in the healthy-at-any-size (also known as fat-andfit) proposition. He also assumes that obesity is a matter of overeating and within one’s control, disregarding environmental and genetic variables. Recognizing that fat people are stigmatized and that this stigma is unfair, he nevertheless maintains a “basic truism about fat and stigmatization: The best way to prevent it is to avoid becoming obese in the first place” (Critser 2003b: 163). Related to re-framing and rebellion, some segments of the fat-acceptance movement have re-framed fat as a good thing, as I have mentioned in Chapter 4. Being fat is not merely an equal state of being, compared to being thin, it is a superior state of being. It is healthy and beautiful, the argument goes, to be fat. One can read remarks about the celebration of fat, the sexiness of fat, the healthiness of fat, the attractiveness of fat, the generosity of fat, the fun-ness of fat (Wann 1998). One can also, less commonly, read put-downs of thin people, referring to “stupid thin people” as though all thin people are “stupid” as a matter of course, and making baseless assumptions, such as that all thin people vomit in order to be thin (Frater 2005). (As I previously discussed in Chapter 4, one is easily reminded of the “Black is Beautiful” movement of a generation ago, which counteracted the white-supremacy version of the world with a black-supremacy viewpoint.) A fat-is-beautiful movement may have the same backlash as the conservative reverse discrimination argument that has, unfortunately, won the day in some instances in the US, with conservatives saying that minorities (racial, gender, and other minorities) are not only being treated as equals but with preference. In instances like these, the formerly minority status of being fat becomes or hopes to become powerful by stating an equality-plus perspective. The fat-is-superior argument is socially debatable since, for one thing, it can easily be falsified: not all fat people are beautiful, just as not all of any category of people (thin, and so on) are beautiful. For another thing, any superiority movement still speaks to stratification and hierarchysetting. Summary Where we have not arrived at in the normalization process is the recognition that most of us are not attractive, at least in terms of cross-cultural beauty standards. Take skin color, for instance. Jablonski points out the irony of naturally dark-skinned people trying to lighten their skin while naturally light-skinned people try to darken theirs (Jablonski 2006: 159), leading us to imagine a world in which we are all the same color. Should we homogenize and normalize? Maybe it would be a good thing if it would decrease our stark and painful comparisons to each other. But it would likely be socially dysfunctional from the point of view of diversity. We would be less diverse and thus, perhaps, less tolerant of diversity.

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Conclusion Whether or not we accommodate or rebel, we can engage in social action that would move forward a looks-accepting society. As I have suggested elsewhere, in our verbal encounters, we can challenge the viewpoints of looksists, or at least propose a different point of view (Berry 2007). If we let people know that not all of us are looksists (sizeists, and so on), they may recognize the prejudice they have been expressing. Probably most people are unaware of their prejudices, and how their expressed prejudices affect others, when it comes to physical appearance. A more formal route of consciousness raising is education. As with other forms of prejudice and discrimination, we have informed ourselves, notably as university students in university classrooms, of stigma. The same success we have had in relaying social reality on racism, classism, sexism, ableism, and so on has begun to take shape, albeit in small increments, in education on appearance bias. Textbooks, such as but not exclusive to the one you are now reading, and college courses on the topic will enlighten all who are willing to learn about this form of stigma. Inclusion as a form of social action can take the forms of formal and informal inclusion, reflective of the two types of power denied to some of us based on our appearance (see Chapter 3). We can, depending on our resources and our social placement, choose to employ people based on their skills, not on their appearance. And almost as importantly, we can encourage people to join our less formal lives (invite them to parties, ask them to go places with us, invite their participation in all manner of social organizations) regardless of their appearance.1 The less marginalized and the more visible looks-diverse people are, the more social awareness is advanced. Another route to social action is an economic response to looksism. We can gain control of looks-diversity if we support looks-friendly corporations and boycott those that are looksist. As one small illustration, we can refuse to purchase clothing from stores that charge extra for large-size clothing (tall sizes and plus sizes). I am not advocating that the reader engage in any of these forms of social action. I am pointing out that these are mechanisms by which social actors can make a difference in how societies view appearance diversity. I will propose in the Conclusion that looks-bias may go the way of other “isms.” An interesting question is why it has taken, and is taking, so long, compared to the other rights movements. It is tantalizing to compare appearance-rights movements to human rights movements, that is, to assume that looks-diversity movements will follow the same pattern as other minority (civil rights) movements. Fat-acceptance adherents are correct to charge that they (and, I would argue, all other appearancedisadvantaged) are the targets of the last vestige of legal prejudice and discrimination. I would add that bias, such as the stigma evident in public remarks against the looks-

1 There are no pragmatic reasons not to invite appearance-diverse people to engage in social life. I recall someone wanting to invite a wheelchair-bound friend to a party, but she demurred by telling him that her apartment had only stairs and no ramp. My wheelchairbound friend said, “There will be other people at the party, right?” His meaning was that other people could carry him and his chair upstairs. He was also saying, undeniably, that he wanted to attend the party.

