In recent weeks, we have seen multiple discussions about the excessive cosmetic procedures involving singer Anitta and Lauren Sánchez—recently married to Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world—yet very few got to the heart of the matter.

Most reduced the debate to a lack of self-love and female rivalry. Within feminist studies, it is nothing new for women to disagree and criticize other women’s approaches. This does not reflect hatred between women but rather an effort to break away from the essentialist view of “woman” and place the debate within theoretical and political grounds.

Obviously, we cannot gratuitously attack other women, spread lies, or falsely accuse them of crimes; such behaviors must be criticized and punished. But being alarmed by a radical change in a public woman’s face due to excesses is not hatred—it is a warning about an industry that profits millions by imposing unrealistic standards.

Audre Lorde already taught us that the personal is political, so, as writer and sex education expert Caroline Arcari rightly stated: “It is possible that Anitta can be both things at once: affected by a cruel beauty standard and an active promoter of that same standard, especially when she turns her own body into a storefront for profit.”

“The depersonalization of women’s faces, all molded to the same standard, pushes us toward a single, artificial aesthetic. There is no uniqueness. We live in a time when the female face must constantly be corrected, aligned, ‘lifted,’ as if it were a natural flaw. Under the fantasy of empowerment, the woman’s body increasingly loses its space of expression, becoming a field of performance, maintenance, and surveillance. This is not freedom. It is another form of control,” Arcari concludes.

It is irresponsible to treat the issue merely as an individual choice, ignoring that Brazil leads the world in plastic surgeries and the numerous studies showing how aesthetic pressure is mentally harming young women. Reducing the debate to “more love, please,” or “women are divided,” once again blames women and fuels even more female rivalry.

If most of the critics are women, it is because they are the main targets of these standards—they are the ones forbidden from aging in peace. This week, a businesswoman died during a liposuction procedure at a clinic in São Paulo’s east zone, and we should be talking more about this. Not to mention women from less privileged classes, the biggest victims of unqualified professionals.

Additionally, many of the women who spoke out adopted a narrative of victimhood. Can women with access and privilege not be criticized for falsely using the discourse of empowerment? In Refusing to Be a Victim, bell hooks offers an important reflection.

“In 1984, I encouraged women engaged in the feminist movement to avoid the cloak of victimization in our quest to draw public attention to the need to end sexism, sexual exploitation, and oppression. Criticizing a sisterhood split founded on shared victimhood, I encouraged women to unite on the basis of political solidarity. It seemed ironic to me that the white women who spoke most about being victims, as I wrote at the time, ‘were the most privileged and had more power than the vast majority of women in our society.’ And if sharing victimhood was the reason to be a feminist, then women who were empowered, who were not victims, would not embrace feminism. My repudiation of victim identity arose from my awareness of how thinking of someone as a victim could be paralyzing.”

It was precisely the most privileged women who victimized themselves the most without reflecting on the patriarchal capitalist structure, embracing a victim identity that does not seek to transcend oppression, as if our only choice were to submit to it.

This is not about blaming those who undergo procedures but about questioning those who normalize their excesses and the structure that, in Beauvoir’s words, wants to fix us into the “eternal feminine.” I recommend, in addition to Arcari, the work of feminists Valeska Zanello and Yasmin Morais, who question and foster an honest debate.

Feminism is a social and political movement, and this includes questioning women’s positions when they contribute to oppression. A gathering of women without connecting it to the social context is not feminism; it is a “girls’ club” for privileged women.

Originally published in  Folha de S. Paulo.

Content translated with the assistance of AI.