Cosmetic surgery in a different voice

Abstract

Abstract Cosmetic surgery emerged at the end of the 19th century in the United States and Europe. Like most branches of surgery, it is a ‘masculine’ medical specialty, both numerically and in terms of professional ‘ethos’. Given the role cosmetic surgery—and, more generally, the feminine beauty system—play in the disciplining and inferiorization of women's bodies, a feminist cosmetic surgeon would seem to be a contradiction in terms. It is hard to imagine how cosmetic surgery might be practiced in a way which is not, by definition, disempowering or demeaning to women. In this article, I explore the unlikely combination of a feminist cosmetic surgeon, using one of the pioneers of cosmetic surgery, Dr. Suzanne Noel, as an example. She was the first and most famous woman to practice cosmetic surgery, working in France at the beginning of this century. She was also an active feminist. Based on an analysis of the handbook she wrote in 1926, La Chirurgie Esthetique, Son Role Social in which she describes her views about her profession, her techniques and procedures, and the results of her operations, I tackle the question of whether Noel's approach might be regarded as a ‘feminine’ or even feminist way of doing cosmetic surgery—in short, an instance of surgery in ‘a different voice’.