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diverse, remains socially acceptable, much more so than is true for recognized minority statuses: racist, sexist, and other “-ist” remarks are no longer acceptable in polite society. Yet currently, even “nice” people make looksist remarks, largely out of a lack of awareness. Awareness is crucial, as it was and is with other minority issues.

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Chapter 11

Conclusions In this final chapter, let us revisit the alienating effects of appearance stratification. Let us return to the issues relevant to social aesthetics as I have introduced them in this book; that is, social power (economic and purely social), social change (such as homogenization), the standards and criteria for acceptable appearance, our realistic and unrealistic choices to be physically attractive, and our attempts to be acceptable through appearance alteration. Let us recall the mediated anxiety and its deliberate attempt to force a broad, societal level of alienation. It is also in this final discussion that I offer two new models that may help to describe and perhaps explain in graphic form how stigmatized appearance is dealt with societally. Revisiting the volition issue of whether we really have a choice in our appearance, we see that this issue remains one entangled with personal (and frequently false) views and more scientific views. We also see that there are actually two choice issues: the degree to which we can help what we look like (which is more minimal than we usually think) and the degree, if any, to which we should change our appearance. Commonly, the thinking goes: beauty is as beauty does and people can change their appearance if they really try. We are only beginning to amass scientifically verifiable knowledge suggesting that features of our appearance that we thought were individually controllable, such as body size, are genetic or environmental. We have known for a much longer time that most of our features are not under our control and are alterable only by limited degrees, such as skin color and other racial features, aging, and disabilities. However, it is our general belief that if people want to be more socially acceptable, physically speaking, they can make some changes to their appearance. Throughout this book, I have pointed to examples of the things we do in our attempts to be more attractive. The procedures themselves—such as diet pills, surgery, and cosmetics— are limited as to what they can accomplish. And a person’s economic status can prohibit making expensive changes, such as those involving surgery, but even less expensive ones like dental care can be prohibitive for some. More poignantly, some changes, no matter how willing the person may be to make them or how financially endowed they are, may be beyond their control. First, there are obesogenic environments that make it very difficult to control one’s weight. Second, there are genetic and anthropological reasons to doubt the freedom to lose weight. Given the degree to which people-of-size are discriminated against and the social stigma that they face, one might guess that, if they could, they would lose weight. This is an important issue because it relates to stereotyping (fat people are lazy, immoral,and so on), as is so well known among other minority statuses. To raise social awareness and thus encourage diversity acceptance, the argument can be made that people-ofsize do not possess the number of negative traits (lack of willpower, lack of self-

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control, laziness, and so on) leveled against them and that were once blatantly said of women (they are prone to hysteria, for example), African Americans (they are prone to criminality, for example), and other minorities. As the reader is aware, we are made to feel dissatisfied about our appearance and, if we take the accommodation route discussed in the previous chapter, we undergo changes to our appearance in order to “pass,” in order to gain greater access to social power. Yet the changes that we put ourselves through, besides the medical danger and other drawbacks (for instance, criticisms of succumbing to the white male patriarchy and the resulting reduction of political power), beg the broader and deeper question of what would a world be like where all differences are disguised and not confronted. Kathy Davis wonders why “we would want to live in a world where all signs of disability or vulnerability or bodily difference have been hidden. … What are the lives of the ‘normal’ like when they never, ever have to be confronted with persons who look and, indeed, are different?” (Davis 2003: 141). She was wondering about surgically alleviating the signs of Down’s syndrome. I am wondering about signs of disability, but also broader issues of appearance as well. How functional, I wonder, is a society without visible differences along dimensions of physical appearance? After all, “[e]ncounters with difference provide an opportunity for reflection about ourselves and others, which is essential to our humanity. Without this, our lives may be less rather than more worth living” (Davis 2003: 142). It would be immensely helpful on a social and a personal level, I think, to have, and to be confronted with, appearance differences. It gives us pause, in a healthy way, and allows us to see the variations, to compare and not judge negatively. This may sound paradoxical but the more variety we have and see, the less likely we would be to stratify. Or, at least it can be said with confirmed validity that greater homogeneity does not reduce our stratifying tendencies. With greater homogeneity, as we have seen, we only make the distinctions finer. Considering appearance criteria (beauty standards, for example), as we have throughout this book, I have mentioned changes over time in our appearance standards, globalization effects, demographic features that affect our appearance (race, age, and so on), and social factors that influence our actual appearance (notably socio-economic status). These criteria are dynamic social phenomena, neither good nor bad in themselves, but that can have alienating effects on the majority of us who are placed at the middle and (especially) the lower rungs of the appearance hierarchy. It is useful to examine in detail, if necessary by slowing to a crawl the mental process of understanding, the singular phenomenon of societal reaction to physical appearance. We have seen that, although we might say differently, public reaction to our appearance is more fateful than our personal reaction to our own appearance. We see ourselves in an actual, physical mirror and may notice that our teeth need straightening or any number of other sites of social disapproval. And we may wish that others, representing as they do the social mirror, would not notice these “defects” or would not judge us on them. But we are judged and the consequences of these judgments are life-changing. We engage in “a continual checking and adjusting of one’s body” (Schweik forthcoming). To avoid the alienating effects of the social mirror, we try to make ourselves as presentable as possible.

