Abstract

CORDOBA, Marcelo. Aesthetic surgery as a technology of gender. Going beyond the “cultural dope” model and the “female agent” approachA cirurgia estética como tecnología de genero. Transcendendo o modelo da "idiota cultural” e a abordagem da “agente feminina”. Trab. soc. [online]. 2019, n.32, pp.543-559. ISSN 1514-6871.

The purpose of this article is to present an analytical approach to the practice of aesthetic surgery understood as a “technology of gender”. To this aim, it moves on to a critical exposition and a comparative analysis of two emblematic researches on the practice: The Face andPlastic Surgery (1974), by anthropologist Frances Macgregor, and Reshaping the Female Body (1995), by sociologist Kathy Davis. The article argues that, although Davis’ “female agent” approach has advantages over Macgregor’s “cultural dope” model, the former nevertheless presents certain 2 problems of a conceptual and a political kind. To illustrate these problems, it underscores the reiteration of some of the presuppositions of the "female agent" approach by the hegemonic media discourse of normative femininity, specifically, women's magazines. This is why the article concludes affirming that it is convenient to adress the analysis of aesthetic surgery with foucauldian tools, which allow to conceptualize it as a biomedical device of subjectification, going beyond the dichotomy between the celebration of the patient’s assumed agency and the lamentati on of her as a passive victim of patriarchal structures.

Keywords : Cosmetic sugery; technology of gender; female agent; Female beauty culture; Feminism; Subjectification.