{"id":11790,"date":"2018-04-05T02:46:47","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T02:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=11790"},"modified":"2018-04-06T02:49:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T02:49:35","slug":"why-are-fewer-and-fewer-americans-fixing-their-noses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/why-are-fewer-and-fewer-americans-fixing-their-noses\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are fewer and fewer Americans fixing their noses?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laurie Essig<\/a>, Middlebury College<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Americans love cosmetic surgery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year in the U.S., there were 1.8 million plastic surgeries and nearly 16 million nonsurgical procedures, like Botox \u2013 about one for every 20 Americans. <\/p>\n

The US$8 billion industry<\/a> now has entire beauty magazines<\/a> devoted to cosmetic procedures, along with TV shows like \u201cNip\/Tuck\u201d and \u201cBotched\u201d that explore plastic surgery in all its gory glory. There are apps<\/a> for your phone that let you see your face or body modified by surgery and even children\u2019s books<\/a> to explain why mommy looks so different now. <\/p>\n

As someone who\u2019s written a book<\/a> about the economics of plastic surgery, none of this comes as a surprise.<\/p>\n

Recently, however, I ran across a statistic that stopped me in my tracks: Americans are no longer obsessed with fixing their noses. In fact, the number of nose jobs, or rhinoplasties, has gone down 43 percent<\/a> since 2000. <\/p>\n

Over a decade ago, nearly 400,000 Americans were having their noses made smaller, thinner and more symmetrical; now only about 225,000 Americans<\/a> are doing so each year.<\/p>\n

What might explain the overall decline in nose jobs, even as breast implants and tummy tucks are more popular than ever before? <\/p>\n

Why people get plastic surgery in the first place<\/h2>\n

This decline is happening despite the fact that rhinoplasty procedures \u2013 which cost, on average, around $5,000<\/a> \u2013 have become less painful and more convenient. <\/p>\n

In the 20th century, rhinoplasties were usually performed with a hammer and chisel \u2013 a bloody, bruising affair. Now noses can be reshaped with a vibrating crystal<\/a> that\u2019s able to cut through bone but avoid damaging soft tissue \u2013 a method that decreases the pain and recovery time quite significantly. <\/p>\n

But pain has never really been part of the equation. If there\u2019s one thing I learned from interviewing over 100 cosmetic surgery patients for my book, it\u2019s that they\u2019re willing to suffer for what they believe will lead to a better life. <\/p>\n

Today, 92 percent<\/a> are women, disproportionately white, and mostly members of the working and middle classes<\/a>. They fervently believe that if they look younger, thinner or more attractive, then they\u2019ll be more likely to keep their job or husband (or get a better job or a better husband). <\/p>\n

In the end, they\u2019re motivated by a deep desire for a more secure future \u2013 which, somewhat paradoxically, compels many of them to take on large amounts of debt to pay for the procedures.<\/p>\n

A perfect nose, apparently, is less likely to be viewed as a path to a secure future. <\/p>\n

A historic aversion to \u2018ethnic\u2019 noses<\/h2>\n

While there\u2019s probably no definitive way to explain the nose job\u2019s decline, the answer could be as plain as the nose on my face. <\/p>\n

My nose, not coincidentally, is large, the genetic effect of my Jewish ancestors. Nose jobs were originally performed for people like me \u2013 immigrants who were not quite \u201cwhite\u201d because they didn\u2019t look like Northern Europeans.<\/p>\n

In the 1800s<\/a>, surgeons discovered that if they put their patients under with gas and sterilized their instruments, they could stop people from dying of sepsis. These surgeons soon realized that they could also earn a quick buck by making ethnic immigrants look more American \u2013 which really meant looking more like immigrants from Northern Europe.<\/p>\n

By the late 1800s, the cosmetic surgery industry had blossomed. According to historian Sander Gilman<\/a>, cosmetic surgery was first used to help Irish and Jewish men. For Irish men, it was their noses, which they viewed as a sign of their \u201cracial degeneracy\u201d and \u201csyphilitic nature.\u201d Jewish men were actually less concerned about their noses and far more worried that their detached earlobes \u201cAfricanized\u201d them.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the 20th century shifted which bodies and which parts needed repairing, and the focus turned to women \u2013 particularly young, white women. <\/p>\n

A kind of beauty capitalism was born, teaching women that if there was something wrong with their bodies, it could be fixed. All they had to do was buy the right lipstick, stick to the newest diet, or surgically alter their bodies \u2013 especially their noses. <\/p>\n

Breast implants, tummy tucks, buttock implants and vaginoplasty<\/a> would eventually gain popularity. But for the first several decades of the 20th century, most of the women who filled the offices of cosmetic surgeons wanted their noses fixed.<\/p>\n

Shifting standards of beauty?<\/h2>\n

Today\u2019s beauty industry is worth $445 billion dollars<\/a>. It mostly teaches women (although increasingly men and even children) that they need to buy things in order to become beautiful.<\/p>\n

So why are our natural, imperfect noses all of a sudden more okay? <\/p>\n

It could be that the beauty industry has stopped selling us the idea that there is one racial standard for beauty. The sort of racial hierarchy that put Northern European features at the top \u2013 and everyone else scrambling to catch up \u2013 might be weakening due to demographic and economic changes within a globalized culture.<\/p>\n

According to the Pew Research Center<\/a>, by 2055 everyone in the U.S. will be a racial or ethnic minority \u2013 there will be no clear majority.<\/p>\n

After centuries of worshiping a certain form of whiteness as beautiful<\/a>, future beauty standards might look very different. It\u2019s also possible that as other countries, particularly China, dominate the world economy, those countries will have more of a say in determining what\u2019s beautiful. And popular media is increasingly depicting beautiful characters of all races<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At this point, without interviewing those who go under the knife but refuse to reshape their noses, it\u2019s tough to tell what\u2019s inspired the change.<\/p>\n

What I do know is that if the beauty industry can sell us something, it will. In fact, it\u2019s invented reverse nose jobs<\/a> for people who are embarrassed that their noses have been modified \u2013 and want to make them look \u201creal\u201d again.<\/p>\n

\"TheSo fear not: The industry\u2019s ability to profit off of our anxieties is as strong it\u2019s ever been.<\/p>\n

Laurie Essig<\/a>, Director and Professor of Gender, Sexuality, & Feminist Studies, Middlebury College<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laurie Essig, Middlebury College Americans love cosmetic surgery. Last year in the U.S., there were 1.8 million plastic surgeries and nearly 16 million nonsurgical procedures, like Botox \u2013 about one for every 20 Americans. The US$8 billion industry now has entire beauty magazines devoted to cosmetic procedures, along with TV shows like \u201cNip\/Tuck\u201d and \u201cBotched\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":11791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[1710,3840,3839,4290,191,373,4289,1237],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11790"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11792,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11790\/revisions\/11792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}