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Although she does not speak of it in social mirror terms, Susan Schweik documents the starkest example of other-enforcement of appearance “violations,” as visited upon us as “ugly laws.” These laws “legislated what was otherwise supposed to be selfregulated” and served as a way of codifying the social judgments discussed herein. The ugly laws died out eventually by the 1970s, due to lack of enforcement. Yet they continue in a different guise. As Schweik points out, for those with appearance impairments, there might as well be active ugly laws. In other words, people who experience discrimination because of their looks, such as Samantha Robichaud, the woman denied a public-eye management position in a McDonald’s restaurant because of her facial disfigurement, are subject to covert and uncodified ugly laws (Greenhouse 2003c). In our post-ugly era, we still experience legalized discrimination against capable people with facial anomalies, while “quieter forms of scapegoating” and “the subtle violence” of rhetoric operate even more efficiently than laws. Classic ugly law drew clear lines and firmly placed people outside or inside those lines; whereas today we exclude people by converting them into cases, cases “that fall perpetually, inexorably, right on the line, a thick gray area understood as that which no one can erase or thin” (Schweik forthcoming: 472–5 of manuscript). One of the strongest points that I have hoped to make in this book has been about social construction. We know, on an intuitive level, that beauty standards are subjective to some degree. They change over time and across cultures. Yet, as I pointed out in the Introduction and as other writers on the topic have thoroughly discussed, beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as commonly believed. Indeed, there is broad agreement about what is attractive and what is not, across cultures and time. The origin of this consensus is somewhat suspect. Some may argue, as does Nancy Etcoff, that our beauty standards are based on health indices (Etcoff 1999). Healthy looks (good teeth, plentiful hair, clear skin, upright posture, and so on) indicate healthy mating material; we are drawn to healthy looking people and equate their healthy looks with beauty. Yet health is not the entire explanation. We value, globally, light skin, and yet light skin is, one could argue, inferior to dark skin in terms of protection from ultraviolet radiation. We admire, globally, very thin bodies, while plumper bodies are testimony in a very positive way to fat storage and improved survival. Some admired traits have a total absence of sensible assessments; for instance, the thickness of lips speaks neither one way nor another to superiority or inferiority. Since some of our physical features are questionably endorsed as favorable or not, we might assume that social constructions have determined that individual features have taken on a socially assigned positive or negative aura. We have decided, probably based on the social power associated with certain physical features (such as racial features), that some features are good ones and others are not. The social reconstruction of looks-acceptability is an intriguing social science question broadening the reach of our understanding of social power and inequality. More directly, reconstruction of looks-acceptability is a measure of willingness to be unbiased along a physical-social dimension over which, like race, gender, age, and ableness, we have little or no personal control. A good model for social acceptance of the looks-diverse might be the disability movement and model. This is not to imply that the appearance-ordinary or unattractive are disabled or that the disabled

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are unattractive. The parallel I am drawing is between the disability movement (its philosophies and successes) and a proposed similar movement toward appearancediversity. The disability movement has displayed no tolerance for physical, employment, medical care, and other barriers. Disability advocates’ stance instead has been: (a) there is nothing wrong with us; and (b) if there is a problem with our fitting in with the abled society, it is up to all (abled and disabled) to fix those problems and remove those barriers against the disabled’s inclusion into society at all levels. Put in fat-acceptance terms, the only problem that fat people have with fitting in is the difficulties that fat-resistant society has with including fat people. If these barriers, social and other, could be eliminated, the social problems surrounding appearance diversity would be lessened or cease to exist. This leads me to the conceptual models which I have developed to encapsulate how societies view stigmatized appearance and the evolutions that these stigmas may undergo. As I mentioned at the end of Chapter 4 on inequalities, there are times when a stigmatized group turns the situation upside down and attempts to make the stigmatized status a superior status. I used as one example the “Black is Beautiful” movement of the post-civil rights era in the US, and as another example the fat-isbeautiful movement of the present-day fat-acceptance movement. This conversion does not work very well, as I argued, because it basically calls for continued stigmatization. The stigma is merely reversed, against the previously stigmatizing group (whites and not-fat people). In support of my models, I have also described in this book how some stigmatized traits have become normalized, partly due to social action such as acceptance-demanding activities but more due to a sheer increase in numbers. For example, as fat people became the majority in the US and in a few European countries, fat became “normal.” This is not to say that the stigmatized are accepted necessarily, and it is certainly not to say that the stigmatized trait (for instance, obesity) is one that society admires. Having said all that, essentially, we can suppose that stigmatized appearance can become a normalized appearance (by becoming numerically substantial, as happened with people-of-size, or legally substantial, as happened with African Americans) and can then become a superiorized status (as happened with the “Black is Beautiful” and fat-is-beautiful reversals). When this happens, there may be a negative societal response to the superiorized status that forces the superiorized status to return to its stigmatized status, as shown in Figure 11.1.

