Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique by Ramachandra Guha This essay is from Environmental Ethics, Vol. 11, No.1 (Spring 1989), 71-83. Guha is an ecologist at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India. He wrote the essay during a visiting lecturership at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. I. Introduction The respected radical journalist Kirkpatrick Sale recently celebrated “the passion of a new and growing movement that has become disenchanted with the environmental establishment and has in recent years mounted a serious and sweeping attack on it—style, substance, systems, sensibilities and all.”l The vision of those whom Sale calls the “New Ecologists”—and what I refer to in this article as deep ecology—is a compelling one. Decrying the narrowly economic goals of mainstream environmentalism, this new movement aims at nothing less than a philosophical and cultural revolution in human attitudes toward nature. In contrast to the conventional lobbying efforts of environmental professionals based in Washington, it proposes a militant defence of “Mother Earth,” an unflinching opposition to human attacks on undisturbed wilderness. With their goals ranging from the spiritual to the political, the adherents of deep ecology span a wide spectrum of the American environmental movement. As Sale correctly notes, this emerging strand has in a matter of a few years made its presence felt in a number of fields: from academic philosophy (as in the journal Environmental Ethics) to popular environmentalism (for example, the group Earth First!). In this article I develop a critique of deep ecology from the perspective of a sympathetic outsider. I critique deep ecology not as a general (or even a foot soldier) in the continuing struggle between the ghosts of Gifford Pinchot and John Muir over control of the U.S. environmental movement, but as an outsider to these battles. I speak admittedly as a partisan, but of the environmental movement in India, a country with an ecological diversity comparable to the U.S., but with a radically dissimilar cultural and social history. My treatment of deep ecology is primarily historical and sociological, rather than philosophical, in nature. Specifically, I examine the cultural rootedness of a philosophy that likes to present itself in universalistic terms. I make two main arguments: first, that deep ecology is uniquely American, and despite superficial similarities in rhetorical style, the social and political goals of radical environmentalism in other cultural contexts (e.g., West Germany and India) are quite different; second, that the social consequences of putting deep ecology into practice on a worldwide basis (what its practitioners are aiming for) are very grave indeed. II. The Tenets of Deep Ecology While I am aware that the term deep ...

1. Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness
Preservation: A Third World Critique
by Ramachandra Guha
This essay is from Environmental Ethics, Vol. 11, No.1 (Spring
1989), 71-83. Guha is an ecologist at the Centre for Ecological
Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
He
wrote the essay during a visiting lecturership at the Yale School
of
Forestry and Environmental Studies.
I. Introduction
The respected radical journalist Kirkpatrick Sale
recently celebrated “the passion of a new and growing
movement that has become disenchanted with the
environmental establishment and has in recent years
mounted a serious and sweeping attack on it—style,
substance, systems, sensibilities and all.”l The vision
of those whom Sale calls the “New Ecologists”—and
what I refer to in this article as deep ecology—is a
compelling one. Decrying the narrowly economic
goals of mainstream environmentalism, this new
movement aims at nothing less than a philosophical
and cultural revolution in human attitudes toward
nature. In contrast to the conventional lobbying efforts
of environmental professionals based in Washington,
it proposes a militant defence of “Mother Earth,” an
unflinching opposition to human attacks on
undisturbed wilderness. With their goals ranging from

2. the spiritual to the political, the adherents of deep
ecology span a wide spectrum of the American
environmental movement. As Sale correctly notes, this
emerging strand has in a matter of a few years made
its presence felt in a number of fields: from academic
philosophy (as in the journal Environmental Ethics) to
popular environmentalism (for example, the group
Earth First!).
In this article I develop a critique of deep ecology
from the perspective of a sympathetic outsider. I
critique deep ecology not as a general (or even a foot
soldier) in the continuing struggle between the ghosts
of Gifford Pinchot and John Muir over control of the
U.S. environmental movement, but as an outsider to
these battles. I speak admittedly as a partisan, but of
the environmental movement in India, a country with
an ecological diversity comparable to the U.S., but
with a radically dissimilar cultural and social history.
My treatment of deep ecology is primarily historical
and sociological, rather than philosophical, in nature.
Specifically, I examine the cultural rootedness of a
philosophy that likes to present itself in universalistic
terms. I make two main arguments: first, that deep
ecology is uniquely American, and despite superficial
similarities in rhetorical style, the social and political
goals of radical environmentalism in other cultural
contexts (e.g., West Germany and India) are quite
different; second, that the social consequences of
putting deep ecology into practice on a worldwide
basis (what its practitioners are aiming for) are very
grave indeed.
II. The Tenets of Deep Ecology

3. While I am aware that the term deep ecology was
coined by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, this
article refers specifically to the American variant.2
Adherents of the deep ecological perspective in this
country, while arguing intensely among themselves
over its political and philosophical implications, share
some fundamental premises about human-nature
interactions. As I see it, the defining characteristics of
deep ecology are fourfold.
First, deep ecology argues that the environmental
movement must shift from an “anthropocentric” to a
“biocentric” perspective. In many respects, an
acceptance of the primacy of this distinction
constitutes the litmus test of deep ecology. A
considerable effort is expended by deep ecologists in
showing that the dominant motif in Western
philosophy has been anthropocentric—i.e., the belief
that man and his works are the center of the
universe—and conversely, in identifying those lonely
thinkers (Leopold, Thoreau, Muir, Aldous Huxley,
Santayana, etc.) who, in assigning man a more humble
place in the natural order, anticipated deep ecological
thinking. In the political realm, meanwhile,
establishment environmentalism (shallow ecology) is
chided for casting its arguments in human-centered
terms. Preserving nature, the deep ecologists say, has
an intrinsic worth quite apart from any benefits
preservation may convey to future human generations.
The anthropocentric-biocentric distinction is accepted
as axiomatic by deep ecologists, it structures their
discourse, and much of the present discussions
remains mired within it.
The second characteristic of deep ecology is its focus
on the preservation of unspoilt wilderness and the

4. restoration of degraded areas to a more pristine
condition—to the relative (and sometimes absolute)
1
neglect of other issues on the environmental agenda. I
later identify the cultural roots and portentous
consequences of this obsession with wilderness. For
the moment, let me indicate three distinct sources
from which it springs. Historically, it represents a
playing out of the preservationist (read radical) and
utilitarian (read reformist) dichotomy that has plagued
American environmentalism since the turn of the
century. Morally, it is an imperative that follows from
the biocentric perspective; other species of plants and
animals, and nature itself, have an intrinsic right to
exist. And finally, the preservation of wilderness also
turns on a scientific argument—viz., the value of
biological diversity in stabilizing ecological regimes
and in retaining a gene pool for future generations.
Truly radical policy proposals have been put forward
by deep ecologists on the basis of these arguments.
The influential poet Gary Snyder, for example, would
like to see a 90 percent reduction in human
populations to allow a restoration of pristine
environments, while others have argued forcefully that
a large portion of the globe must be immediately
cordoned off from human beings.3
Third, there is a widespread invocation of Eastern
spiritual traditions as forerunners of deep ecology.
Deep ecology, it is suggested, was practiced both by
major religious traditions and at a more popular level
by “primal” peoples in non-Western settings. This

5. complements the search for an authentic lineage in
Western thought. At one level, the task is to recover
those dissenting voices within the Judeo-Christian
tradition; at another, to suggest that religious traditions
in other cultures are, in contrast, dominantly if not
exclusively “biocentric” in their orientation. This
coupling of (ancient) Eastern and (modern) ecological
wisdom seemingly helps consolidate the claim that
deep ecology is a philosophy of universal significance.
Fourth, deep ecologists, whatever their internal
differences, share the belief that they are the “leading
edge” of the environmental movement. As the polarity
of the shallow / deep and anthropocentric / biocentric
distinctions makes clear, they see themselves as the
spiritual, philosophical, and political vanguard of
American and world environmentalism.
III. Toward a Critique
Although I analyze each of these tenets independently,
it is important to recognize, as deep ecologists are
fond of remarking in reference to nature, the
interconnectedness and unity of these individual
themes.
(1) Insofar as it has begun to act as a check on man’s
arrogance and ecological hubris, the transition from an
anthropocentric (human-centered) to a biocentric
(humans as only one element in the ecosystem) view
in both religious and scientific traditions is only to be
welcomed.4 What is unacceptable are the radical
conclusions drawn by deep ecology, in particular, that
intervention in nature should be guided primarily by
the need to preserve biotic integrity rather than by the
needs of humans. The latter for deep ecologists is

6. anthropocentric, the former biocentric. This
dichotomy is, however, of very little use in
understanding the dynamics of environmental
degradation. The two fundamental ecological
problems facing the globe are (i) overconsumption by
the industrialized world and by urban elites in the
Third World and (ii) growing militarization, both in a
short-term sense (i.e., ongoing regional wars) and in a
long-term sense (i.e., the arms race and the prospect of
nuclear annihilation). Neither of these problems has
any tangible connection to the anthropocentric-
biocentric distinction. Indeed, the agents of these
processes would barely comprehend this philosophical
dichotomy. The proximate causes of the ecologically
wasteful characteristics of industrial society and of
militarization are far more mundane: at an aggregate
level, the dialectic of economic and political
structures, and at a micro-level, the life-style choices
of individuals. These causes cannot be reduced,
whatever the level of analysis, to a deeper
anthropocentric attitude toward nature; on the
contrary, by constituting a grave threat to human
survival, the ecological degradation they cause does
not even serve the best interests of human beings! If
my identification of the major dangers to the integrity
of the natural world is correct, invoking the bogy of
anthropocentricism is at best irrelevant and at worst a
dangerous obfuscation.
(2) If the above dichotomy is irrelevant, the emphasis
on wilderness is positively harmful when applied to
the Third World. If in the U.S. the preservationist /
utilitarian division is seen as mirroring the conflict
between “people” and “interests,” in countries such as
India the situation is very nearly the reverse. Because
India is a long settled and densely populated country

7. in which agrarian populations have a finely balanced
relationship with nature, the setting aside of
wilderness areas has resulted in a direct transfer of
resources from the poor to the rich. Thus, Project
Tiger, a network of parks hailed by the international
conservation community as an outstanding success,
sharply posits the interests of the tiger against those of
poor peasants living in and around the reserve. The
designation of tiger reserves was made possible only
by the physical displacement of existing villages and
their inhabitants; their management requires the
continuing exclusion of peasants and livestock. The
initial impetus for setting up parks for the tiger and
2
other large mammals such as the rhinoceros and
elephant came from two social groups, first, a class of
ex-hunters turned conservationists belonging mostly
to the declining Indian feudal elite and second,
representatives of international agencies, such as the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources (IUCN), seeking to transplant the American
system of national parks onto Indian soil. In no case
have the needs of the local population been taken into
account, and as in many parts of Africa, the
designated wildlands are managed primarily for the
benefit of rich tourists. Until very recently, wildlands
preservation has been identified with
environmentalism by the state and the conservation
elite; in consequence, environmental problems that
impinge far more directly on the lives of the poor—
e.g., fuel, fodder, water shortages, soil erosion, and air

