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Two Halloweens ago, after spending months among a community of newly emigrated Iranians, I decided to dress up as a modern Tehrani woman. My new friends—actual modern Tehrani women—served as my consultants. My costume required a mix of obvious elements and unexpected ones: a headscarf pushed back like Jackie Kennedy's, layers of makeup (the screaming vanity of Tehrani women and all that), a skintight black dress (Iranian women love pushing the limits of the Islamic Republic's rules), extra-tall Bumpits (big hair is a bit of cultural lunacy much like tight pants among European men. In Iran, a huge bulge under the headscarf is considered a major turn-on). Finally, my team of experts suggested a subtle but crucial detail to make my character a truly authentic upper-class Tehrani. Taking a last look at me, one of them said, "You need a Band-Aid across your nose."
"And I already have the nose," I said, pointing to my only purchased body part, dainty and upward-pointing since I was 18. I may be American, but I'm Persian too, I wanted to say. Of course I've had my nose done.
Walking around Tehran, one will see glamorous women in hijab and expensive glasses, "bandages of honor" prominently displayed across their noses, sometimes long after healing, unafraid of offending the authorities. The nose-job women of Tehran are nothing to marvel at anymore; they're the standard, and Western media love to watch them saunter about in all their brazen glory. In November 2008, Oprah ran a story on Iranian cosmetic surgery: "Women see the bandage as a status symbol. 'I had a friend who had a nose job, and she kept the bandage... after two years on her nose just to show everybody that she had nose job,' [a young woman from Iran] says." To many young Persian women, such displays make perfect sense, especially given the cultural focus on finding good husbands. The bandage signals that you come from a family who cares and provides for you—even if you don't need a nose job, having a family that can afford to give you one is preferable to having the genetics for a petite nose.
Iran has the highest rate of nose surgery in the world per capita. According to most estimates, Iranians get four times the amount of nose jobs that Americans do. This is staggering for an Islamic country, and according to a March 2013 story in the Guardian, it's not limited to the rich, as clothing sellers, office workers, university students, and even teenagers opt to spend their savings or go into debt for the procedure. Though cosmetic surgery has permeated the culture, the Islamic Republic has made only the slightest gestures of disapproval. Ayatollah Khomeini sanctioned rhinoplasty in the 1980s, referencing the Hadith: "God is beautiful and loves beauty." And yet, in June 2014, the BBC reported that a state-run television station, Tehran Channel, banned from its programming any actors or actresses who had undergone plastic surgery.
It was only after 1979—and the revolution that ousted the shah and brought in the Islamic Republic—that people considered Tehran the nose-job capital of the world. Why would this strange trend occur in an Islamic country? There's no question that Iranian culture influences the behavior of the people more than Islam does, and for centuries that culture has placed a deep focus on physical beauty in all its forms. Given that, one explanation seems to have caught on: Because the mandatory hijab leaves nothing but the small circle of the face as a canvas for beauty and self-expression, Iranian women have become obsessed with their faces. They want their features to be delicate, symmetrical, and European. Given many young women's willingness to go under the knife and into debt for beauty, nose jobs have become an Iranian rite of passage.
After several decades the trend has spread throughout the Iranian diaspora, who also value their Persianness and are influenced by the culture back home. For Persian women and some men, the operation is a marker not just of physical beauty but also of wealth and social priorities. It's not so much about vanity as about the desire to join a class of Iranians who look European, read American books, travel, and live Western lives. Ironically, removing the Persian bump, that distinctly Iranian hooked nose, contributes to one's sense of cultural identity. The standard for an Iranian face has changed, and while the operation alters a distinctly Middle Eastern part of the face, it is ultimately a very Iranian decision.
http://www.vice.com/read/shes-so-najoor-0000467-v21n10
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