normalized appearance stigmatized appearance

superiorized appearance

Figure 11.1 Changed views of obesity in the early twenty-first century

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A slight variation on Figure 11.1 can be seen in Figure 11.2, where the dependent variables are correlated, in other words, where the normalized state does not necessarily lead to a superiorized state, but where they occur together and may influence each other. In either case, the superiorized status, I am proposing, still reverts to a stigmatized status.

normalized appearance

stigmatized appearance superiorized appearance Figure 11.2 Views of obesity in the early twenty-first century with correlated dependent variables In sum, the relationship between the normalized status and the superiorized status can be a corresponding one, a causal one, or a non-existent one. Normalization (acceptance, equalization,and so on) does not necessarily precede superiorization. This may have been the case with the “Black is Beautiful” movement, where the “Black is Beautiful” movement followed the equal rights movement. There were no “Black is Beautiful,” Black Pride, or related movements previous to the equal rights movement (Smith 2007b). I am suggesting that a relationship, causal or correlational, exists, but am allowing for the possibility that the two statuses, both dependent on the independent variable of stigmatized appearance, are unrelated to each other. Since the models have not been tested and are only suppositional, I think it best to allow for all possibilities to be verified or not. One piece of the models that is a safe bet is that stigmatized appearance, the independent variable, will mostly remain unchanged. There have always been stigmatized appearances. Whether we arrive at a moment when we do not stigmatize people based on their appearance is the next topic. As socities achieve greater recognition of rights for all manner of groups, we may begin to contemplate a time when social power is less dependent on physical appearance or any personal attribute and more dependent on the deeds that one does, altruistically or otherwise. Perhaps there will come a time when the ordinary looking and the unattractive, or even the attractive, will not feel pressured to alter their looks. Until that time, the plain fact of the matter is that looks influence access to social power. Inclusion of this as yet unconsidered category of appearance-unequals remains to be seen. This leads us to contemplate what can be done to advance appearance acceptance. Muzzatti and Featherstone (2007) suggest that social scientists should expose the sensationalism that reinforces wrongful and distorted portrayals of important social

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issues. They address specifically the manner in which media organizations cover crime, but, as pointed out in the Introduction, media and other significant social forces also determine how we as social actors view our own and others’ physical appearance. Moreover, the media, the marketing industries, and the beauty industries greatly influence our behaviors about social aesthetics, influencing what we do and how much we invest in altering our own appearance, influencing hiring decisions, and influencing our social attitudes and behavior toward others, as when we reject the looks-diverse from our clubs, parties, educational systems, and dating circles. Returning to Muzzatti and Featherstone’s call for researchers’ continued and heightened scrutiny, they suggest that if the major news outlets were aware that their reporting is scrutinized, they would report more accurately and be more balanced in their coverage. I wonder. I would hope that would be the case but money talks very loudly and profitably. So long as the majority of us allow ourselves to be influenced by these social forces, so long as we want to look like the movie stars and models that we see in advertisements, movies, and TV shows, we will succumb to our own mediated anxiety. However, I do not think it out of the question that Muzzatti and Featherstone are correct in saying that if social actors could eschew such anxietyprovoking pictures of what we should be, we may arrive at a time when we can “focus on issues that have a larger and more genuine impact on all of us” (Muzzatti and Featherstone 2007: 63). As I have stated elsewhere (Berry 2007) and as Davis (2003) has stated, the problem is ours if we cannot accept people for what they are. It is “our problem rather than the problem of the (abnormal) other” (Davis 2003: 138). For my part, I would add that academic rationality and objectivity in teaching and research can alter the highly skewed view of looks and the importance of looks. Let social constructions be exposed for what they are: constructions. They are also anxiety producers, distractors, and resource (time, money, energy) wasters. The Future Maybe looks-acceptance will not happen soon or may not happen ever. It may not happen because it is easy to classify people, by appearance, as inferior. It is easy because the classification relies merely on visual cues. This was also the case for other minorities such as women, blacks, and the disabled: it was easy to identify them and thus easy to discriminate against them. All that was required was to construct a set of stigmatizing stereotypes about them as unfit. The combination of the visual cues and the stereotypes were all that was needed to keep whole categories of people in their place. Yet women and other minorities did not stay in their place. The difference between their movement upward in social strata and the unchanging relegation of the looks-diverse to the lower stratum has partly to do with the mostly false but easy “explanations” that our physical appearance is our own doing and our own fault. In counter-argument, it was easy to retain a sexist, racist, ableist, ageist, and so on, society as well. Yet we have progressed in these social changes. Several authors, besides myself, have offered good news–bad news predictions of the appearance-acceptance future (Wolf 2002; Berry 2007). Naomi Wolf, for

