STeMS Speaker Series | Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards

Cosmetic surgery was once associated with a one-size-fits-all approach, modifying patients to conform to a single standard of beauty. As this surgery has become more accessible worldwide, changing beauty trends have led to a proliferation of beauty standards for members of different racial groups. This research shows how surgeons generate and apply knowledge using racial categories and how this process is affected by transnational clinical and economic exchange. The talk draws on fieldwork conducted in the U.S. and Malaysia to show how surgeons act as gatekeepers to and producers of ideal, racially legible appearances. Surgeons not only measure and organize but also elaborate upon racial differences in a globalized field of medicine. Ultimately, I argue that cosmetic surgeons literally reshape race—both on patients’ bodies and the broader level of culture.

Alka V. Menon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yale University and author of Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards. She studies the relationship between medicine, technology, and society, with a focus on race and racism, using cases from cosmetic surgery to medical AI apps. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. She received her B.A. in the Biological Sciences from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University.