I have recently received an email from a dear friend, outraged at the announcement that the Australian government has decided to ban adult publications and films featuring small breasted women. I have asked her for permission to republish her message here, since her reaction speaks volumes…
Here is an extract from the article, featured on Boing Boing, which my friend quoted:
The Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them. Australia has also banned pornographic depictions of female ejaculation, a normal orgasmic sexual response in many women, with censors branding it as ‘abhorrent’.
As a “small-breasted” woman who sees how the entire world is becoming silicone-injected, this is infuriating, insulting and enraging! This is just another thing that is pushing images of women farther and farther from reality. And for those of us who are real and want to love our bodies as they are, this kind of thing makes it an even steeper up-hill battle. And that last sentence, while I don’t watch pornography, is shocking in 2010. “Abhorrent”? Seriously?
Last month, during a brief stay in Italy to visit my family, I noticed a disturbing new trend in advertising: creams designed to “lift” breasts and buttocks.
The last time I had seen a print ad for a similar product, I was in my early teens: in the back pages of all the popular teen magazines, I would see ads for X-ray glasses (destined for boys, to see through the clothes of women) and various “miracle” creams designed to accelerate puberty and turn a flat chested girl into a Pamela Anderson-like bombshell. My friends and I would dismiss this as utter rubbish (with the exception of a hopeful pimply faced boy in my class who once purchased X-ray glasses and brought them to school. Sadly, they didn’t work).
Fast-forward to today. Imagine my shock, when, while sitting in my dentist’s waiting room, I see that ads for creams to “increase breast size” are peppering the pages of virtually all the women’s magazines I pick up. Even more surprising? These creams belong to major (read: well respected) cosmetics companies.
Some examples (note: one of the photos below is a bit graphic, showing a nipple, so NSFW for those of you in the United States. Us Europeans are used to a lot worse)
The Title: “Dalla Ricerca COLLISTAR” (“from Collistar’s Research Team” – thus legit, no?)
“La rivoluzionaria novità che rassoda e solleva il seno” = “The revolutionary new product that firms and lifts breasts”
“più alto 2,7 cm” = “1,1 inch higher”
“più voluminoso +1cm” = “1/2 inch more volume”
“più sodo per il 90% delle donne testate” = “firmer breasts for 90% of women tested”
And now, let’s look at the pretty little asterisks that accompany each claim. Mind you, you may need eyeglasses to read those teeny tiny scribbles at the bottom of the page:
“Test clinico-strumentali” = gibberish? Well, let’s say clinical tests conducted on 20 women at an important Italian university. “An important Italian university”? WTF? Also: “maximum values reported after 60 days”. Whatever that means.
Let’s look at another ad, this one from Pupa, a cosmetics company that usually targets teenage girls and women in their 20s-early 30s:
This ad uses a similar language – as well as outrageous claims:
* Maximum value found in 3 subjects out of 35. Median value: 1 cm.
*** Tests are self-evaluations of 35 women during 8 weeks.
The self-evaluation part is what interests me. Because, whenever you see claims about anti-wrinkle creams, or anti-cellulite creams, or any other potion on the market (creams to increase breasts, buttocks, make your hair fuller, etc.) the percentages the ads refer to are not objective scientific findings. No. All beauty companies – big and small – use the results of self-evaluations in their marketing campaigns.
I once saw a documentary on TV that featured a French lab where they test 90% of cosmetics on the market. Women who participate in the study are given loads of free samples and usually return to the lab after 2 months to fill out a questionnaire about their satisfaction with a given product. A smiling lab attendant asks questions about one’s satisfaction (with yes/no answer) and then the results are compiled. In the documentary in question, a turtle-faced woman in her 60s say that the anti-wrinkle cream she had used had shown positive results. I couldn’t believe it. It’s ALL SUBJECTIVE: no scientific tests are carried out to confirm the claims. After all, if creams could actually reduce wrinkles, lift breasts, eliminate cellulite, why would women resort to expensive and intrusive procedures like Botox, breast implants and liposuction?
What these cosmetics companies are actually selling is HOPE.
After all, Charles Revson, founder of Revlon once said: “In the factory we make cosmetics; in the drugstore we sell hope.”
For an insightful article about the misleading marketing practices of cosmetics companies, click here.
It’s the same with the breast creams above. A few more examples:
What to do about this? Send your complaints to consumers’ associations.
Girls today are salon vets before they enter elementary school. Forget having mom trim your bangs, fourth graders are in the market for lush $50 haircuts; by the time they hit high school, $150 highlights are standard. Five-year-olds have spa days and pedicure parties. And instead of shaving their legs the old-fashioned way—with a 99-cent drugstore razor—teens get laser hair removal, the most common cosmetic procedure of that age group. If these trends continue, by the time your tween hits the Botox years, she’ll have spent thousands on the beauty treatments once reserved for the “Beverly Hills, 90210″ set, not junior highs in Madison, Wis.