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her part, points to various signs of recent progress and stagnation in contrast to a worsening of our appearance-acceptance. Another author explicitly says that body consciousness will worsen. “Our consciousness,” writes Nina Jablonski, “of physical appearance and modern society’s emphasis on our skin … will only continue to grow” (Jablonski 2006: 170). My own ruminations on the topic involve comparing the looks-acceptance movement to other rights movements (women’s rights, civil rights, prisoners’ rights, animal rights,and so on), and suggest that looks-acceptance may follow the same pattern as other social awareness and equal rights processes. If history is any judge, based on social reaction to other “isms,” looksism will remain a discriminating social attitude and behavior, even as it declines in social acceptability. There are signs that appearance bias is at least being discussed. There is greater social awareness. There are a few public policies leveled against looksism. And there are social movement organizations that are making small inroads into consciousness raising and legislation. It will take a long time. Most major social changes do.

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Appendix

Field Notes from Seattle Street Laborers’ Interviews On November 3, 2007, I interviewed street laborers in downtown Seattle and the adjoining Pike Place Market area. Specifically, I was hoping to interview beggars, entertainers, vendors, and “messengers” with an eye toward finding (or not) informal appearance bias per what is already known to have been formal appearance bias against “unsightly beggars” enforced by US ugly laws. As it turned out, there were no messengers available that day, although there is usually at least one. Ordinarily, there is a middle-aged African American man who stands on the corner of Pacific Place, holding a handmade poster, and yelling his message about police brutality for all passersby to contemplate. One or two of the entertainers I interviewed on November 3 are arguably and partly messengers since, in the case of one, he has signs (messages) plastered on his keyboard denouncing the Bush administration. The purpose of messengers in Seattle and all cities is to make a social or political point. They do not necessarily want financial recompense. Beggars of course do want money, and they offer nothing tangible in return, as compared to entertainers and vendors. I consider all of these people (messengers, beggars, entertainers, and vendors) laborers, a point that was appreciated by the beggars. My role as an interviewer was to present myself as a blank piece of paper to the respondents, inviting them to inscribe the truth as they have experienced it on that blank page. Based on what is known about ugly laws, that people are stigmatized by virtue of disabilities (mostly) and visible signs of unattractiveness, I wanted to know from the laborers if they had been hassled by the police or by the public. My introduction was as follows: “Hi. My name is Bonnie Berry. I’m head of Social Problems Research in Gig Harbor and I am doing a little study on street laborers such as yourselves. I consider street laborers to include beggars, entertainers, people with a message (political, social), and vendors. I’m sorry to intrude on you but could I ask you a couple of questions?” All of the respondents readily agreed. I then asked, “Have you ever been hassled by the police for doing what you’re doing here?” They generally gave elaborate answers, which I will recount below. I then asked, “How about passersby? Do they give you any trouble, say anything to you?” Again, the question was followed mostly by elaborate answers. I asked them these questions directly while taking written notes, not only of their answers but also of their physical appearance. To cut to the chase, they responded that mostly they were not much bothered by the police or by ordinary passersby.