8. and water pollution—have not been adequately
addressed.5
Deep ecology provides, perhaps unwittingly, a
justification for the continuation of such narrow and
inequitable conservation practices under a newly
acquired radical guise. Increasingly, the international
conservation elite is using the philosophical, moral,
and scientific arguments used by deep ecologists in
advancing their wilderness crusade. A striking but by
no means atypical example is the recent plea by a
prominent American biologist for the takeover of
large portions of the globe by the author and his
scientific colleagues. Writing in a prestigious
scientific forum, the Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics, Daniel Janzen argues that only biologists
have the competence to decide how the tropical
landscape should be used. As “the representatives of
the natural world,” biologists are “in charge of the
future of tropical ecology,” and only they have the
expertise and mandate to “determine whether the
tropical agroscape is to be populated only by humans,
their mutualists, commensals, and parasites, or
whether it will also contain some islands of the greater
nature—the nature that spawned humans, yet has been
vanquished by them.” Janzen exhorts his colleagues to
advance their territorial claims on the tropical world
more forcefully, warning that the very existence of
these areas is at stake: “if biologists want a tropics in
which to biologize, they are going to have to buy it
with care, energy, effort, strategy, tactics, time, and
cash.”6
This frankly imperialist manifesto highlights the
multiple dangers of the preoccupation with wilderness
preservation that is characteristic of deep ecology. As

9. I have suggested, it seriously compounds the neglect
by the American movement of far more pressing
environmental problems within the Third World. But
perhaps more importantly, and in a more insidious
fashion, it also provides an impetus to the imperialist
yearning of Western biologists and their financial
sponsors, organizations such as the WWF and IUCN.
The wholesale transfer of a movement culturally
rooted in American conservation history can only
result in the social uprooting of human populations in
other parts of the globe.
(3) I come now to the persistent invocation of Eastern
philosophies as antecedent in point of time but
convergent in their structure with deep ecology.
Complex and internally differentiated religious
traditions—Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism—are
lumped together as holding a view of nature believed
to be quintessentially biocentric. Individual
philosophers such as the Taoist Lao Tzu are identified
as being forerunners of deep ecology. Even an
intensely political, pragmatic, and Christian-
influenced thinker such as Gandhi has been accorded a
wholly undeserved place in the deep ecological
pantheon. Thus the Zen teacher Robert Aitken Roshi
makes the strange claim that Gandhi’s thought was not
human-centered and that he practiced an embryonic
form of deep ecology which is “traditionally Eastern
and is found with differing emphasis in Hinduism,
Taoism and in Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism.”7
Moving away from the realm of high philosophy and
scriptural religion, deep ecologists make the further
claim that at the level of material and spiritual practice
“primal” peoples subordinated themselves to the
integrity of the biotic universe they inhabited.

10. I have indicated that this appropriation of Eastern
traditions is in part dictated by the need to construct an
authentic lineage and in part a desire to present deep
ecology as a universalistic philosophy. Indeed, in his
substantial and quixotic biography of John Muir,
Michael Cohen goes so far as to suggest that Muir was
the “Taoist of the [American] West.”8 This reading of
Eastern traditions is selective and does not bother to
differentiate between alternate (and changing)
religious and cultural traditions; as it stands, it does
considerable violence to the historical record.
Throughout most recorded history the characteristic
form of human activity in the “East” has been a finely
tuned but nonetheless conscious and dynamic
manipulation of nature. Although mystics such as Lao
Tzu did reflect on the spiritual essence of human
relations with nature, it must be recognized that such
ascetics and their reflections were supported by a
society of cultivators whose relationship with nature
was a far more active one. Many agricultural
communities do have a sophisticated knowledge of the
natural environment that may equal (and sometimes
surpass) codified “scientific” knowledge; yet, the
elaboration of such traditional ecological knowledge
3
(in both material and spiritual contexts) can hardly be
said to rest on a mystical affinity with nature of a deep
ecological kind. Nor is such knowledge infallible; as
the archaeological record powerfully suggests, modern
Western man has no monopoly on ecological
disasters.

11. In a brilliant article, the Chicago historian Ronald
Inden points out that this romantic and essentially
positive view of the East is a mirror image of the
scientific and essentially pejorative view normally
upheld by Western scholars of the Orient. In either
case, the East constitutes the Other, a body wholly
separate and alien from the West; it is defined by a
uniquely spiritual and nonrational “essence,” even if
this essence is valorized quite differently by the two
schools. Eastern man exhibits a spiritual dependence
with respect to nature—the one hand, this is
symptomatic of his prescientific and backward self, on
the other, of his ecological wisdom and deep
ecological consciousness. Both views are monolithic,
simplistic, and have the characteristic effect—
intended in one case, perhaps unintended in the
other—of denying agency and reason to the East and
making it the privileged orbit of Western thinkers.
The two apparently opposed perspectives have then a
common underlying structure of discourse in which
the East merely serves as a vehicle for Western
projections. Varying images of the East are raw
material for political and cultural battles being played
out in the West; they tell us far more about the
Western commentator and his desires than about the
“East.” Inden’s remarks apply not merely to Western
scholarship on India, but to Orientalist constructions
of China and Japan as well.
Although these two views appear to be strongly
opposed, they often combine together. Both
have a similar interest in sustaining the
Otherness of India. The holders of the
dominant view, best exemplified in the past in

12. imperial administrative discourse (and today
probably by that of ‘development economics’),
would place a traditional, superstition-ridden
India in a position of perpetual tutelage to a
modern, rational West. The adherents of the
romantic view, best exemplified academically
in the discourses of Christian liberalism and
analytic psychology, concede the realm of the
public and impersonal to the positivist. Taking
their succor not from governments and big
business, but from a plethora of religious
foundations and self-help institutes, and from
allies in the ‘consciousness’ industry, not to
mention the important industry of tourism, the
romantics insist that India embodies a private
realm of the imagination and the religious
which modern, western man lacks but needs.
They, therefore, like the positivists, but for just
the opposite reason, have a vested interest in
seeing that the Orientalist view of India as
‘spiritual,’ ‘mysterious,’ and ‘exotic’ is
perpetuated.9
(4) How radical, finally, are the deep ecologists?
Notwithstanding their self-image and strident rhetoric
(in which the label “shallow ecology” has an
opprobrium similar to that reserved for “social
democratic” by Marxist-Leninists), even within the
American context their radicalism is limited and it
manifests itself quite differently elsewhere.
To my mind, deep ecology is best viewed as a radical
trend within the wilderness preservation movement.
Although advancing philosophical rather than
aesthetic arguments and encouraging political

13. militancy rather than negotiation, its practical
emphasis—viz., preservation of unspoilt nature—is
virtually identical. For the mainstream movement, the
function of wilderness is to provide a temporary
antidote to modern civilization. As a special institution
within an industrialized society, the national park
“provides an opportunity for respite, contrast,
contemplation, and affirmation of values for those
who live most of their lives in the workaday world.”10
Indeed, the rapid increase in visitations to the national
parks in postwar America is a direct consequence of
economic expansion. The emergence of a popular
interest in wilderness sites, the historian Samuel Hays
points out, was “not a throwback to the primitive, but
an integral part of the modern standard of living as
people sought to add new ‘amenity’ and ‘aesthetic’
goals and desires to their earlier preoccupation with
necessities and conveniences.”11
Here, the enjoyment of nature is an integral part of the
consumer society. The private automobile (and the life
style it has spawned) is in many respects the ultimate
ecological villain, and an untouched wilderness the
prototype of ecological harmony; yet, for most
Americans it is perfectly consistent to drive a
thousand miles to spend a holiday in a national park.
They possess a vast, beautiful, and sparsely populated
continent and are also able to draw upon the natural
resources of large portions of the globe by virtue of
their economic and political dominance. In
consequence, America can simultaneously enjoy the
material benefits of an expanding economy and the
aesthetic benefits of unspoilt nature. The two poles of
“wilderness” and “civilization” mutually coexist in an
internally coherent whole, and philosophers of both
poles are assigned a prominent place in this culture.

14. Paradoxically as it may seem, it is no accident that
4
Star Wars technology and deep ecology both find their
fullest expression in that leading sector of Western
civilization, California.
Deep ecology runs parallel to the consumer society
without seriously questioning its ecological and socio-
political basis. In its celebration of American
wilderness, it also displays an uncomfortable
convergence with the prevailing climate of
nationalism in the American wilderness movement.
For spokesmen such as the historian Roderick Nash,
the national park system is America’s distinctive
cultural contribution to the world, reflective not
merely of its economic but of its philosophical and
ecological maturity as well. In what Walter Lippman
called the American century, the “American invention
of national parks” must be exported worldwide.
Betraying an economic determinism that would make
even a Marxist shudder, Nash believes that
environmental preservation is a “full stomach”
phenomenon that is confined to the rich, urban, and
sophisticated. Nonetheless, he hopes that “the less
developed nations may eventually evolve
economically and intellectually to the point where
nature preservation is more than a business.”12
The error which Nash makes (and which deep ecology
in some respects encourages) is to equate
environmental protection with the protection of
wilderness. This is a distinctively American notion,

15. borne out of a unique social and environmental
history. The archetypal concerns of radical
environmentalists in other cultural contexts are in fact
quite different. The German Greens, for example,
have elaborated a devastating critique of industrial
society which turns on the acceptance of
environmental limits to growth. Pointing to the
intimate links between industrialization, militarization,
and conquest, the Greens argue that economic growth
in the West has historically rested on the economic
and ecological exploitation of the Third World. Rudolf
Bahro is characteristically blunt:
The working class here [in the West] is the
richest lower class in the world. And if I look
at the problem from the point of view of the
whole of humanity, not just from that of
Europe, then I must say that the metropolitan
working class is the worst exploiting class in
history. ...What made poverty bearable in
eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Europe was
the prospect of escaping it through exploitation
of the periphery. But this is no longer a
possibility, and continued industrialism in the
Third World will mean poverty for whole
generations and hunger for millions.13
Here the roots of global ecological problems lie in the
disproportionate share of resources consumed by the
industrialized countries as a whole and the urban elite
within the Third World. Since it is impossible to
reproduce an industrial monoculture worldwide, the
ecological movement in the West must begin by
cleaning up its own act. The Greens advocate the
creation of a “no growth” economy, to be achieved by
scaling down current (and clearly unsustainable)

