Scalpel Backlash : Pressure to Look Young Is Sparking a Rebellion Against Plastic Surgery

THREE TRENDY middle-aged women are eating at a West L.A. Japanese restaurant, and the conversation switches from sushi to surgery, specifically cosmetic surgery.

“I wish it didn’t exist--except for people who have serious problems. I resent the idea of face lifts and liposuction,” one of them says.

“I resent it, too,” another agrees. “I just want to get old gracefully the way my mother did. She didn’t have to look through magazines and see ads for plastic surgeons. She didn’t have to worry when she got a wrinkle.”

“Suddenly, I’m the oldest-looking woman in my office. But I’m not going to let some millionaire doctor take a knife to my eyelids,” the third states.

These women aren’t alone. Societal pressure to look younger and compete with younger colleagues or with those who have had cosmetic surgery is causing some women to feel pressured. Many don’t want to go under the knife, but they don’t want to face the alternative: the droops that come with age.

Although more than 500,000 elective surgeries were performed last year, women are beginning to complain about the blatant and subliminal pressure to submit to the scalpel. And many are talking rebellion.

Their feelings stem from anger, says Beverly Hills psychotherapist Shelley Singer, who surveyed more than 500 women about cosmetic surgery. Singer explains that women are torn between their intellectual and emotional reactions to the subject.

“Intellectually, there’s an enormous amount of resentment and compromise of values; yet on an emotional level, women have been programmed to feel guilty about growing old. They think they’re doing something wrong if they’re 40 years old and getting wrinkles,” Singer says.

It’s not surprising that cosmetic-surgery anxiety would develop in Southern California, where there are more surgeons remolding bodies and faces than in any other area in the United States. But the rebellion is spreading. Cambridge, Mass., lawyer Wendy Kaminer recently declared in the New York Times: “I think cosmetic surgery is crazy and bad for women, and I worry about its increasing popularity.”

According to a survey conducted by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 53% of the patients who had facial plastic surgery in 1986 were younger than 39, and 22% were under 30. Almost half of these patients reported household incomes of less than $25,000.

“The stereotypic wealthy matron is not the norm,” Singer says. “People will mortgage their homes to look younger.”

But many women would also love the luxury of just being themselves, Singer says. “But they don’t feel the freedom. Everything we see around us is beautiful, young and perfect. And advertising keeps pounding home the message.”

Plastic surgery rebels are still in the minority, according to Singer, but their numbers are increasing. “What’s important is that they are beginning to speak their feelings and not be subtly forced into something they don’t want to do,” Singer says. “After all, the subject is beauty, yes, but getting a face lift is not like getting a haircut.”