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Some also, without my prompting, offered that being bothered depends on what one looks like. This is very significant. To repeat myself, I did not mention that I was conducting a study on physical appearance until and unless they brought it up. Below are the findings. I first approached two people who were clearly friends, one is an entertainer (a woman) and one a beggar (a man). They were clustered together on the sidewalk, with a dog in between them, at the entrance to Pacific Place (a fancy shopping plaza in downtown Seattle). They were seated on the sidewalk, with a violin case open in front of the woman. I gave my introduction, they were both friendly, and I asked my questions. The male beggar is white, not young (36, he indicated). He said he was hassled by “cop scouts” (as he calls them) who are more accurately something akin to tour guides. (Seattle is a destination for a large number of tourists, domestic and international.) Basically, the “cop scouts” and the Seattle Police told him, as they tell all beggars, that they may not sit and beg but must, instead, stand and beg. Apart from that, law enforcement has not bothered him. The public, he told me, will occasionally suggest that he “get a job.” He indicated to me that he has had drug and alcohol problems as well as mental health issues. He seemed coherent and intelligent. He said, importantly to this study, that he gets less hassle when he shaves his face. He had a full beard and mustache when I interviewed him. The young woman (and companion to the dog), who was soon to pick up her violin and play, seemed extremely bright and quick. She is 19 years old and looks it. She is white, somewhat attractive, wore no cosmetics, and had bright orange hair in a punk hairstyle (resembling dreadlocks). She wore tattered, patched clothing which was also very punk. Having said that, if I had not known she was barely getting by, I could as easily have guessed that she was a college student. She indicated that the cops have hassled her by threatening to take her to youth centers. She said that they have assumed, because of her youth, that she is a runaway. Apart from these threats, the police have not bothered her. She, like her beggar companion, said that occasionally passersby tell her to “get a job.” She also mentioned that some passersby give her a bad time about having a dog with her, as though she is mistreating the dog by having him live the same rough way that she does. She made a number of interesting comments about appearance. She said that not only do entertainers make more money than beggars (which is not surprising, since the entertainers offer something in return), but also that the young, the attractive, and women make more money. I was stunned, and only at this point did I reveal to her and her companion that I was, more particularly, studying appearance bias and that I had run across a fascinating study on US ugly laws aimed at street laborers. The third person I spoke to was directly across the street from the first two in downtown Seattle. He is a young (23 years old), white, male beggar. He said that the cops only interfere with him by reminding him to stand and not sit while begging. He said that passersby do not bother him. Mainly, they do not say anything but simply ignore him. It is difficult to say what he looked like since he had a dark watch cap pulled down to his eyes. He did have a tattoo above his eye, which is not unusual in Seattle. Otherwise, as near as I could tell, he was even-featured.

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Still in downtown, I approached a woman selling the newspaper Real Change, which is a small newspaper that I routinely purchase from downtown vendors that contains local news stories of a socially progressive bent. The vendor is white, young, plump, and very pleasant. I asked her if she were bothered by the police or the public and she indicated that she was not. I then noticed that she, like all legitimate vendors, had a vendors’ license attached to her clothing. From Susan Schweik’s work, we know that being licensed does not necessarily mean that the vendors are not threatened and punished (with lost employment, and so on). Anyway, in Seattle, the licensed vendors are apparently not bothered. About a block beyond, I encountered another Real Change seller, a young, white male. I told him I already had a copy of Real Change and he said he knew because he saw me buy one from his girlfriend. I asked him the same questions as I did his girlfriend, and he gave me the same answers. About two more blocks away, I encountered a third Real Change vendor, a middle-aged, white male. Like his co-workers, he has experienced no problems with the police or public. I reach Pike Place Market. Pike Place is an old marketplace with all manner of things to buy, mostly food (fresh fish, pastries, international foods, locally grown produce) but also locally made clothing, books, wine, and so on. It is located on the water and is frequented by locals and tourists as a place for entertainment and purchases. Besides the tangibles one can buy, one can purchase other intangibles, such as having one’s fortune told. Here, as I was told by the violinist in downtown and as is not the case for downtown entertainers, the entertainers have to have work permits. The first laborer I approached is a white, middle-aged male, with very long white hair tied in a pony tail. He is an attractive man, playing an unusual keyboard instrument which sounds not unlike a harpsichord. He seemed very intelligent, educated, and well spoken. He said that he has had no problems with the police in the Market, but that street laborers in Capital Hill (a district of Seattle) had had “major hassles.” He said that he only gets troubled by passersby because of the political slogans attached to his keyboard. All of the signs he posted are of a progressive bent, criticizing the Bush administration largely in terms of the war in Iraq. I expressed surprise that people in Seattle would hassle him about his signs since we are known to be among the most liberal people in the US. He reminded me, correctly, that the Market attracts people from all over the nation. Oh yes, I said, people from red states come here as tourists. True enough, he agreed, but also people more local than outside the state, such as people from Bellevue (a very conservative suburb of Seattle). At the end of the conversation, he asked for my business card, which I gave him, and asked for the title of the book where these notes would appear, which I wrote on the back of the card. Still in the Market, I next spoke to an older (probably around 60 years old) white man dressed like a clown and wearing clown makeup. He was selling balloons. He is physically disabled, he told me. After talking with him for quite a while, due to his circuitous and highly repetitive conversation, I also began to wonder if he is not also mentally ill. He had been homeless for some time. He was not unpleasant but had difficulty staying on topic. When he first began selling balloons in the Market, the