16. consumption levels)14 This radical shift in
consumption and production patterns requires the
creation of alternate economic and political
structures—smaller in scale and more amenable to
social participation—but it rests equally on a shift in
cultural values. The expansionist character of modern
Western man will have to give way to an ethic of
renunciation and self-limitation, in which spiritual and
communal values play an increasing role in sustaining
social life. This revolution in cultural values, however,
has as its point of departure an understanding of
environmental processes quite different from deep
ecology.
Many elements of the Green program find a strong
resonance in countries such as India, where a history
of Western colonialism and industrial development
has benefited only a tiny elite while exacting
tremendous social and environmental costs. The
ecological battles presently being fought in India have
as their epicenter the conflict over nature between the
subsistence and largely rural sector and the vastly
more powerful commercial-industrial sector. Perhaps
the most celebrated of these battles concerns the
Chipko (Hug the Tree) movement, a peasant
movement against deforestation in the Himalayan
foothills. Chipko is only one of several movements
that have sharply questioned the nonsustainable
demand being placed on the land and vegetative base
by urban centers and industry. These include
opposition to large dams by displaced peasants, the
conflict between small artisan fishing and large-scale
trawler fishing for export, the countrywide movements
against commercial forest operations, and opposition
to industrial pollution among downstream agricultural
and fishing communities.15

17. Two features distinguish these environmental
movements from their Western counterparts. First, for
the sections of society most critically affected by
environmental degradation—poor and landless
peasants, women, and tribals—it is a question of sheer
survival, not of enhancing the quality of life. Second,
and as a consequence, the environmental solutions
they articulate deeply involve questions of equity as
well as economic and political redistribution.
Highlighting these differences, a leading Indian
environmentalist stresses that “environmental
5
protection per se is of least concern to most of these
groups. Their main concern is about the use of the
environment and who should benefit from it.”16 They
seek to wrest control of nature away from the state and
the industrial sector and place it in the hands of rural
communities who live within that environment but are
increasingly denied access to it. These communities
have far more basic needs, their demands on the
environment are far less intense, and they can draw
upon a reservoir of cooperative social institutions and
local ecological knowledge in managing the
“commons”—forests, grasslands, and the waters—on
a sustainable basis. If colonial and capitalist expansion
has both accentuated social inequalities and signaled a
precipitous fall in ecological wisdom, an alternate
ecology must rest on an alternate society and polity as
well.
This brief overview of German and Indian

18. environmentalism has some major implications for
deep ecology. Both German and Indian environmental
traditions allow for a greater integration of ecological
concerns with livelihood and work. They also place a
greater emphasis on equity and social justice (both
within individual countries and on a global scale) on
the grounds that in the absence of social regeneration
environmental regeneration has very little chance of
succeeding, Finally, and perhaps most significantly,
they have escaped the preoccupation with wilderness
preservation so characteristic of American cultural and
environmental history.17
IV. A Homily
In 1958, the economist J. K. Galbraith referred to
overconsumption as the unasked question of the
American conservation movement. There is a marked
selectivity, he wrote, “in the conservationist’s
approach to materials consumption. If we are
concerned about our great appetite for materials, it is
plausible to seek to increase the supply, to decrease
waste, to make better use of the stocks available, and
to develop substitutes. But what of the appetite itself?
Surely this is the ultimate source of the problem. If it
continues its geometric course, will it not one day
have to be restrained? Yet in the literature of the
resource problem this is the forbidden question. Over
it hangs a nearly total silence.”18
The consumer economy and society have expanded
tremendously in the three decades since Galbraith
penned these words; yet his criticisms are nearly as
valid today. I have said “nearly,” for there are some
hopeful signs. Within the environmental movement
several dispersed groups are working to develop
ecologically benign technologies and to encourage

19. less wasteful life styles. Moreover, outside the self-
defined boundaries of American environmentalism,
opposition to the permanent war economy is being
carried on by a peace movement that has a
distinguished history and impeccable moral and
political credentials.
It is precisely these (to my mind, most hopeful)
components of the American social scene that are
missing from deep ecology. In their widely noticed
book, Bill Devall and George Sessions make no
mention of militarization or the movements for peace,
while activists whose practical focus is on developing
ecologically responsible life styles (e.g., Wendell
Berry) are derided as “falling short of deep ecological
awareness.”19 A truly radical ecology in the American
context ought to work toward a synthesis of the
appropriate technology, alternate life style, and peace
movements.20 By making the (largely spurious)
anthropocentric-biocentric distinction central to the
debate, deep ecologists may have appropriated the
moral high ground, but they are at the same time
doing a serious disservice to American and global
environmentalism.21
Notes
1. Kirkpatrick Sale, “The Forest for the Trees: Can Today’s
Environmentalists Tell the Difference,” Mother Jones 11,
No.8 (November 1986): 26.
2. One of the major criticisms I make in this essay concerns
deep ecology’s lack of concern with inequalities within
human society. In the article in which he coined the term
deep ecology, Naess himself expresses concerns about
inequalities between and within nations. However, his
concern with social cleavages and their impact on resource

20. utilization patterns and ecological destruction is not very
visible in the later writings of deep ecologists. See Arne
Naess, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology
Movement: A Summary,” Inquiry 16 (1973): 96 (I am
grateful to Tom Birch for this reference).
3. Gary Snyder, quoted in Sale, “The Forest for the Trees,”
p. 32. See also Dave Foreman, “ A Modest Proposal for a
Wilderness System,” Whole Earth Review, no.53 (Winter
1986-87): 42-45.
4. See, for example, Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy:
The Roots of Ecology (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books,
1977).
5. See Centre for Science and Environment, India: The State
of the Environment 1982: A Citizens Report (New Delhi:
Centre for Science and Environment, 1982); R. Sukumar,
“Elephant-Man Conflict in Karnataka,” in Cecil Saldanha,
ed., The State of Karnataka’s Environment (Bangalore:
Centre for Taxonomic Studies, 1985). For Africa, see the
brilliant analysis by Helge Kjekshus, Ecology Control and
Economic Development in East African History (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1977).
6. Daniel Janzen, “The Future of Tropical Ecology,” Annual
Review of Ecology and Systematics 17 (1986): 305-06;
emphasis added.
6
7. Robert Aitken Roshi, “Gandhi, Dogen, and Deep
Ecology,” reprinted as appendix C in Bill Devall and George
Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (Salt
Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1985). For Gandhi’s own
views on social reconstruction, see the excellent three-
volume collection edited by Raghavan Iyer, The Moral and
Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (Oxford: Clarendon

21. Press, 1986-87).
8. Michael Cohen, The Pathless Way (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1984), p. 120.
9. Ronald Inden, “Orientalist Constructions of India,”
Modern Asian Studies 20 (1986): 442. Inden draws
inspiration from Edward Said’s forceful polemic,
Orientalism (New York: Basic Books, 1980). It must be
noted, however, that there is a salient difference between
Western perceptions of Middle Eastern and Far Eastern
cultures, respectively. Due perhaps to the long history of
Christian conflict with Islam, Middle Eastern cultures (as
Said documents) are consistently presented in pejorative
terms. The juxtaposition of hostile and worshiping attitudes
that Inden talks of applies only to Western attitudes toward
Buddhist and Hindu societies.
10. Joseph Sax, Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections
on the National Parks (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1980), p. 42. Cf. also Peter Schmitt, Back to Nature:
The Arcadian Myth in Urban America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1969), and Alfred Runte, National Parks:
The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1979).
11. Samuel Hays, “From Conservation to Environment:
Environmental Politics in the United States since World War
Two,” Environmental Review 6 (1982): 21. See also the
same authors book entitled Beauty, Health and Permanence:
Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-85 (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
12. Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 3rd
ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).
13. Rudolf Bahro, From Red to Green (London: Verso
Books, 1984).
14. From time to time, American scholars have themselves
criticized these imbalances in consumption patterns. In the
1950s, William Vogt made the charge that the United States,
with one-sixteenth of the world’s population, was utilizing

22. one-third of the globe’s resources. (Vogt, cited in E. F.
Murphy, Nature, Bureaucracy and the Rule of Property
[Amsterdam: North Holland, 1977 p. 29]). More recently,
Zero Population Growth has estimated that each American
consumes thirty-nine times as many resources as an Indian.
See Christian Science Monitor, 2 March 1987.
15. For an excellent review, see Anil Agarwal and Sunita
Narain, eds., India: The State of the Environment 1984-85: A
Citizens Report (New Delhi: Centre for Science and
Environment, 1985). Cf. also Ramachandra Guha, The
Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance
in the Indian Himalaya (Berkeley: University of California
Press, forthcoming).
16. Anil Agarwal, “Human-Nature Interactions in a Third
World Country,” The Environmentalist 6, no.3 (1986): 167.
17. One strand in radical American environmentalism, the
bioregional movement, by emphasizing a greater
involvement with the bioregion people inhabit, does
indirectly challenge consumerism. However, as yet
bioregionalism has hardly raised the questions of equity and
social justice (international, intranational, and
intergenerational), which I argue must be a central plank of
radical environmentalism. Moreover, its stress on
(individual) experience as the key to involvement with
nature is also somewhat at odds with the integration of
nature with livelihood and work that I talk of in this paper.
Cf. Kirkpatrick Sale, Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional
Vision (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1985).
18. John Kenneth Galbraith, “How Much Should a Country
Consume?” in Henry Jarrett, ed., Perspectives on
Conservation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1958), pp.
91-92.
19. Devall and Sessions, Deep Ecology, p. 122. For Wendell
Berry’s own assessment of deep ecology, see his
“Amplications: Preserving Wildness,” Wilderness 50

23. (Spring 1987): 39-40, 50-54.
20. See the interesting recent contribution by one of the
most influential spokesmen of appropriate technology—
Barry Commoner, “ A Reporter at Large: The
Environment,” New Yorker, 15 June 1987. While
Commoner makes a forceful plea for the convergence of the
environmental movement (viewed by him primarily as the
opposition to air and water pollution and to the institutions
that generate such pollution) and the peace movement, he
significantly does not mention consumption patterns,
implying that “limits to growth” do not exist.
21. In this sense, my critique of deep ecology, although that
of an outsider, may facilitate the reassertion of those
elements in the American environmental tradition for which
there is a profound sympathy in other parts of the globe. A
global perspective may also lead to a critical reassessment of
figures such as Aldo Leopold and John Muir, the two patron
saints of deep ecology. As Donald Worster has pointed out,
the message of Muir (and, I would argue, of Leopold as
well) makes sense only in an American context; he has very
little to say to other cultures. See Worster’s review of
Stephen Fox’s John Muir and His Legacy, in Environmental
Ethics 5 (1983): 277-81.
7
Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness
Preservatioby Ramachandra GuhaI. IntroductionII. The Tenets
of Deep EcologyIII. Toward a CritiqueIV. A HomilyNotes
Women’s Studies, 39:715–746, 2010
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0049-7878 print / 1547-7045 online
DOI: 10.1080/00497878.2010.505152

