People get SO upset when you imply that the choice they made was not an independent, individual choice. I typically see two responses:
"You don't know me!!! I totally made this choice under my own power!!! How dare you tell me my choice is not a choice!!!"
and
"Well we DO live in this society so we HAVE to make choices to live in it so cope! You are fooling yourself if you think you can make choices in a vacuum."
I never know how to come back to these things. It's a conversation stopper, for me, to bring up the fact that someone's choice might have been influenced by our society and that if they consider that, they could see why others object to it.
I am blathering here, but it seems like there are two issues; one, whether the choice to (in this case) have some cosmetic surgery was made under pressure of patriarchy, and second, whether that choice feeds the machine or defies it or is simply an individual choice which "shouldn't" effect anyone else at all. (I'm playing devil's advocate to myself a little. I have only known one woman who actually had cosmetic surgery, and at the time I never spoke to her about it, but she said some defensive things about it. I'm dreading the day someone I care about decides to do something like this and I feel like I want to actually talk to them (i.e. confront) about it.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-16 07:04 pm (UTC)"You don't know me!!! I totally made this choice under my own power!!! How dare you tell me my choice is not a choice!!!"
and
"Well we DO live in this society so we HAVE to make choices to live in it so cope! You are fooling yourself if you think you can make choices in a vacuum."
I never know how to come back to these things. It's a conversation stopper, for me, to bring up the fact that someone's choice might have been influenced by our society and that if they consider that, they could see why others object to it.
I am blathering here, but it seems like there are two issues; one, whether the choice to (in this case) have some cosmetic surgery was made under pressure of patriarchy, and second, whether that choice feeds the machine or defies it or is simply an individual choice which "shouldn't" effect anyone else at all. (I'm playing devil's advocate to myself a little. I have only known one woman who actually had cosmetic surgery, and at the time I never spoke to her about it, but she said some defensive things about it. I'm dreading the day someone I care about decides to do something like this and I feel like I want to actually talk to them (i.e. confront) about it.