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“Big eye” surgery: the ethics of medicalizing Asian features

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Abstract

The popularity of surgical modifications of race-typical features among Asian women has generated debates on the ethical implications of the practice. Focusing on blepharoplasty as a representative racial surgery, this article frames the ethical discussion by viewing Asian cosmetic surgery as an example of medicalization, which can be interpreted in two forms: treatment versus enhancement. In the treatment form, medicalization occurs by considering cosmetic surgery as remedy for pathologized Asian features; the pathologization usually occurs in reference to western features as the norm. In the enhancement form, medicalization occurs by using medical means to improve physical features to achieve a certain type of beauty or physical appearance. Each type of medicalization raises slightly different ethical concerns. The problem with treatment medicalization lies in the pathologization of Asian features, which is oppressive as it continues to reinforce racial norms of appearance and negative stereotypes. Enhancement medicalization is ethically problematic because cosmetic surgery tends to conflate beauty and health as medical goals of surgery, overemphasizing the value of appearance that can further displace women’s control over their own bodies. I conclude that in both forms of medicalization, cosmetic surgery seems to narrowly frame a complex psychosocial issue involving physical appearance as a matter that can be simply solved through surgical means.

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Notes

  1. It must be noted that although various scholars have cited this number, I was unable to find any empirical studies that support it. It is also unclear whether “Asians” refers to the whole of Asia, including South Asia and Central Asia that have populations with facial features closer to those of westerners. Asians in these territories have “big” eyes and a “higher nasal bridge” that are different from typical East Asian features.

  2. Hyper-specialization as a criticism is also applicable to enhancement medicalization, since commercial interests that push surgeons to justify beauty as a medical goal also motivates them to develop more services and identify problems. However, the identification of specific problems and establishment of Asian cosmetic surgery as a distinct subspecialty seem to be more pronounced when cosmetic surgeons depict their surgical interventions as remedial.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Macquarie University through the International Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship (IMQRES). I would like to thank Prof. Wendy Rogers for her comments that greatly improved the manuscript. Funding was provided by Macquarie University (Grant No. 2014092).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, NSW, Australia

    Yves Saint James Aquino

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Correspondence to Yves Saint James Aquino.

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Aquino, Y.S.J. “Big eye” surgery: the ethics of medicalizing Asian features. Theor Med Bioeth 38, 213–225 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-017-9395-y

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