24. “PLASTIC MAKES PERFECT”: MY BEAUTIFUL MOMMY ,
COSMETIC SURGERY, AND THE MEDICALIZATION
OF MOTHERHOOD
MICHELLE ANN ABATE
Hollins University, Roanoke
Perhaps more than any other genre of children’s literature, pic-
ture books have been in the spotlight of late. Intended for the
youngest and thus seemingly most innocent of child readers,
they
have also historically been associated with the most innocent of
subject matters. In stark contrast to narratives for young adults
that
have become famous for their engagement with mature issues
like
drugs, divorce, and sexuality; picture books have commonly
been
connected with more lighthearted subject matter. In classic
titles
like The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), Goodnight Moon (1947),
and
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), the gravest adventures
involve
mischievously nibbling on some carrots in a forbidden garden,
not wanting to go to bed, and being preoccupied by an array of
different delicious foods.
During the final few decades of the twentieth century, the
traditionally innocuous subject matter of picture books begun
to change. In the wake of growing societal beliefs that adults
ought to be more honest and open with children, new narra-
tives appeared that discussed topics which had previously been

25. overlooked, ignored, or even forbidden. From the serious sub-
ject of same-sex parenting in Heather Has Two Mommies (1989)
and
Daddy’s Roommate (1991) to the humorous issue of bodily
func-
tions in Everyone Poops (1993, English language version) and
Walter,
the Farting Dog (2001), these books pushed the boundaries of
the
genre in new and even daring directions.
In the years since, the range and variety of picture books
meant to address formerly off-limits subject matter has only
increased. In 2005, for example, Anne-Marie Gillet and Isabelle
Address correspondence to Michelle Ann Abate, 2127 Westover
Ave SW, Roanoke, VA
24015. E-mail: [email protected]
715
716 Michelle Ann Abate
Gilboux released Standing Up, which details the struggles of a
male
protagonist as he learns how to urinate from a different physi-
cal position. The following year, Ricardo Cortes’s It’s Just a
Plant
arrived on book store shelves; the picture book discusses the
sub-
ject of marijuana. Finally, the year 2008 witnessed the debut of
Thierry Lenain’s Little Zizi, about a young boy who gets
ridiculed
by his classmates because of his small penis (or “zizi”) after
they

26. see him changing in gym class. The website for the national
book-
store chain Barnes & Noble identifies the story’s central theme:
“Is it true that in the littlest of packages come the greatest
gifts?”
(“Synopsis”).
In spring 2008, the possible subject matter for picture
books expanded into a new realm with the publication of My
Beautiful Mommy. Written by Michael Salzhauer and illustrated
by
Victor Guiza, the narrative is billed as the first picture book to
address the subject of cosmetic surgery. Told from a first-
person
perspective, My Beautiful Mommy relays the experiences of a
young girl whose mother is about to undergo multiple elective
aesthetic procedures. Although the story is fictional, it takes an
informational rather than imaginative approach: the narrative
provides young readers with a type of “guided tour” or
instructive
overview of the process. My Beautiful Mommy begins with the
mother’s initial consultation at the doctor’s office, progresses to
the day of her surgery, discusses the period of her recuperation,
and ends with the removal of her bandages and the unveiling
of her new, cosmetically altered self. To help explain the entire
cosmetic surgery experience to child readers, the book appropri-
ates a common metaphor from nature: it compares the mother’s
transformation to that of a caterpillar into a butterfly, complete
with even likening her bandages to a cocoon.
The mother in My Beautiful Mommy is undergoing not simply
a random cluster of cosmetic surgery procedures, but a spe-
cific grouping known as the “mommy makeover.” Comprised of
a tummy tuck, liposuction, and a breast lift (with or without
implants), it is a designed to help mothers regain their pre-
pregnancy form. The procedure, which first received this name

27. in the new millennium, has been increasing in popularity over
the
past five years. As an article in Newsweek explained:
No one specifically tracks the number of tummy-tuck-and-
breast-implant
combos (or ‘mommy makeovers,’ as they’re called), but
according to the
Plastic Makes Perfect 717
latest numbers from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons,
breast aug-
mentation was the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure last
year, with
348,000 performed (up 6 percent over 2006). Of those, about
one-third
were for women over 40 who often opt for implants to restore
lost volume
in their breasts due to aging or pregnancy weight gain. There
were 148,000
tummy tucks—up 1 percent from the previous year. (Springen,
par 5)
These statistics exist against the backdrop of a general increase
in all types of plastic surgery. As Victoria Pitts-Taylor has
written,
“Cosmetic modifications of the body have expanded
dramatically
in number, type, and scope. For instance, in the United States in
2005, there were nearly two million aesthetic operations—more
than quadruple the number in 1984—along with over eight mil-
lion nonsurgical procedures like Botox and skin resurfacing”
(3).

28. In addition, echoing the multi-procedural nature of the mommy
makeover, “patients getting cosmetic surgery increasingly have
multiple procedures during the same operation—in 2004, for
example, one-third of cosmetic surgeries involved multiple pro-
cedures. It is now ordinary for a cosmetic surgeon to package
procedures, like a chin implant to go with rhinoplasty, or a
breast
lift to go with a tummy tuck” (Pitts-Taylor 3).
Given the growing number of women undergoing cosmetic
surgery, coupled with the growing societal belief that parents
ought to be more honest and open with their children, there was
a
growing need to have such procedures explained in a manner
that
young people could understand. As Abigail Jones aptly
observed,
while much attention has been paid to “the emotional effects
plas-
tic surgery can have on patients,” few have addressed the
question
“how does a mother’s plastic surgery affect her kids?” (par 6).
My Beautiful Mommy seeks to do just that. Released on the
symbolic date of Mother’s Day in 2008, the picture book is
aimed at children ages four through seven, and it is intended
to ease the fear and anxiety that children experience when a
parent undergoes cosmetic surgery. The jacket flap to the pic-
ture book cites the following eye-opening statistic: “In 2007
more
than 400,000 women with young children underwent cosmetic
surgery in the U.S. alone.” Commenting on this phenomenon,
author Michael Salzhauer has remarked: “‘Parents [facing elec-
tive cosmetic surgery] generally tend to go into this denial
thing.
They just try to ignore the kids’ questions completely’” (qtd in

29. Springen, par 6). In the face of this lack of information, he goes
on to add, children “‘fill in the blanks in their imagination’ and
718 Michelle Ann Abate
then feel worse when they see ‘mommy with bandages’” (qtd in
Springen, par 6). In this way, My Beautiful Mommy was
framed—
by its author, publisher, and accompanying press materials—as
filling a need not yet met by extant books for young readers.
Indeed, the About the Author section on the website for Barnes
and Noble asserted, “As a father of four young children—and an
avid bed-time storyteller—he recognizes the importance and
value
of using quality informational books to communicate effectively
with children” (“About”). My Beautiful Mommy serves this
function
about the subject of cosmetic surgery. The jacket flap promises
parents that by reading the narrative with their children and
talk-
ing about the issues addressed in it, “you will be able to calm
your
children’s fears, address their concerns, and help your family
sail
easily through the plastic surgery experience.” For these
reasons,
the blurb on the back cover asserts, “If you are a mother with
young children and thinking about having plastic surgery—this
book is a must-have” (emphasis in original).
These altruistic comments notwithstanding, Michael
Salzhauer, the author of My Beautiful Mommy, is not a child
psychologist, expert in early childhood education, or even pro-
fessional writer. On the contrary, he is a board-certified

30. cosmetic
surgeon with a successful practice in Bal Harbour, Florida.
Indeed, the About the Author section at the back of the picture
book touts, Salzhauer “has performed hundreds of beautiful
mommy makeovers during his career.” In addition, he “hosts
a Sunday morning radio call-in show called ‘Nip Talk Radio’”
(Boodman HE05).
This article examines My Beautiful Mommy as at least as much
of an advertisement campaign intended to promote and justify a
specific medical industry as a children’s book designed to edu-
cate and enlighten, perhaps more so. During this process, I
locate
the book within the growing cultural interest in and even obses-
sion with cosmetic surgery and techno-constructions of the
body.
I examine the way in which the book is both a product of and
catalyst for the Western beauty industry and patriarchal
attitudes
about female appearance. I also explore the messages that My
Beautiful Mommy sends about the commercialization of modern
medicine, the cultural reproduction of femininity, and postmod-
ern views of identity as malleable. While Salzhauer’s picture
book
can be read via the lens of feminist ethics and the question of
Plastic Makes Perfect 719
female agency with regard to elective cosmetic surgery, its
more
dominant and disturbing message concerns the medicalization of
the female reproductive body. Throughout My Beautiful
Mommy,
women’s post-pregnancy physique is cast as a problem that

31. medi-
cal science in general and a male plastic surgeon in particular
can
solve.
On the Cutting Edge of Motherhood
In the same way that picture books have been the subject of
increased media attention as well as public notoriety, so has
cos-
metic surgery. As Victoria Pitts-Taylor has written, whereas
tummy
tucks, breast augmentations, and nose jobs were formerly
cloaked
in secrecy—performed behind closed doors and not publicly dis-
closed let alone casually discussed—“cosmetic surgery is now
cul-
turally ubiquitous. On television, in magazines, and on the Web,
there are endless discussions of cosmetic surgery, from
makeover
shows where participants get multiple surgeries to
documentaries
and celebrity gossip” (4). Fueled in part by the American
interest
in self-improvement and in part by our confessional tell-all cul-
ture, cosmetic surgery has moved out of the shadows and into
the spotlight. Whereas celebrities used to conceal their cosmetic
procedures, figures like Cher, Kathy Griffin, and Joan Rivers
have
openly discussed the numerous nips, tucks, lifts, and injections
they have had done on their bodies.
Nor is cosmetic surgery merely the realm of the rich and
famous. With the advances in medical technology making proce-
dures more affordable, and the ascendency of postwar American
capitalism giving many individuals increased disposable

