Becoming the Other Woman.

Plastic surgery; Cosmetics; Surgeons; Consumers; Transplantation of organs, tissues, etc.; Health maintenance organizations

The article presents the author's comments on the concept of evaluating body appearance among women in the U.S. According to the author, American women are savvy, demanding consumers. In contemporary Western culture, the forms of female rivalry extend from competition for men in the heterosexual marketplace to beauty contests to a ceaseless entanglement with the beautiful bodies and faces of fashion models, television stars, and screen idols. When one buy a body part for aesthetic reasons, one automatically compare to others who have better or worse. Cosmetic surgery has been a compelling cultural story, but only recently has it been moving into the mainstream from what was generally seen as outlandish or extreme. For plastic surgery to become culturally widespread and thus ultimately normative, it must be sustained by a number of social, economic, cultural, and psychical forces. For example, the rise of health maintenance organization constraints on U.S. medical fees led many surgeons to supplement their practices by pursuing patients' discretionary income. At the same time, cosmetic surgery has to be psychically satisfying.