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Did You Know
Fillers & Feminism
Beyond Beauty considers whether getting cosmetic treatment stops you from being a feminist
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The way women look has been commodified, objectified and analysed (mostly by men) throughout history. As a result, there’s been an ongoing battle for women to be accepted for more than just their outside appearance and to stop letting society dictate the way they look. With feminists fighting to escape the male gaze and the pressure to look a certain way, surely the concept of getting aesthetic treatments that inevitably make women ‘more attractive’ goes against everything they’ve been working towards... right?
This thought is leaving many women with an internal battle of whether getting treatments such as dermal fillers may render them an anti-feminist. In fact, research by pharmaceutical company Allergan, the creator of popular dermal filler brand Juvéderm, suggests that only 45% of women believe you can be a feminist and still love fillers. With more than half of the survey’s 1,500 respondents disagreeing, it seems that aesthetic treatments are still low in public opinion.
According to aesthetic nurse prescriber Alison Telfer, a lot of her female patients experience feelings of guilt or shame about getting a procedure done, which she believes shouldn’t be the case. She comments, “Although there are various reasons why people feel shame or guilt for getting treatments, such as spending money on themselves or because of social perceptions that treatments look ‘fake’, a lot of people also think it might stop them from being a feminist. However, when you look at the definition of feminism, it’s the belief in full social, economic, and political equality for women. It’s about empowerment.”
So how can it be anti-feminist for women to make their own choices, to look how they like and age the way they want to, nurse Telfer asks? “When female patients come into my clinic, it’s their way of saying: yes, I want to express my beauty in a certain way and yes, I will be happier if I can resolve this insecurity I have,” she states. Nurse Telfer believes that the media portrayal of aesthetic treatments has contributed to a negative idea of what it means to have a procedure. She says, “I think a lot of what people see on TV and in magazines are caricatures of women, because too often they’ve had too much work done and give off the sense that their main aim in life is just to bag a footballer. Of course, if you want to look that way it’s okay and it’s your choice, but people need to realise that isn’t just what aesthetics is about!” Because of this, nurse Telfer thinks there is an idea that getting a treatment makes you shallow, vapid and desperate for male attention. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a patient who has come in to look good for someone else. I find that what most women want is to feel completely confident in themselves even if they’re just sitting at home alone with nobody to see them,” she explains.
To help women understand that procedures are nothing to experience guilt around, nurse Telfer says that people who have treatments like dermal fillers should be more open about it. She says, “At the moment there is such a secrecy around having something done – you see celebrities who claim they’ve suddenly just got a whole new face just because they eat kale.” She continues, “We need more women to own it! We should be saying, ‘I’ve had fillers under my eyes and now I don’t look as tired and I feel great!’ instead of hiding it away and saying they just get eight hours of sleep.” Nurse Telfer also notes that women should be supporting other women’s decisions, even if it isn’t something they would choose to do themselves. She says, “We have to stop criticising each other! If your mum/friend/daughter wants to get some botulinum toxin, then good on them. That’s their decision, and we should respect that, and also celebrate that they are able to make that choice for themselves.” So, there you have it – you can get your frown lines treated and still be fighting the feminism battle. Remember, what’s important is that if you’re getting a treatment done, you’re doing it because you want to, and not for anyone else!
Alison Telfer,
aesthetic nurse prescriber, The Glass House Clinic, Wimbledon/Clapham