32. income,
cosmetic surgery has been democratized, reaching into the mid-
dle class. “Dr. Alan Matarasso, a plastic surgeon in New York
City and a spokesman for the American Society for Aesthetic
Plastic Surgery, told The Economist in 2003, ‘Ten years ago,
you could reconstruct a woman’s breast for $12,000. Now it
can be done for $600’” (Kuczynski 16). With untold thousands
more individuals now potential patients, advertisements about
procedures—ranging from Botox and liposuction to facelifts
and hair transplants—can be found almost everywhere. “Beauty
and health magazines, local television news programs, and the
720 Michelle Ann Abate
Internet are replete with consumer information about cosmetic
surgery—how to shop for a surgeon, what procedures are better
than others, what the latest technology can accomplish” (Pitts-
Taylor 4). For those who cannot afford cosmetic surgery but
want
to live vicariously, or for those who would like more
information
about the experience before deciding whether to go under the
knife themselves, television programs like ABC’s Extreme
Makeover
(2002–2005), Fox’s The Swan (2004–2005), MTV’s I Want a
Famous
Face (2004), and the Discovery Channel’s Plastic Surgery:
Before
and After (2002–2005) document an individual’s
transformation—
to strong audience ratings. During its second season, “Extreme
Makeover produced ABC’s highest Adult 18–49 rating (3.2/8)
in
the hour in more than 7 months” (Rogers, par 2). By early

33. October, the program’s audience size had spiked even more,
“up over the prior week by 1.4 million viewers (8.4 million vs.
7.0 million) and by 19% among Adults 18–49” (Rogers, par 2).
When viewed collectively, the proliferation of cosmetic
surgery in American popular, print and material culture “point
toward its normalization” (Pitts-Taylor 4). As Elizabeth Haiken
has aptly observed, “Today the stigma of narcissism that once
attached to cosmetic surgery has largely vanished, leaving in its
place the comfortable aura of American pragmatism, with a
whiff
of optimistic commitment to self-improvement thrown-in” (7).
As cosmetic surgery has become a more common phe-
nomenon in the United States, so too has it become a more
gendered one. Kathy Davis has written that “where previous
patients were men disabled by war and in industrial accidents,
now the recipients are overwhelmingly women who are dissatis-
fied with the way their bodies look” (16). She goes on to
provide
some illuminating statistics: “Nearly ninety percent of the
opera-
tions are performed on women: all breast corrections, ninety-
one
percent of face lifts, eight-six percent of eyelid reconstructions,
and sixty-one percent of all nose surgery” (Davis 21). In this
way,
cosmetic surgery has emerged as one of the largest and most
lucrative branches of the Western beauty industry. Anthony
Elliott
has noted, “In the United States alone, it is estimated that cos-
metic surgery is an industry generating $15 to $20 billion a
year”
(21). Market research and public polls indicate are that the
attrac-
tion and appeal of cosmetic surgery is likely to expand further.

34. Deborah Sullivan revealed that according to a survey of women
Plastic Makes Perfect 721
conducted on the eve of the millennium, “More than one-third
would like to alter their thighs. One-fourth would like to change
their buttocks, and about the same proportion would like to
erase
their facial wrinkles. Nearly one in five want different breasts
and
one in seven want different noses” (ix). Existing on the nexus of
consumer culture and medical technology, cosmetic surgery has
become the emblem of the nation’s postmodern makeover
culture
and its attendant belief in the malleability of the self.
My Beautiful Mommy is both a product of this climate and a
cat-
alyst for it. The book portrays the attraction, appeal and
benefits of
cosmetic surgery, but it also perpetuates its many ethical
problems,
psychological dilemmas, and epistemological flaws. Salzhauer’s
narrative fails to explore serious questions about women’s
choice
and agency in the face of the cultural reproduction of feminin-
ity and patriarchal views about female appearance. In addition,
it
greatly minimizes or even ignores the numerous potential risks,
problems, and complications associated with cosmetic surgery.
Finally, and perhaps most disconcertingly, My Beautiful
Mommy
offers a problematic message to young people in general and—
given its possession of a young female narrator—elementary-

35. aged
girls in particular about self-image, body type, and self-esteem.
∗ ∗ ∗
The troubling information about personal appearance and
female beauty in My Beautiful Mommy begins even before
readers
open the picture book and examine its first page. The cover
image
to the narrative presents a full-length portrait of a young,
slender
woman—the mommy of the title. Echoing longstanding associa-
tions of cosmetic surgery with narcissistic vanity, her
proportions
are not simply perfect, but almost Barbie doll-like in nature: she
has a full bosom, a slim waist, and pleasingly curvy hips. Her
legs
are long and lean, with a slender knee, and modest definition
around the calf. Her long auburn hair, dainty feet and equally
perfect creamy white skin—which is without a blemish, freckle
or
even hint of body hair—complete the picture.
The clothing that the mother is wearing calls further atten-
tion to her body: she is depicted in hip-hugging, form-fitting
dark pink pants and a light pink half-shirt, her belly button
exposed. Throughout the book, in fact, the mother will retain
this attire, wearing snug pants and shirts that expose her
midriff.
722 Michelle Ann Abate
Accentuating both the feminization and the fairy-tale nature of

36. this image, the mother is surrounded by whimsical ribbons of
sparkly dust. Bright stars or twinkling bits of diamond glimmer
in the spotlight. The entire cover of the book is fuchsia-colored.
This bright color palate combined with the exaggerated eyes and
heavy black border outlining her figure gives the illustrations
a cartoonish-like appearance in general and makes her resem-
ble one of the princess characters from Walt Disney’s popular
animated movies in particular. Author Michael Salzhauer has
him-
self acknowledged the similarities. During an appearance on the
Today show to promote My Beautiful Mommy in April 2008, he
dis-
cussed how illustrator Victor Guiza “Disney-fied” the
illustrations
(“Mommy’s Makeover”). Although this decision likely arose
from
a desire to give the book a “familiar” look, it bundles together
the many—and often problematic—messages about women’s
gen-
der roles, the female body and compulsory heterosexuality that
permeate Disney films and have been discussed by critics.
The mother is not the only figure on the cover of Salzhauer’s
picture book. Her daughter—who serves as the narrator of the
story—is standing to her right. In a gesture that simultaneously
infantilizes the young girl while it traffics in the historical
associa-
tion of children with cuteness, she is holding a plump teddy
bear.
Moreover, as she gazes at her new, surgically altered mommy,
the
youngster has a look of wonder, joy, and even amazement on
her
face. This image of a young girl worshipping the image of
white,
Western feminine beauty and the proportionally perfect—

37. because
it has been cosmetically altered—female body foreshadows the
message or, at least, sets the tone that will permeate My
Beautiful
Mommy.
In keeping with Salzhauer’s goal of easing kids’ fears when a
parent undergoes cosmetic surgery, the narrative of My
Beautiful
Mommy begins at the beginning: with the visit to the doctor’s
office. The opening page reads, “Mommy picked me up early
from school today. She said we were going to the doctor . . . but
it
wasn’t my doctor, Dr. Jill. . . . Today we went to a new doctor
for
Mommy: Dr. Michael.” Several pages into the story, we learn
that
the young narrator has a sibling, a brother named Billy.
Although
he is older, it is only by a few years. Judging by the
illustrations,
Billy is still in elementary school. Although the mother’s
cosmetic
surgery will undoubtedly affect her son as much as her
daughter,
Plastic Makes Perfect 723
Salzhauer’s book is focused on the young girl. In fact, through-
out the twenty-two pages that comprise My Beautiful Mommy,
Billy
is only mentioned four times, and it is only briefly and usually
as
part of the background.1

38. While Salzhauer’s decision to focus his book on the daughter
may have arisen because she is younger and thus presumably
more
frightened by the procedure as well as less able to understand
what is happening, another and more culturally constructed rea-
son is also possible. By telling the story from the daughter’s
point
of view and almost omitting the perspective of brother, the book
highlights the highly gendered nature of beauty and the added
pressures that women face about their appearance. Indeed, far
from simply tacitly acknowledging this fact via the choice of
narra-
tor, My Beautiful Mommy almost seems to indoctrinate the
daughter
to this reality. The picture book’s initial sentence “Mommy
picked
me up early from school today” is significant, for it indicates
the
mother’s deliberate decision to include not simply her child but
her female child in the process. After all, she picks up her
daugh-
ter early from school in order to bring her to the consultation
with
the cosmetic surgeon, but not her son.
That the mother chooses to expose either child to this process
is also troubling. While many reviewers have lauded
Salzhauer’s
desire for more openness and honesty with children, they have
nonetheless wondered whether, when it comes to the subject of
cosmetic surgery, doing so is too much information too soon.
Reconstructive surgeon Dr. Pete Costantino thinks so,
remarking,
1The first instance occurs when the mother explains to her

39. daughter that she is going
to have an operation; the young girl asks if it will be anything
like her brother’s game
called Operation. Later, when the mother discusses her the
period of recovery from her
procedure, her daughter asks: “Are you going to have a cast like
when Billy broke his arm
playing baseball?” A thought bubble above her head shows the
young boy in his baseball
uniform with his arm in a sling. It is only after the mother has
returned home from the
hospital that Billy returns. The caption reads “Daddy told Billy
and me that we had to play
quietly downstairs while Mommy was resting.” In the
illustration that accompanies this text,
Billy’s back faces the reader. Finally, near the end of the book,
the young man gets one page
to himself. While the mother is recuperating, the narrator notes:
“Billy even picked up his
clothes and put them in the hamper without being told. Mommy
was so proud.” The page
shows Billy in his bedroom loading his laundry into the hamper.
Appropriately boyish toys
and decorations surround him: a fire truck, baseball, and
fielder’s mitt are scattered on
the floor. Meanwhile, the walls are adorned with posters of
professional athletes and sports
stadiums.
724 Michelle Ann Abate
“Children are still in the process of developing concepts of self-
image and beauty and ugliness and so forth. . . . They’re in a
formative phase, and I don’t think it’s valuable to children to

40. push aesthetic surgery in their face” (qtd in Friedman, par 21).
Debbie Then, a child psychologist, agrees, commenting that this
phenomenon can be especially damaging for young girls given
the
added pressures that they experience about appearance: “There
is
a concern that if we focus the attention of young children on
this
topic, we will encourage very young girls to start obsessing
about
their looks at an even earlier age than they already do”
(Friedman,
par 24).
The illustration that accompanies the opening remark in My
Beautiful Mommy is equally problematic, for it reinforces long-
held stereotypes of cosmetic surgery as the realm of the white
and wealthy: the image shows the young Caucasian girl walking
hand-in-hand with her equally fair-skinned mother on a palm
tree–lined street with perfectly manicured landscaping. In the
background is a seemingly new, pristine, and gleaming white
high-
rise building, presumably the locale of Dr. Michael’s office.
Images
of upper-middle-class wealth and privilege form the backdrop
for
this passage. On the page where the mother and daughter return
home from the consultation, a large, silver SUV is parked in the
driveway and a spacious, modern suburban home—designed in
the style that is sometimes pejoratively called a “McMansion”
or a
“Garage Mahal”—can be seen across the street.
The second page of My Beautiful Mommy depicts the mother
sitting across from the cosmetic surgeon’s desk; her daughter
stands beside her, leaning on the chair. In an image that conveys

