Biopower and postfeminism: cosmetic surgery in the mass media

Abstract

Postfeminism; according to authors like MacRobbie; Projansky; or Ferris and Young; is a new form of backlash transmitted through popular culture. It appropriates the achievements of western feminism to propose practices of normative femininity as liberating; in an exercise of profound rejection of feminism that is deeply embedded in the neoliberal capitalist system. Applying this line of thought to bodily and aesthetic issues; critics warn about these practices becoming an instance of biopolitics that pursues the construction of docile bodies –particularly female docile bodies– through new technologies like biomedicine. This article offers a theoretical reflection about the two paradigms –postfeminism and biopower–; applying them to the representation of cosmetic surgery in the female press; and it concludes in a critical note: cosmetic surgery; presented by women’s magazines as a new way of “constructing oneself”; has become yet another mechanism of control; even among those who intend to use it as an element of resistance.