More Than Skin Deep: Exploring the Real Reasons Why Women Go Under the Knife [Hardcover]

Loren Eskenazi (Author), Peg Streep (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2007

A renowned plastic surgeon, one of the few women practicing in this specialty, offers a provocative and inspirational approach to cosmetic surgery with the assertion that it can also change a woman's inner life and become part of a crucial and deeply meaningful rite of passage. Dr. Eskenazi, an expert on breast reconstruction after cancer, began her medical career believing that she would become a psychiatrist. Her interest in psychology combined with a lifelong study of art, mythology, and anthropology has given her an unusual window into the interior landscape of her patients. What she has found is that the desire for external transformation through surgery is connected to internal transformation, most particularly at key moments of transition in a woman's life. Although some eight million women a year have some sort of procedure done, cosmetic surgery is still identified with excessive vanity, narcissism, lack of authenticity, and psychological weakness with the path of least resistance being to deny having had it. By framing cosmetic surgery in a more deeply spiritual and psychological way, Eskenazi takes on this culture of shame and refutes the idea that cosmetic surgery and internal change are antithetical. Whether women decide to have cosmetic surgery or not, this book will provide them with a different vision and a context for understanding their decision.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

San Francisco plastic surgeon Eskenazi denies that most of her female patients who undergo breast enlargements, face-lifts, liposuction and other cosmetic operations are insecure dupes of an ageist, "female-hating culture." Rather, cosmetic surgery is but a modern version of an ancient rite of passage that celebrates life stages by marking the flesh, thereby filling "the hole left in the fabric of our communal life by the loss of ritual." Like the ancient initiate, the modern patient leaves her identity behind as she strips off her street clothes, is purified by antibacterial scrubs, prostrates herself on the altar of the operating table, undergoes a death/rebirth sequence of anesthesia and wakes up to a body that is marked and transformed. To this end, Eskenazi's patients work with ritualists and psychotherapists, keep dream journals, build altars, practice meditation and create prayers to accompany surgery. Aided by Streep (Necessary Journeys), Eskenazi posits an interesting myth-infused approach that will be embraced by like-minded readers. Others will see this as preposterous New Age babble served up by a rationalizing doctor who wants to see herself as a shaman and her patients' desire for bigger breasts as a spiritual, high-minded quest. (Feb. 6)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The number of cosmetic procedures balloons (more than 10,000 nationwide in 2005), yet those seeking to alter their appearance continue to be scorned and derided. Whether accounted to vanity, artificial notions of beauty, or pressure from a man, women's perceived reasons for seeking cosmetic surgery are often written off as superficial or, worse, manipulated and orchestrated. Female plastic surgeon Eskenazi scoffs at such criticisms, made as if women were incapable of making informed, intelligent decisions about their appearance. She has heard all the hoary arguments and responds to them with a stern reminder of the powerful--and newly confirmed in Western medicine--mind-body connection. Linking historical practices of body marking and reshaping with the spiritual importance of ritual observances of life passages, she makes such a strong case in favor of cosmetic surgery that it seems a shame for women not to use it at, say, puberty, menopause, and the successful conclusion of a bitter divorce. She cautions, however, that cosmetic surgery isn't to be undertaken without considering serious spiritual and physical factors. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (February 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060577886
• ISBN-13: 978-0060577889
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,584,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars more than just plastic surgery, April 23, 2009

By 

Margaret Mak - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: More Than Skin Deep: Exploring the Real Reasons Why Women Go Under the Knife (Hardcover)

Dr. Eskenazi's book provides a rare look into the beauty of plastic surgery. It follows several women into their journey to seek out plastic surgery for own personal reasons, breast cancer etc. It is a great book and a must read for all women contemplating this decision. The book gives women permission to choose without judgement and is written for woman by a doctor who sincerely cares about them.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For anyone curious about the relationship between plastic surgery and society, August 28, 2007

By 

J. Schiller - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: More Than Skin Deep: Exploring the Real Reasons Why Women Go Under the Knife (Hardcover)

When I had my plastic surgery, I knew I just wanted to look better. Therefore I was quite surprised by all the changes in my life that occurred after the surgery. This book answered many of my questions about my confusing and exciting experiences by putting plastic surgery in the larger context of personal transformation and ritual within a community. My hat is off to Dr. Eskenazi for framing the issue of plastic surgery as larger than the simple quest for beauty. Using her firsthand experience as a plastic surgeon, she eloquently makes the point--more is going on here, there is substance beneath the surface. As growing numbers of people go under the knife and afterwards try to make sense of their experience, books like this will be sorely needed.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a remarkable, innovative work, January 3, 2008

By 

Aubrey (Oxford UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: More Than Skin Deep: Exploring the Real Reasons Why Women Go Under the Knife (Hardcover)

This is a remarkable, innovative work, one which subverts the knee-jerk feminist vision of plastic surgery as catering to the worst vanity and anxieties of women. Dr. Eskenazi saw the gap between the 'cosmetic' and 'reconstructive' sides of her surgical practice radically diminish, as she listened to the narratives of female patients who came in search of both physical and spiritual renewal. Only a very few were addicted -- like Michael Jackson -- to some vision of aesthetic perfection. Rather, most sought surgical intervention as a 'rite of passage', after a particular life crisis or change, be it the childbirth or menopause, divorce or the loss of children.

Dr. Eskenazi provides a powerful critique of the mind/body polarity, and has argued for a vision of the 'embodied self' by describing the psychic transformations that even a dose of botox can have on a woman who had involuntarily frowned for most of her life. Her work defies normal disciplinary boundaries and brings anthropology, philosophy and medicine together. Male plastic surgeons do not reflect on their medical practice in this way, while anthropologists observe, rather than participate in, the process of healing and renewal that Dr. Eskenazi hopes to provide.

Do not expect an apology for plastic surgery. This is a demanding analysis, well-written and cogently argued. She suggests that the popularity of plastic surgery has increased because of the loss of other social and cultural 'rites of passage', reflecting a yearning for rejuvenation that our consumerist world cannot provide.