41. the prowess of scientific knowledge and the power conferred on
male medical authority, no fewer than eight diplomas tile the
wall
behind the plastic surgeon. Meanwhile, his certificate from the
American Board of Plastic Surgery is prominently displayed on
an
ornate wood easel atop his desk.
The visual representation of Dr. Michael furthers the asso-
ciation of cosmetic surgery not with the correction of physical
problems but with the creation of perfect bodies: with his small
head, almost comically broad chest and huge pectoral muscles,
Dr. Michael looks like a superhero. Adding to this vision of
vanity,
not one but two portraits of a young girl winning a beauty
pageant
appear in frames on the wall directly above the mother’s head.
Plastic Makes Perfect 725
Finally, the conversation that Dr. Michael has with the mother
forms a final element of unease. The speech bubble above the
plastic surgeon’s head offers the following cartoonish render-
ing of this serious conversation: “Blah, Blah, Blah, Tummy,
Blah,
Blah, Blah, Nose.” While this dialogue is perhaps meant to
reflect
a child’s experience of a grown-up conversation—glossing over
words that she does not understand and perking up at terms that
she recognizes—its vacuous content and flippant tone
minimizes
the seriousness of cosmetic surgery.
On the opposing page, the surgeon’s assistant takes the

42. “before” photos of the mother in what the child narrator
describes
as “a funny gown.” Seeing the mother standing before a full-
length mirror—with her slim waist, long legs and proportional
bosom—one wonders what surgical procedures are needed. As
Kathy Davis has noted about one of the diagnostic peculiarity of
plastic surgery, “In most medical specialties, patients don’t
know
what their problem is, and leave it to the specialist to figure out.
Not so with cosmetic surgery. Here, it is the patient who knows
what’s wrong and the surgeon who often has a hard time seeing
it” (2). Indeed, throughout her experience interviewing cosmetic
surgery candidates in The Netherlands, Davis found: “Not only
did I rarely see what the applicants were coming in to have
done,
but once I knew what the problem was, I found myself feeling
astounded that anyone could be willing to undergo such drastic
measures for what seemed to me such a minor imperfection”
(72).
For some men and women, this personal discomfort becomes
a type of pathological fixation, a condition known as Body
Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). As Victoria Pitts-Taylor has
written,
BDD is defined as “a mental disorder characterized by a per-
son’s obsession about a slight or imagined flaw in his or her
appearance to the point of clinically significant distress or dys-
function” (2). Individuals who are diagnosed with BDD are not
candidates for cosmetic surgery and, in an effort to help sur-
geons identify those who suffer from it, the American Society
for
Aesthetic Plastic Surgery developed guidelines during the 1990s
for how much cosmetic surgery is too much for an individual.
Not
surprisingly, the list of acceptable procedures is rather lengthy,
“establishing a regimen over one’s adult lifetime that, if one

43. took
the advice to its maximum, would amount to approximately fif-
teen surgical procedures, along with numerous laser treatments
726 Michelle Ann Abate
and dozens of injections, sustained over a span of forty to fifty
years” (Pitts-Taylor 29). In the words of Pitts-Taylor once
again,
“Generally, they see women who get cosmetic surgeries, even
most
that get multiple procedures, as people who understand the
social
pressures surrounding youth and beauty and who want to
improve
or maintain their good looks and their self-esteem” (116).
While it is unclear whether the mother in My Beautiful Mommy
suffers from Body Dysmorphic Disorder—as readers do not
know
if she has had cosmetic surgery before and are also unaware
how
much she fixates on her body image—many will likely agree
that
her perceived flaws are just that: merely perceived.
The mother’s justification for wanting the mommy makeover
only enhances this view. As Anthony Elliott, Sander Gilman,
and
Elizabeth Haiken have all written, plastic surgery has
historically
been viewed in a negative light. Women who have had face
lifts,
tummy tucks, and breast augmentations are commonly seen as

44. victims of a patriarchal Western beauty system that imposes
strict,
limited, and even oppressive standards about how the female
body
should look. Deborah Sullivan aptly summarizes this
perspective
in a comment from a recent book: “cosmetic surgery inscribes
our
gendered beliefs about appearance, physical fitness, and age in
our flesh. It personifies the social, psychological, and economic
value we place on an attractive appearance, regardless of
gender.
. . . It incarnates the image-obsessed consumerism and compet-
itive free-market economy of the late twentieth century” (x).
Women who succumb to societal pressures about their
appearance
by going under the knife are seen as suffering everything from
narcissistic vanity and patriarchal brainwashing to pathological
ill-
ness and even a masochistic longing for self-mutilation. Indeed,
women’s desire for cosmetic surgery is often viewed, especially
by
feminist critics, as little more than an outward manifestation of
“internalized oppression” (Pitts-Taylor 9).
The popularization of cosmetic surgery during the past few
decades—combined with postmodern views about the
malleability
of the body and personal identity—has challenged this
viewpoint.
Rather than viewing women as “brain-washed victims of media
hype” or “cultural dupes” of the patriarchal beauty culture, psy-
chologists, sociologists, and even feminists have sought to
“explore
how women actually experience and negotiate their bodies in
the context of many promises and few options” (Davis 49). This

45. Plastic Makes Perfect 727
approach resists discounting or discrediting women’s desire to
have cosmetic surgery and instead strives to listen to their ratio-
nale, acknowledge their reasons and respect their choices.
Kathy
Davis has documented how, for many women who have elective
cosmetic procedures, the desire to have a tummy tuck, breast
lift, or liposuction does not arise from a longing to have the
perfect body and be model “beautiful,” but rather to correct a
long-disliked personal trait and become everyday “ordinary”
(12).
After conducting interviews with dozens of women who were
candidates for cosmetic procedures, she discovered the extreme
amount of psychological suffering that they had experienced:
self-consciousness over small breasts, embarrassment because
of a
crooked nose, and even self-loathing as a result of protruding
ears.
In an acute reversal of the language of victimization, after
decades
of having their self-image hampered by a certain disliked
physical
feature, they decided to be a victim no more. Ironically, many
of
these women drew on the language of feminist empowerment to
describe this decision, describing their cosmetic surgery as an
act
that finally allowed them to “take control” of their body and
“take
charge” of their life. In this way, as Davis notes, cosmetic
surgery is
reframed and reconfigured not as a symptom of pathology or the

46. product of patriarchal victimization, but “as a strategy for inter-
rupting the downward spiral of suffering which can accompany
a
woman’s problematic relationship to her body” (12).
This alternative way of viewing cosmetic surgery, however, is
neither this simple, nor one-sided. Even if we see tummy tucks
and
breast augmentations as a form of empowerment, this rationale
does not eradicate the problems associated with our contempo-
rary beauty culture. After all, a woman’s new, surgically
modified
body may liberate her from feelings of inadequacy, but it
creates
a standard by which other women are judged. As a result, as
Davis
notes, cosmetic surgery participates in the oppression of women
while it paradoxically helps them to escape it. For this reason,
cos-
metic surgery remains a site of profound cultural debate.
Deborah
A. Sullivan encapsulates this dilemma, writing: “Respect for the
right of competent adults to make decisions about their own
bod-
ies should not blind us to the larger cultural and social context
in
which personal choices occur” (5).
My Beautiful Mommy participates in the debates surrounding
cosmetic surgery while illuminating its many paradoxes,
problems,
728 Michelle Ann Abate

47. and contradictions. On the whole, the book presents the
mother’s
decision to have a mommy makeover as the result of personal
suffering and the decision to “take control” of her body. When
the young narrator asks her mother why she is having an opera-
tion to make “her tummy smaller,” she gives the following
reply:
“You see, as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn’t fit
into
my clothes anymore.” As the mother kneels down while
explaining
this rationale to her daughter, a thought bubble beside her
shows
her struggling to button her jeans. In an effort to convey both
the
physical frustration and psychological discomfort associated
with
this situation, her cheeks are puffed out, her eyes are crossed,
and
her knees are knocked. In language that echoes the sentiments
of
many women about cosmetic surgery, the mother matter-of-
factly
informs her daughter: “Dr. Michael is going to help fix that and
make me feel better ” (emphasis added).
In these and other passages, My Beautiful Mommy partici-
pates in the growing societal distinction of health versus
wellness.
Victoria Pitts-Taylor delineates the important semantic
difference
between these seemingly synonymous terms: “Whereas the sick
body was once the primary territory of medicine, appearance
and
beauty are now increasingly seen as occasions for medical con-
sumerism, and healthy bodies are regularly tuned up both inside

48. and out” (28). While health has traditionally been defined as the
absence of disease or sickness, wellness refers to a state of
satisfac-
tion, contentment, and happiness (both physical and psychologi-
cal) with a body that is more than simply free from pathogens.
“In
all, the trend toward lifestyle medicine has ‘massively
expanded’
the subjects of health care from sick bodies to the whole
popula-
tion” (Pitts-Taylor 28). Under the auspices of “wellness,”
women as
well as men “take more elective medicines, from those to
improve
our sex lives to those that limit menstruation, or help us sleep,
con-
centrate, relax, perform athletically, or look better” (Pitts-
Taylor
28). In addition, they diet, exercise, and even see
psychotherapists.
As a result of the ascendency of a wellness approach to living,
“The
body is no longer simply a dysfunctional object requiring
medical
intervention, but a commodity—not unlike ‘a car, a refrigerator,
a house—which can be continuously upgraded and modified in
accordance with new interests and greater resources.’ It can be
endlessly manipulated—reshaped, restyled, and reconstructed to
meet prevailing fashions and cultural values” (Davis 17).
Plastic Makes Perfect 729
The mother’s desire for cosmetic surgery in My Beautiful
Mommy can be located within discourses of wellness and not

49. simply
health. After all, her pre-surgical body is a medically healthy
one,
but one in which she does not experience personal, physical,
and
psychological wellness.
Akin to the ethically complex and morally complicated
arguments surrounding cosmetic surgery, its depiction in My
Beautiful Mommy is equally fraught. Although the mother does
ultimately frame her desire for a tummy tuck, liposuction, and
breast lift as a method to alleviate suffering and “take control”
of an unruly body, her initial explanation is far less noble.
“Why
are you going to look different?” the daughter innocently asks
about the aftermath of the cosmetic procedure. In what forms
the most oft-discussed and vehemently criticized passage in the
book, the mother gives the following response: “Not just
different
my dear—prettier!” Even more problematically, a thought
bubble
above the mother’s head shows her wearing an evening gown
and
the burly Dr. Michael placing a crown on her head. A sash
draped
across her body reads, “The Prettiest Mom.” This detail alters
the
overall message in My Beautiful Mommy about elective
aesthetic
procedures. As Linda Lowen laments, “instead of looking at
plastic surgery as part of the spectrum of self-improvement
inside
and out, it offers the ‘mommy wants to be prettier’ cliché” (par
7).
Julie Deardoff concurs, commenting on the implications of this
message to young readers:

50. Although many parents strive to teach their children that beauty
begins
from within, many do not and the book reflects that. Parents
who choose
plastic surgery for non-medical reasons are going to emphasize
the impor-
tance of physical appearance whether they have a book to read
to their
children or not. Kids ape everything we say and do; if you’re
unhappy
with how you look, chances are your kid will be questioning her
own
appearance too. (par 7)
Of course, societal pressures about beauty and looks are highly
gendered. Child psychiatrist Elizabeth Bergen, author of
Raising
Kids with Character , “worries that kids will think their own
body
parts must need ‘fixing’ too. The surgery on a nose, for exam-
ple, may ‘convey to the child that the child’s nose, which
always
seemed OK, might be perceived by Mommy or somebody as
unacceptable’” (qtd in Springen, par 14).
730 Michelle Ann Abate
Far from mere speculation, the number of young people
having cosmetic surgery is on the rise. According to Diana
Zuckerman, “In 2003, more than 223,000 cosmetic procedures
were performed on patients 18 years of age or younger, and
almost 39,000 were surgical procedures such as nose reshaping,
breast lifts, breast augmentation, liposuction, and tummy tucks”

51. (par 1). Especially among the upper- and upper-middle classes,
it is now not uncommon for parents to give their daughter a
breast augmentation, some liposuction, or an ear pinning as a
sixteenth birthday present. In Flesh Wounds, for example,
Virginia
Blum recalls being taken for a nose job when she was a
teenager:
“my mother considered it parentally irresponsible not to do
what
she could to make me more ‘marketable’” (9). The number of
young people having elective aesthetic procedures has increased
so much in recent years that a small but growing sub-genre of
nonfiction books has appeared to discuss the subject. Texts such
as Cosmetic Surgery for Teens: Choices and Consequences
(2003), Can
I Change the Way I Look?: A Teen’s Guide to the Health
Implications
of Cosmetic Surgery and Beyond (2005), and Magdalena
Alagna’s
Everything You Need to Know about the Dangers of Cosmetic
Surgery
(2002) weigh the pros and cons involved in getting cosmetic
surgery as well as the various procedures that are available, how
much they cost, and the medical risks associated with them.2
2To a lesser extent, cosmetic surgery has also been discussed in
works of fiction. Laura
and Tom McNeal’s novel Crooked (1999), for example, explores
the life of teenager Clara
Wilson. Coupled with troubles with friends, homework, and her
parent’s recent separation,
the young girl struggles with an additional hardship: as the title
of the young adult (YA)
novel implies, she has a crooked nose. The opening paragraph
of the novel demonstrates
the extent to which the self-conscious young girl fixates on this

52. trait. The language recalls
the discourse of suffering that Kathy Davis discusses in
Reshaping the Female Body:
Before everything stopped being normal, the thing that Clara
Wilson worried most
about was her nose. It wasn’t straight. The bridge began in a
good downwardly ver-
tical line, and the it just swooped off to the left. It was crooked
even in her baby
pictures. It look as if someone—a doctor? A nurse? God in a
mean mood?—had laid
a finger at the side of her nose and pushed the straightness out
of it. The problem
was, a crooked nose could make a whole face look crooked.
Even when she was in a
good mood and smiling, some little part of Clara was observing
herself. She smiled a
crooked smile. She grinned a crooked grin. She walked a
crooked mile.
Her best friend, Gerri, whose nose was perfect, said Clara’s
nose wasn’t that
bad, but if it bothered her that much, why didn’t she just get a
nose job and forget
about it? (McNeal and McNeal 1; italics in original)
Plastic Makes Perfect 731
If readers feel unease with the mother’s reason for visiting a
cosmetic surgeon, then they are likely to experience even more
discomfort with how the book helps the young girl cope with
the
procedures and their disruption to her family life. As the narra-

53. tor leaves Dr. Michael’s office with her mother, she notes, “A
nice
lady in the office gave me two lollipops and a cookie.” The use
of
not simply food but sugary sweets to console the child
continues
throughout the remainder of the story. On the day of her
mother’s
surgery, the youngster’s grandmother takes her—and her alone,
her brother is not present—for a double-scoop ice cream cone.
Finally, on the closing page, after the mother’s bandages have
been removed, she is rewarded with candy once again: “Mommy
took out two big lollipops shaped like butterflies. Mommy gave
me
the pink one, which is my favorite color.”
The “mommy makeover” is not the only type of cosmetic
surgery that the mother in Salzhauer’s book receives; she also
has
rhinoplasty, or a nose job. As Elizabeth Haiken, Virginia Blum,
and
Sander Gilman have all written, this procedure is one of the his-
torically oldest but also most culturally fraught. In Making the
Body
Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, Sander
Gilman dis-
cusses the longstanding practice of cosmetic surgery being used
to alter the appearance of members of racial and ethnic minor-
ity groups and allow them to “pass” into white American
culture.
In the words of Haiken, “Race- and ethnicity-based surgery has
always focused on the most identifiable, and most caricatured
fea-
tures: for Jews, noses; for Asians, eyes; for African Americans,
noses
and lips” (176). In the 1920s, for instance, Fanny Brice became

54. famous for having a nose job to alter her “Jewish” appearance
(Haiken 1–2).
Such practices continue to this day. Kathy Davis recounts
attending a conference in the early 1990s where a cosmetic sur-
geon gave a lecture about successful techniques for making the
eyes of Asian women appear Western (2). Finally, many sociol-
ogists, psychologists, and cultural commentators have discussed
entertainer Michael Jackson as “only one among hundreds of
thousands of Americans who have attempted, through plastic
Clara ultimately decides not to get a nose job, realizing that in
light of life’s myriad other
difficulties her crooked nose is not really a problem. Crooked
was the recipient of the
California Book Award in Juvenile Literature.
732 Michelle Ann Abate
surgery, to minimize or eradicate physical signs of race or
ethnic-
ity that they believe mark them as ‘other’ (which in this context
has always meant ‘other’ than white)” (Haiken 175–176). The
use
of cosmetic surgery to eliminate physical markers of ethnicity
has
become so pervasive that Gilman devotes an entire chapter to
just
what he calls “the racial nose.”
The mother in My Beautiful Mommy is presented with a vis-
age that could be placed in dialogue with this phenomenon. In
the illustrations by Guiza, she possesses a noticeable bump and
downward-sloping hook to her nose, traits that Gilman, Blum,

55. and Haiken have all written are historically coded as markers
for Jewishness. Even if the mother in My Beautiful Mommy is
not
trying to eradicate a real or imagined sign of ethnicity through
rhinoplasty, she is nonetheless perpetuating homogenized
notions
of what it means to be attractive. In the words of Haiken, “by
recognizing ‘ugliness,’ diagnosing inferiority complexes, and
pre-
scribing surgery, plastic surgeons reproduced and replicated a
definition of beauty that clearly derived from and relied on
Caucasian, even Anglo-Saxon, traditions and standards” (10).
The conclusion to My Beautiful Mommy amplifies this theme.
“One afternoon, Mommy came home from her appointment with
Dr. Michael—and all of her bandages were off. She was
smiling.
She looked different. ‘Your cocoon fell off,’ I said. ‘Yes, I feel
much better,’ Mommy answered.” The illustration that accompa-
nies these remarks nearly replicates the one that appears on the
book’s cover. The mother is shown in a full-length pose against
a
fuchsia background. She is smiling and her arms are open and
extended up in a “Ta-dah!” type gesture. As on the cover, the
mother is wearing a light pink half-shirt and darker pink form-
fitting and hip-hugging pants. Indeed, as Catherine Price has
written, although slim and shapely before, she now possesses
“the
sort of waist-to-hip ratio that’s the stuff of Barbie’s dreams”
(par 1).
Finally, in a detail that presents surgical makeovers as not
simply a
medical marvel but something nothing less than magical,
streams
of sparkly fairy dust, bright laser beams, cartoon stars, and rays
of

56. sunlight emanate from her body.
The following page shifts the perspective of the reader’s gaze
to show the daughter’s reaction. Amazed and astounded, the
youth asserts: “Mommy, your eyes are sparkling like diamonds.
You’re the most beautiful butterfly in the whole world.” A huge
Plastic Makes Perfect 733
smile adorns the daughter’s face, her eyes are open wide in
amaze-
ment, and her hands are clasped in adoration. A thought bubble
beside the young girl’s head depicts the mother as a beautiful,
col-
orful butterfly. On the closing page, the pair is cuddled on the
couch, the girl’s head lying on her mother’s lap. Brightly
colored
butterflies dot the page and the caption reads: “We snuggled on
the sofa and Mommy hugged me tight. I fell asleep dreaming of
butterflies.”
Nip/Tuck Truth
In spite of the Salzhauer’s oft-stated commitment to “quality
informational books to communicate effectively with children”
(“About”), My Beautiful Mommy does not present an entirely
accu-
rate, honest, or even realistic portrait of cosmetic surgery. His
narrative ignores important aspects of abdominoplasty, liposuc-
tion, breast augmentation, and rhinoplasty while it minimizes or
glosses over others. The most significant and perhaps most
notice-
able omission is the level of pain and discomfort that patients
experience. Near the middle of Salzhauer’s picture book, the

57. young girl asks her mother about her rhinoplasty, “Mommy is it
going to hurt?” to which she gives the following decorous reply:
“Maybe a little . . . but only for a few days.” The truth is that
nose
jobs are tremendously painful, as surgeons often need to break
the
nasal bone and/or chisel it down. In addition, many rhinoplas-
ties necessitate having skin grafted, removed, or reconstructed.
Several patients quoted on an informational message board for
those contemplating rhinoplasty likened their nose job to being
punched in the face (“Making” par 5). They describe the
tremen-
dous pain that they experienced whenever they moved their face
and which left them nearly unable to lie down, chew, and, at
times,
even talk. In addition, nose jobs involve extensive facial
bruising
and swelling, often with double black eyes and blood oozing
from
the nasal cavity—symptoms which can persist for several weeks
or
even a month (“Making,” par 5).
Abdominoplasty and liposuction are even more debilitating.
In spite of its playful name, a tummy tuck is major abdominal
surgery. First, two large incisions are made in the skin, from
hip bone to hip bone, one above the belly-button and one
734 Michelle Ann Abate
below it. Then, the large crescent-shaped piece of flesh that is
located between the two cuts is removed. Afterward, the
muscles
are realigned and the belly button—which has been surgically

58. isolated—is reattached and repositioned. The wound is then
sutured closed. Recovery time is lengthy: the procedure requires
at least an overnight stay at the hospital, one week with surgical
drains in the wound, around two weeks before the stitches can
be removed, and roughly six weeks until the patient is able to
get around without assistance or significant discomfort
(“Tummy
Tuck Recovery,” par 6).
The healing period for liposuction varies, depending on the
size of the area targeted. However, as Dr. Jim Greene noted on
an open-access informational website, some medical
benchmarks
exist: “For the first 3 to 14 days following the liposuction
surgery
you can expect some pain. This pain can range from mild all
the way up to severe depending on the technique that was used
during the procedure as well as the type of liposuction proce-
dure that was performed” (Greene, par 2). He continues: “For
the first 2 weeks all the way to more than 2 months you can
expect swelling associated with your liposuction procedure. . . .
Furthermore along with this swelling you will also need to
expect
some bruising for at least the first 2 weeks” (Greene, par 3).
Loss of sensation and drainage of fluid from the incision are
also
common side effects. “Numbness in the treatment area will be
limited to the actual skin and can last several weeks after hav-
ing undergone the liposuction procedure” (Greene, par 4). To
help combat all of these symptoms—pain, swelling, numbness,
and fluid—liposuction patients don a compression garment. The
item is worn for at least the first few weeks after surgery and, in
the days following the procedure, it must be changed almost
daily
(Greene, par 5).