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police did bother him, but he has not had any trouble since. I asked him what were the previous issues with the police and he reported, in third person, that the police may think of street laborers as pedophiles. He did not say that he personally had been accused of pedophilia. If his abstract, third-person account were truly personally relevant, one might wonder if there was real reason for suspicion (a past history, past arrests, and so on) or if it was due to his clown outfit. As to non-police intervention, he reported that he has been bothered by the public and by merchants who do not want him in front of their business establishments. To better describe his appearance, he was overweight and had discolored teeth. His clothing was quite remarkable. His “hair” was at least partly covered with his clown makeup and intermixed with brightly colored yarn. He wore an old top hat, much as one might expect a clown to wear, which was moldy. Over his clown clothes, he had wrapped a fishnet such as one would use to catch fish, rather than as one would use for decoration. The next person I met in the Market could be considered part vendor and part messenger. He had a domestic cat on a platform and was dispensing knowledge on cat care. He was asking for money for his “cat sanctuary,” his home where he cared for a number of cats. He also offered to paint portraits of his audience’s cats. He is middle aged, white, ordinary looking, with discolored and malformed teeth. He indicated that he had experienced no trouble from the police and that 90 percent of the public have been very favorable to him. Occasionally, a passerby will give him a bad time for having his cat outdoors; that is, they express worry about the welfare of the cat. He gave me his website address in case I wanted to view his art and perhaps have portraits done of my cats. The last person I interviewed, still in the Market, is a middle-aged, white woman. She is non-distinct looking, dressed cleanly and neatly. She sings for money and is blind. She is not bothered by the police, but sometimes members of the public play tricks on her. I asked her what kinds of tricks. She said, for example, that people stand within inches of her because they think that she does not know they are there. They think it is a funny prank. I told her that I had, that day, come across a number of disabled street laborers, for example, beggars. Ironically, she sniffed that they need not beg. They can get training and get real jobs. Anyway, she was very nice, asked my name again, and told me that she is “Jeanie.” In sum, most of the laborers were not bothered by the police or by the public, which may have a great deal to do with the nature of Seattle, Washington. Seattle, as the reader may know, is renowned for its progressive attitudes and the niceness of its people. So, in that sense, my observations are very likely not generalizable to other cities. However, the most enlightening comment was forthcoming from the young woman violinist, who observed that physical features do make a difference in how the police and public respond to street laborers. Her comments were supported by her beggar companion. My observations of the laborers’ appearance, as matched to the laborers’ verbal statements about being hassled (or not), solidified the probability that physical appearance makes a difference in public and police reaction to the laborer’s presence.

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Index

Subject Index Abercrombie and Fitch, 24-25, 85, 90 Alienation (see also isolation), 3-6 Animal aesthetics, 99-107, 110 Attribution theory, 95-96, 99, 100 BFOQ (bona fide occupational qualification), 26-27 Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), 51 Body lift surgery, 57 Choice (volition), 12-14, 27-28, 42, 63, 119 Colorism, 36-38, 48 Conspicuous consumption, 46 Consumerism, 91-92 Cosmeceuticals, 52-53 Cosmetics, 52-53, 110 Critical theory, 91 Cross-cultural definitions of beauty, 9-10, 121 Cross-rime definitions of beauty, 9, 18-19, 121 Cultural dopes, 86-87, 92 Definitions of beauty, 9-11 Delta Zeta sorority, 29 Dental care, 43-44 Diets, 59 Disability, 4-5, 46-47, 112, 121-122 Dramaturgy, 93-95, 99, 101 Economic forces (e.g., profit, capitalism), 7-8, 10, 19, 68-72 Eugenics movement, 17-18 Eyelid surgery, 28, 39-41, 110 Face surgery, 55 Face transplants, 56 Fat acceptance (fat pride), 14-15, 47-49, 5960, 76, 90, 111-115, 122 Festival of the Ugly, 65

Foot beautification surgery, 30, 54, 110 Footbinding, 29, 52 Functionalism, 83-85 Gastric bypass surgery, 56, 110 Globalization, 21, 34, 39, 72-74 Growth hormones, 58, 110 Hair transplants, 54-55, 110 Halo effect, 95-96 Health issues, 9-10, 17, 121 Homogenization, 20-21, 57-58, 72-74, 113-115 International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA), 113 Isolation, 3-6 Labiaplasty, 55 Leg-lengthening surgery, 28, 54, 110 Legislation, 111-113, 121 Liposuction, 56-57 Media, 7-8, 65-68, 124 Mediated anxiety, 7-8, 124 Miss America, 4, 42-43, 66-67, 106, 113 National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), 77, 113 New meritocracy, 27 Normalization, 113-115, 122-123 Nose reshaping, 39-40 Obesogenic environment, 44, 59, 61, 119 “Passing”, 5, 34-35, 40, 42, 94 PBQ (professional beauty qualification), 26-27 Penis enlargement, 56 Plastic surgery, 21, 103-105 Post-structuralism, 86

