Mutton cut up as lamb : mothers, daughters and cosmetic surgery

Cosmetic surgery is not merely a medical discipline, nor a set of surgical techniques exercised on human bodies. Rather, it is a series of interlocking practices and discourses comprising medical and surgical techniques as well as many media forms such as academic analyses, advertisements, autobiographies, feminist writing, histories, medical literature, popular magazines, and regulatory/legal texts. It is impossible to attempt a cultural analysis of cosmetic surgery without paying close attention to the media and cultural products that comment upon and also produce it.