Cosmetic Surgery & Racial Whitening

Whiteness continues to be constructed as the default norm when it comes to aesthetic surgery. White beauty is a form of “racial capital” gaining its status from existing racial hierarchies. The merging of new technologies with old colonial ideologies has created a context where consumers can purchase “racial capital” through cosmetic surgery.

Racial surgeries have been critiqued as a tool of ethnic homogenisation that reflects and contributes to racism. White standards still anchor our beauty culture and procedures to “white-ify” are not new. Aesthetic surgery can be regarded as a form of symbolic whitening.

Cosmetic procedures have become a common cultural practice even though these painful acts violate skin and flesh. The female body requires modification in order to be beautiful. Artificially modified and mutilated body parts become necessary in order to attain social and economic rewards. When an arguably violent act is controlled and agreed to, does it disassociate itself from the violence as a result?