Consumo e gênero: corpo e cirurgias estéticas na construção da identidade das mulheres brasileiras na sociedade de consumo

Abstract

In the contemporary society, the body, specially the feminine body, emerged as the most beautiful object, being an expression of youth, beauty and sexuality. It is necessary to discuss this topic from a political issue about citizenship, fundamental rights and gender because, apparently, the woman shows her desires in a free and autonomous way. However, we must also take into consideration the existence of a major process which is based on a political, economical and patriarcal system that demands an aesthetic standard and camouflages the violation of fundamental rights and the physical, psychical and sexual integrity of women. The objective of the present study is to make the transition from a macroscopic analysis to a micro perspective of the consumer society. Through this passage from macro to micro, it will be possible to have a closer look to the phenomenon, a more elaborated investigation of the relations waged between consumption, gender and beauty. The study, is structered on the basis of the dialetic method and was divided in two lines that comunicate with each other in: a sociological and an anthropological lines. That way, we will discuss the theories of sociological tradition which try to understand the social process of formation and consolidation of consumer society. It is a macro analysis that does not see the individuals inside this system. Later, it will be given a special focus on the anthropological theories, which analysis is more restrict and it will be utilized the antropology of consumption and body to understand how the individuals live inside the web of communication. Finally, we will step into the object of this research that is the plastic surgery of aesthetic nature, which will be analysed from these two perspectives, trying not to eliminate the tension between structure and action. The field search was composed by a closed survey and by a participant observation performed in an office of plastic surgery, through which it was possible to group quantitative data about the theme, at the same time that we seeked to know the subjectivity which is present in the talk of the women. In this context, it will be investigated the social and subjective senses of the transformations of feminine body by the plastic surgery to understand the perception of the women about their bodies, giving to them the role of an active subject in the formation of their identities.