Over the weekend, I belatedly watched Netflix’s Pamela Anderson documentary, in which the Baywatch star speaks about having a boob job in the 1990s. It meant, Anderson explained, that she was seen as fair game - people felt entitled to ask her about her breasts constantly, making judgements and endless jokes at her expense.
I don’t think it’s difficult to draw a line from the sexist treatment of women like Anderson to those in the public eye today — such as Kylie Jenner, who has just admitted to having had a breast augmentation when she was 19. In an episode of The Kardashians, Jenner said that she didn’t want her five-year-old daughter, Stormi, to feel the same pressure.
“I would be heartbroken if she wanted to get her body done at 19,” she said. “I wish I could be her and just do it all differently because I wouldn’t touch anything.”
Naturally, given our obsession over what women choose to do with their own bodies, there has been a backlash. Jenner has been accused of lying and setting unrealistic beauty standards that normal women could never achieve without augmentation. Others have noted that it’s very convenient of her to have suddenly had this realisation, just as the desired female silhouette is becoming thinner again (thanks Ozempic).
Come on. Do we really believe that one young woman is responsible for an entire beauty industry that runs off making women and girls feel insecure about their looks? Or for the social media age, in which young people feel pressure to have the perfect Insta-face? It’s too simplistic to criticise a 25-year-old for promoting unachievable beauty standards, without considering that she, too, might be labouring under them.
Let’s face it, few women feel as much like public property as the Kardashian and Jenner sisters. For approaching two decades, their bodies have controlled the conversation around what a woman should look like. Their curves, lips, hair and contouring have dictated modern beauty ideals and allowed them to launch successful brands: from Skim’s shapewear to Lemme vitamins and Good American jeans.
Kylie’s contribution was her make-up line and popular lip kits — and in 2015, when she launched them, she denied having had lip fillers, something she later performed a U-turn on. So, you can see why those who have spent money on her products might feel as though they’ve been told some very plump porky pies.
But it’s the Faustian bargain entered into by women who become famous for how they look: you’re put on a pedestal, you make money from it, but your appearance will always be scrutinised and your story held up to the light to check for holes. Pamela Anderson experienced it, too — the entitlement we felt over her body because she’d carved a career using it, and the destructive way we picked her apart for having done so. Have we learnt nothing since then?
Personally, I think both things can be true: that Jenner herself was a victim of the sort of sky-high beauty standards that have been asked of women for decades, while — along with her sisters — raising the bar for a new generation. She has helped to set new ideals that even the Kardashians and Jenners themselves are struggling to keep up with (her older sister, Khloe, overheard their mum, Kris Jenner, saying that her daughter needed a nose job when she was just nine-years-old).
Isn’t that actually quite sad? And isn’t the idea that Jenner regrets going under the knife as a teenager a little bit heartbreaking? Isn’t it a good thing that she’s admitted that? I think a lot of parents, with young daughters just like her, will be glad she's said this in public at last.