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Rational bias, 25-26 Rational theory (rationality), 85 Skin alterations (tattoos, branding, scarification, etc.), 61-62 Skin color, 23, 35, 110 Social construction, 88-90 Social exchange, 90-91, 96, 99-100 Social expectations, 6 Social mirror, 93-94, 101 Socioeconomic status and size, 44-45 Socioeconomic status and skin, 45-46 Steroids, 58 Structuration, 86 Structuralism, 86 Symbolic interactionism, 92-95, 99-107 Temporal nature of beauty traits (temporary versus permanent), 11-12 Thrifty gene theory, 44, 71 Ugly Laws, 34, 46-47 Valid discrimination, 26 Visibility, 4-5, 102-103, 112, 124 Name Index Alexander, Susan M., 62-63, 69, 80 Anspaugh, Jean Renfro, 59-60, 78 Banet-Weiser, Sarah, 4, 42-43, 66-67, 106 Bartky, Sandra Lee, 6 Baudrillard, Jean, 92, 100 Becker, Howard S., 94 Black, Edwin, 18, 105 Blum, Virginia L., 23, 39, 51, 57, 77 Blumer, Herbert, 93, 101 Bordo, Susan, 9, 19-20, 39, 44, 58, 74, 86, 106, 111 Bourdieu, Pierre, 87-88, 90, 100 Braziel, Jana Evans and Kathleen LeBesco, 90, 95 Brumberg, Joan Jacobs, 78-79 Calhoun, Craig, Joseph Gertais, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, and Indermohan Virk, 90 Chaplin, Elizabeth, 81

Chaver, L. Scott, Gregg H. Gilbert, and Brent J. Sheldon, 43-44 Coleman, James S., 90 Critser, Greg, 44, 60, 71, 114-115 Davis, Kathy, 10, 12-14, 22, 27, 34-35, 4042, 53-54, 75-76, 86, 120, 124 Davis, Kingsley and Wilbert E. Moore, 83-84 Emerson, Richard M., 90 Emmisson, Michael and Philip Smith, 81-82 Etcoff, Nancy, 10, 17, 20, 24, 28-30, 35-36, 45, 69, 95-96, 103, 121 Foucault, Michel, 20, 86 Frater, Lara, 49, 115 Gans, Herbert J., 84 Garfinkel, Harold, 92 Giddens, Anthony, 86-87 Gilman, Sander L., 22, 34, 39-41, 47, 53, 57, 69, 94 Gimlin, Debra L., 6, 48-49, 76-77, 110-111 Goffman, Erving, 46, 62, 93-94, 101-102 Goodman, Charisse, 66 Grealy, Lucy, 3, 10, 79 Habermas, Jurgen, 91 Haiken, Elizabeth, 40, 42 Harltey, Cecilia, 6-7, 31 Herring, Cedric, 36-37, 38, 69 Herring, Cedric, Verna M. Keith, and Hayward Derrick Horton, 17, 30 Hoetink, Harry, 35 Huff, Joyce, 19 Hunter, Margaret, 37 Jablonski, Nina G., 5, 11, 17, 23, 35, 36, 4546, 51, 55, 57, 61-62, 73, 115, 125 Katz, Sidney, 24, 29, 96 Kaw, E., 28, 40 Kitchen, Deborah Burris, 28, 58-59, 80 Klein, Richard, 69-70 Kuczynski, Alex, 17, 51-67, 69, 72, 77 Linn, Erwin L., 43-44 Longmore, Paul, 4-5, 30, 47, 95, 112

Index Lorber, Judith and Patricia Yancey Martin, 89-90 Mead, George Herbert, 79-80, 92-93, 101 Merton, Robert K., 6 Miller, Paul Steven, 28, 58-59 Millman, Marcia, 29 Muzzatti, Stephen L, and Richard Featherstone, 7-8, 124 Orlan, 57 Ping, Wang, 24, 29, 52 Popenoe, R., 74 Reischer, Erica and Kathryn Koo, 11, 27, 69, 74, 89, 111 Riordan, Teresa, 17, 22, 46, 52, 58 Ritzer, George, 85, 91 Robichaud, Samantha, 25 Roehling, Mark V., 9, 15, 24-26, 77, 112

143

Schwartz, Hillel, 70 Schweik, Susan, 34, 46-47, 95, 120-121 Smith, Earl, 34, 123 Solovay, Sondra, 9, 15, 59, 70, 77, 112 Stearns, Peter N., 18, 74 Thomas, Dana, 95 Turner, Jonathan H., 90 Van Wolputte, Steven, 93 Veblen, Thorstein, 46 Wann, Marilyn, 9, 15, 30-31, 48-49, 59, 110-112, 115 Weber, Max, 85 Wolf, Naomi, 6, 8, 10, 12-14, 26-27, 42, 54, 62, 100, 106, 125 Young, Iris Marion, 35