Reared on reality TV and celebrity makeovers, girls as young as Marleigh are using beauty products earlier, spending more and still feeling worse about themselves. Four years ago, a survey by the NPD Group showed that, on average, women began using beauty products at 17. Today, the average is 13—and that’s got to be an overstatement. According to market-research firm Experian, 43 percent of 6- to 9-year-olds are already using lipstick or lip gloss; 38 percent use hairstyling products; and 12 percent use other cosmetics. And the level of interest is making the girls of “Toddlers & Tiaras” look ordinary. “My daughter is 8, and she’s like, so into this stuff it’s unbelievable,” says Anna Solomon, a Brooklyn social worker. “From the clothes to the hair to the nails, school is like No. 10 on the list of priorities.“
(Emphasis mine.)
The article continues,
Why are this generation’s standards different? To start, this is a group that’s grown up on pop culture that screams, again and again, that everything, everything, is a candidate for upgrading. These girls are maturing in an age when older women are taking ever more extreme measures, from Botox to liposuction, to stay sexually competitive. They’ve watched bodies transformed on “Extreme Makeover”; faces taken apart and pieced back together on “I Want a Famous Face.” They compare themselves to the overly airbrushed models in celebrity and women’s magazines, and learn about makeup from the girls of “Toddlers & Tiaras,” or the show’s WEtv competitor, “Little Miss Perfect.”
Read the full article here – and check out the interactive chart about women’s beauty spending, from childhood into their 60s. Disturbing stuff.
According to news site News.co.au, Australian consumer group Choice sent three women to thirty clinics in the Brisbane and Melbourne areas to investigate cosmetic surgery practices. The women, passing off as prospective patients, would inquire about treatments such as liposuction, breast augmentation and Botox.
The results were quite shocking. The article reports:
Choicespokesman Christopher Zinn said the most remarkable statement to any of the women was that she would have an improved chance of finding a partner if she had her breasts enlarged.
“It’s incredibly surprising that a doctor would say that. Talk about playing to people’s insecurities,” Mr Zinn said.
Most concerning was failure to explain the dangers, such as leakage and scarring.
“Given the known risks and the unwillingness of some cosmetic surgeons to discuss them, there needs to be stronger regulation,” Mr Zinn said.
NEVER PERFECT explores the complex journey of a young Vietnamese-American woman’s struggle with popular perceptions of beauty and body image as she fights the stigma of racial self-hatred in her decision to undergo cosmetic surgery.
From Arabianbusiness.com : “Middle East beauty industry to hit $2.9bn in 2009″
Excerpt:
According to official statistics, the sales of cosmetics and perfumes across the Middle East touched $2.1 billion last year.
The sector enjoys the highest per capita consumption in the region with an average purchase of around $334 (AED1,227) per person.
The largest market is Saudi Arabia estimated to be worth more than AED7.3 billion, while the industry is expected to exceed AED3.3billion in the UAE by the end of next year, according to EPOC Messe Frankfurt, organisers of the Beauty World Middle East.
UAE = United Arab Emirates.
It’s too bad that the article does not mention specifics about best selling products. A close friend, who is now living in Dubai, tells me about the incredible popularity of skin whitening creams – perceived to give darker skinned women a boost in their careers and love life, just like in India.
Also, plastic surgery is rampant in the Middle East, amongst wealthy, upper crust women: the most popular procedure? Rhinoplasty (nose jobs) to give them a more “Western” appearance. Botox and liposuction are also on high demand.
Watch the commercial from Fair & Lovely for their Middle Eastern market:
(Remember: Fair & Lovely is owned by Unilever, the parent company of Dove and its “Real Beauty” products. For more on Dove’s hypocrisy and duplicity, check out this older post.)
“The Swan.” “I Want a Famous Face.” “Dr. 90210.” “Extreme
Makeover.” “Nip/Tuck.” The list goes on. These are a few of the TV shows that have
examined, and promoted, the bene?ts of plastic surgery in recent years. University of Southern California professor Julie Albright believes the shows are driving women to go under the knife to conform to a heightened de?nition of beauty, one that is increasingly dif?cult to attain.
[...]
“Women are being taught to access power and status through their looks, “ Albright believes. “Before women might buy a Louis Vuitton purse to show off their ‘status.’ Now they might buy new breasts as a sign of their success.”
At the very least, these shows act as an advertisement for the plastic surgery industry, Albright says. At the most these shows impose unrealistic beauty standards that make people question their own bodies while giving them an instruction manual on how to change their appearance.
On the touchy subject of implants, Playboy’s policy seems to be don’t ask, don’t tell. We plotted each model’s bust size (chest circumference at the fullest points) and cup size (breast volume) for all years that data were available (early ’90s to now). While busts have shrunk faster than your 401(k), cup size has remained a buxom C or D. We don’t think evolution can explain this phenomenon.
