yeah, it's so against feminists principles to speak out against plastic surgery for women that is rooted in this sick concept of what a woman's body should look like.  and it's really the same thing to be against women having surgery, with it's many risks and pain and financial cost, all in the name of being perfect for a man - and fighting to keep a woman's right to abortion and reproductive health.

p.s.  i love your confusion over what the last line actually means.  'cos the writer was really saying that the way to happiness is getting a man.  no, the writer wasn't saying that if you have a boyfriend who expects you to undergo surgery to better fit his ideal of a woman you might want to get a different boyfriend vs. getting surgery.

truth?  is truth unchanging law?  we both have truths, are mine the same as yours?

I get what you're saying, and I absolutely agree that woman are, as you wrote, competent moral agents whose decisions are entirely theirs to make.

I agree with betty  brown regarding the message that might have been intended by 'you might need a new boyfriend' - I thought of it more like trying to encourage women to make sure they were happy with any surgery, rather than being pushed into it by a guy. If you're fine with yourself, but your boyfriend wants you surgically enhanced, ditch him, I wouldn't have added the part about finding a new boyfriend, necessarily, as being single and being in a relationship are both great, as long as you're happy with that.

Sorry, I'm totally falling over tired right now! Please excuse incoherence.

Through all of the history of feminism and feminist theory, not just honoring, but looking at the choices we make as women critically -- particularly in terms of who they truly benefit, what they may or may not be influenced by -- has loomed large.  Most feminist theory has never boiled down to "If women want it, it's all good, so don't go asking questions."

I think, Fem87, if you take a look at Leonore Tiefer's work, you'd be hard-pressed to find it counter to most feminisms.  The aim of what she has been doing with this project, is to examine things like this to help women suss out who appears to be primarily benefitting from the medicalization of sex (namely, pharmaceutical companies and surgeons, as well as the patriarchal status quo).  One big reason to do that is that marketing and advertising for this stuff has far outweighed critical and bonafide health-based and feminist analysis.  Working to provide more accurate information for women to base their decisions on, and some extra analysis, is something done in the interest of helping women to assure that whatever choice they make in this regard, it's an informed one, and one informed by something other than a surgeon's desire for another condo, or by ignorance about our own bodies.  Someone's motivation for critique matters in my book, particularly when we're determining if something is feminist or counter to feminism, and the kind of motivation Tiefer has is in direct alignment with the whole history of feminist women's health.

As well, if you look at the full ACOG statement on cosmetic genital surgery, I think it'll also be obvious why this is an issue within the interest of a reproductive health organization.  

Put it this way, since you're bringing up an abortion comparison: if abortion providers marketed abortion not as the termination of a pregnancy, but as a procedure which could also fix depression, improve unhappy relationships, and repair poor body image for everyone who had one, I think (I hope!) we'd expect or demand some analysis and critique of that.  Cosmetic genital surgery is rarely billed/advertised plainly as a way to physically alter or remove genital tissue: often the marketing makes all kinds of promises that don't bear out, haven't been studied or are patently misleading, as well as so often preying on women's lack of understanding about their own genitals.  And as the ACOG statement makes clear,one of their primary concerns is the total lack of published, peer-reviewed study on both the safety and efficacy of these procedures.

Asking questions and taking a critical look at something in the interest of women, women's health, and helping women to keep from being hoodwinked by someone who just wants their cash isn't stigmatizing anything, in my book, and is strongly feminist. By all means, feminisms vary, but this kind of thing really does have a long tradition in feminism.

I agree, the way Berman was quoted was clumsy, to be sure, but I think we can safely presume (especially knowing the work of the Berman sisters as a whole), that her intent in that statement was to express that when a partner disses your body, the problem isn't the body, but the partner.