Beauty Demands

Gender and Global Justice: New Directions is a two-day conference to be held at the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics, Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham.

BeautyDemands network member Deborah Sandler from Cosmetic Support has written a piece about the intimate nature of a conversation about breast implants, saying ' most women find that a breast augmentation changes the nature of their relationships with other women'. Read the full piece here and share your thoughts!

Have your say on how cosmetic surgery defines beauty norms and vice versa, and the role of medical professionals in developing, offering and carrying out aesthetic procedures. Workshop 2 will take place 3-4th June in London, with speakers ranging from cosmetic surgeons, academics working on appearance, and charities supporting those with conditions that affect their appearance. Abstracts are sought from current graduate students for this workshop in any discipline relevant to the topic, including but not exclusively, Philosophy, Psychology, Law, Sociology, Medicine and Gender Studies. Please submit abstracts by email using the title “beauty demands workshop 2”. Abstracts should be submitted to Laura Medhurst ( lmedhurst@nuffieldbioethics.org ) by 17 April at 4pm . Full details can be found on the Beauty Demands website .

The demands of beauty By Catherine Joynson, Programme Manager, Nuffield Council on Bioethics This blog post was written following the first Beauty Demands workshop. The second workshop will focus on the role of medical professionals in developing, offering and carrying out cosmetic procedures. We are currently calling for papers from graduate students to present at the workshop (deadline 17 April). Before I went to the first Beauty Demands workshop in Warwick earlier this month, I hadn’t really given much thought to why I feel the need to shave my underarms. But when you think about it, it is an odd thing to do. And on that note, why do I spend large amounts of money and time on other (sometimes painful) beauty procedures? I haven’t taken things to the more extreme end of the spectrum and undergone any surgical procedures to improve my appearance (yet) but more and more people are. Over 50,000 people in 2013 according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons in f...

I was very pleased to participate in the ARHC  Beauty Demands workshop. Having read Women's Studies at Masters levels, and now writing-up a PhD in feminist economy, it was an opportunity for me not only to consolidate my own research ideas, but also to explore new avenues and learn about areas of scholarship which I have yet to become familiar with. The interdisciplinary nature of the workshop made for very compelling discussion; allowing the group to thread together strands of feminist debates from cosmetic surgery, carcinogenic beauty regimes, psycho-sexual development, to beauty and body image. There were some very interesting discussion around beauty/body alongside cancer, race, hair-removal, class, caste, and capitalism. The best thing about this workshop for me was the feedback and constructive criticisms; as an early-career researcher, it is very valuable to consider the advice and opinion of those who are well-established in their fields. I was very glad to present my wor...

The “Changing Understanding of Body Image” workshop offered me, as a graduate student, the opportunity to present my in-progress dissertation to not only a new audience, but also an exceptionally talented group of individuals from an array of disciplines. I felt all of the academics, professionals, and graduate students in attendance came together in an incredibly dynamic way to foster very intellectually stimulating conversations and seriously challenge our understandings of beauty and self-image over the course of the two days. I left the workshop with some really valuable feedback on my project and inspired to take my project in new and exciting ways. Having expanded my understanding of the ways in which body image and beauty demands shape the lives of so many women (and increasingly men) everyday I also left the workshop inspired to pursue some new areas of interest and new projects. It was so great to have been invited to this event and I look forward to the future of the Beau...

Beauty Demands project team member Melanie Latham, Reader in Law at Manchester Metropolitan University, has written about the cosmetic surgery industry. Read the full piece here . 'Cosmetic surgery is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the medical industry, worth US$2.3 billion in 2010 and forecast to grow to $3.6 billion in 2015. Of this, non-surgical procedures, which include Botox and dermal fillers, account for nine out of ten procedures and 75% of the market value . But it is clear that the industry is failing when it comes to proper regulation of procedures and the private practitioners who sell services to make a profit – cosmetic surgeons who may have little or no qualifications, no experience, non-sterile instruments and no insurance.'