59. The presentation of the mother’s post-surgery appearance,
her experience with pain, and the time needed for recovery in
My
Beautiful Mommy is markedly different. When the mother
comes
home from the hospital, she is shown with a thin bandage across
the bridge of her nose. In reality, most individuals receiving
rhino-
plasty have several bandages: one across the bridge of the nose,
one running down the length of it, and one extending beneath
the nostrils. For at least the first few days, these items are often
bloodied. Not so with Salzhauer’s mommy. Not only does her
Plastic Makes Perfect 735
face show no sign of bruising, blood, or swelling, but her
solitary
bandage is pristinely white.
Salzhauer’s presentation of the mother’s liposuction and
tummy tuck is even more unrealistic, and misleading. As Karen
Springen notes, the mother has only a “demure” dressing around
her waist, not the compression garment that, because of oozing
fluid, needs to be changed every few days (par 7). In addition,
as
Sandra G. Boodman humorously observes, “she’s up and around
a few days after her tummy tuck, not lying in bed in a haze of
pain
waiting for her next Percocet” (HE 05). Indeed, on her first day
home from the hospital, the girl narrator says of her mother:
“She
was sitting up in bed and eating chicken soup.” Her most
serious
symptom is that “She looked sleepy.” The next day, the mother

60. is
out of bed. The young girl comes home to find her mom dressed
and downstairs “sitting in her chair watching television.” On the
following morning—which, in the timeline created by the book,
is only four days after the surgery—she has returned to almost
her normal routine. “The next day, Mommy was up in the
kitchen
helping Daddy make breakfast. I ran over and gave Mommy the
biggest hug in the world. I passed her the milk because Daddy
told me she couldn’t lift heavy things.”
Together with not accurately presenting surgical recovery, My
Beautiful Mommy also does not truthfully present the many
risks,
dangers, and side effects inherent with cosmetic procedures.
The
book ends with the mother’s cosmetic procedures a seeming
suc-
cess. The young narrator happily reports, “Each day over the
next week I could see that Mommy was feeling better and bet-
ter.” However, for some cosmetic surgery patients, this is not
the
case, as they experience an array of complications. “Following a
liposuction, the skin can develop a corrugated, uneven texture
or dents so that the recipient looks worse than she did before
the surgery” (Davis 28). Breast augmentations carry perhaps the
most numerous as well as serious side-effects. In the words of
Davis:
Health experts estimate that the chance of side effects is
between thirty and
fifty percent, some of which are very serious. The least
dramatic and most
common side effects include decreased sensitivity of the
nipples, painful
swelling or congestion of the breasts, hardening of the breasts

61. which makes
it difficult to lie down comfortably or to raise the arms without
the implants
shifting position, or asymmetrical breasts. (Davis 27–28)
736 Michelle Ann Abate
There are more dire problems, however. Among the most debili-
tating is what is known as “encapsulation, whereby the body
reacts
to the presence of foreign matter by developing an enclosing
cap-
sule of fibrous tissue around the implant. This happens in nearly
thirty-five percent of the cases. The implant becomes door-knob
shaped, rock hard, and painful” (Davis 28). As Davis goes on
to note, in certain cases, encapsulation can be corrected via a
non-invasive procedure: “a firm massage on the part of the sur-
geon (euphemistically called ‘fluffing them up’) will break up
the tissue—at great pain to the patient” (28). If this tactic fails,
however, “the implants have to be removed—a formidable
proce-
dure sometimes requiring that the hardened implants be literally
chiseled from the patient’s chest wall” (Davis 28).
Another common risk with breast implants, of course, is leak-
age and ruptures. Typically called a “gel bleed” by surgeons,
the
presence of silicone in the human body “can impair a woman’s
immune system permanently, leading to arthritis, lupus, con-
nective tissue disease, respiratory problems, or brain damage”
(Davis 28). Patients who experience no medical side effects may
still experience aesthetic ones. Breast augmentations by a
surgeon
who is unskilled or simply inexperienced “are disfiguring. They

62. leave the recipient with unsightly scars instead of a bigger chest
size” (Davis 28). Finally, even successful cosmetic surgical
proce-
dures are not permanent solutions. “Cosmetic operations often
have to be redone. While facelifts fall and have to be repeated
every five years, silicone breast implants need to be replaced
after
fifteen years. Fat which has been removed from the thighs or
buttocks may return, requiring another liposuction, or the skin
may bag and have to be cut and redraped” (Davis 28). Along
with omitting many of the many possible complications associ-
ated with cosmetic procedures in My Beautiful Mommy,
Salzhauer
does not even hint that she will need to undergo surgery again
in the future, likely sometime when the young narrator is in
high school. In this way, the “mommy makeover” may help the
narrator’s mother “feel better,” but this fix is only temporary.
Given the numerous and often serious side effects associ-
ated with the procedures involved in a mommy makeover,
figures
like Natasha Singer have questioned the ethics of doctors “pack-
aging multiple procedures under a cutesy nickname” (par 23).
This tactic is an effective marketing strategy, but it undercuts
the
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seriousness of cosmetic surgery, directs attention away from its
many risks, and obfuscates the fact that it is an invasive medical
procedure.
∗ ∗ ∗
My Beautiful Mommy may be the first picture book to discuss

63. cosmetic surgery, but it is not the only one to address body dif-
ference. Several recent narratives for young readers explore the
issues of appearance and even self-fashioned modification.
Mommy
Has a Tattoo (2006), written and illustrated by Phil Padwe, for
example, examines these subjects in the context of permanent
physical adornments. The narrative tells the story of boy named
James who is afraid of a new neighbor because of his many, vis-
ible tattoos. “He had big tattoos all over his arms . . . and even
one on his neck!” James is so frightened by the tattooed new
neighbor’s appearance that he avoids talking to, waving back at,
or even being outside when he is around. This situation contin-
ues until his older sister tells James that he need not be afraid,
for their mother also has a tattoo. The young boy is shocked
and initially refuses to believe her. Their bickering (“Yes, she
does!,” “No, she doesn’t!”) eventually leads the duo outside to
ask Mommy herself. When they find her, she is in the yard talk-
ing to the new tattooed neighbor. James ducks into the bushes
so
that the scary man doesn’t see him, but the hiding place allows
him to closely observe the man’s tattoos for the first time, and
he is struck by how beautiful and colorful they are: “He saw
clouds . . . and purple sky . . .” When James leans over to try
to get a better look, he loses his balance and tumbles out of
the bushes. The accident affords him the opportunity to be offi-
cially introduced to the tattoo man. Of course, once James
begins
talking with him, he realizes that neither he nor his tattoos are
frightening. This realization is further reinforced when the
young
boy’s mother shows him her own tattoo: a pink and lavender
bluebird on the small of her back. James asks if he can touch
it and when he does, his ticklish mother giggles, which causes
James himself to laugh, and furthers demonstrates that tattoos
are

64. not fearful. The book ends with the tattooed neighbor—who is
humorously named “Mr. Too”—giving James a variety of
tempo-
rary stick-on tattoos, which the young boy happily wears. In the
About the Author section at the back of the book, Phil Padwe
738 Michelle Ann Abate
asserts that he wrote the book out a desire for “Teaching Tattoo
Tolerance.”
Joe O’Connor’s Where Did Daddy’s Hair Go? (2004) can also
be grouped in this category. While the picture book does not
address the subject of a parent who has voluntarily modified
their appearance—by having a cosmetic surgery or getting a
tattoo—it does address the issue of physical appearance and,
more importantly, bodily difference. The text tells the story of
elementary-aged Jeremiah, whose life is changed when a man at
a baseball game shouts at his Dad, “HEY BALDY—SIT
DOWN!”
The comment—which his father takes in stride, joking with the
man “How did you know my name?”—causes the young boy to
notice his father’s lack of hair for the first time. Soon, it is all
he can think about. Jeremiah tries to picture himself without
hair
and is alarmed by the image. When the young boy overhears his
father comment on the phone “Ever since I lost my hair . . .” a
few
days later, he is inspired to search for his father’s “lost” hair.
His
quest takes him on a scavenger hunt both inside and outside of
the
house; Jeremiah looks for his father’s missing locks in the
closets,

65. cupboards, garage, drawers, bathtub, yard, and even toilet bowl.
At one point, the young boy tries to imagine what his father
might
look like if he finds his missing hair. Jeremiah pictures him
with
everything from long feathered locks to a bushy perm and won-
ders, somewhat nervously, “Would Daddy be a different
person?”
Jeremiah finally talks with his father about all of his questions
concerning balding, asking him whether he was born without
hair,
whether it hurt when his hair fell out, if his scalp bled, and if
he cried when he started losing his hair. The pictures, drawn by
award-winning cartoonist Henry Payne, aptly illustrate a child’s
fears: one shows his father holding his head in agony; another
pictures him with “Ouch-Aids” crisscrossing his bald scalp; and
a
third presents him sitting in a chair sobbing uncontrollably and
the room already filled up to his knees with the resultant water.
Jeremiah’s dad answers each of queries calmly but honestly,
assur-
ing him that going bald didn’t hurt, it didn’t make his scalp
bleed,
and while it was unsettling, it wasn’t emotionally devastating:
“I was
a little upset, but I realized having hair doesn’t matter. It’s who
you
are on the inside that counts.”
This message is reinforced the following day when Jeremiah
and his family take a trip to the beach and the young boy sees
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