Transcript | Bad Nose, Good Nose

BARBRA STREISAND: I don't believe in changing things that you're given you. It's, it's, uh, something is unnatural about it. 

INTERVIEWER: Is that why you never got the same kind of carved then sculpted noses? The other girls at Eramus High got?

BARBRA STREISAND: Well, many reasons. A, I didn't have the money. B, I didn't, I don't like pain three. I don't trust the doctors. I mean, do you know what I mean? It's like if I could have ex taken. Quarter of a millimeter over here and just twisted a little there, Sean. But I, I don't trust that I would come out maybe looking like a funny, you know, a nose job, which is worse than what you had. No, I, I, I actually like my nose. It's a little big but you can’t have everything

[UNLADYLIKE THEME SONG]

CRISTEN: This is Unladylike. I'm Cristen, and that was of course Barbra Streisand talking of course, About her nose. Her nose has been something that this pop cultural icon has never not had to talk about. The fact that she, No, she just doesn't want a nose job. Other plastic surgery, fine, but fucking leave Barbra Streisand's nose alone.

I mean, really, that could be why she built that literal shopping mall in her mansion basement and cloned her dog Samantha, just to distract and get people to stop fucking talking about her nose already. An unladylike listener who asked to be identified as “A” can Totally relate. Well, as much as anyone can truly relate to Barbra Streisand earlier this year. “A” wrote into Unladylike:

I am an almost 30 year old woman, and I've always had a big in quotes, Jewish knows, which I feel I can say as a Jew. it has been a silent and secret rite of passage for the women in my family to get their noses in quotes fixed before graduating high school. And I am one of the only women in my family that declined that procedure.

I've had some of my closest family members tell me I would be prettier if I had my nose done. My own sweet grandmother tell me not to get facial piercings. That would draw more attention to my nose. Boyfriends make comments about it and even an ear, nose, and throat. Doctor who I went to see as a teenager for recurrent nose bleeds tell me I had a deviated septum, completely unrelated to the nose bleeds, and presumptuous told me he could make my nose straight at the same time and ‘correct’ it as a bonus. Women with large noses are constantly pressured to make their noses smaller, are supposed to deeply desire a smaller nose, and then if they do end up getting plastic surgery are shamed for wanting to change their face in the first place. But on the flip side, I feel shamed for not wanting to have this surgery.

It feels like a lose-lose battle that is created for me. Such a love hate relationship with my face. I want to love my nose, but how can I, when it feels like most people around me think there's a problem with it. I need some clap trap unleashed. Can you help me unfold the guilt of the big schnaz? Have other listeners struggled with nose guilt?

And honestly, A, you had me at secret rite of passage. I mean, that's pure unlady like bait secret, right of passage. Also, in this case, a very loaded form of passage. Oh yeah, yeah. I'm gonna help you unpack this, although not alone, because I am a non-Jewish white lady.

[STINGER]

GAYLE: I mean, when I grew up at the, the time and period and where I grew up on Long Island, there was a doctor named Dr. Diamond and it was, we used to say, you get the diamond nose because it didn't matter what your face looked like. He gave everyone the same nose. It wasn't like, Hey, what kind of nose is gonna look good with her face or round face or whatever.

And it was kind of a scooped up nose, like a ski slope kind of thing. And even up to highway, you can see the nostrils and pointy, but uh, people. . You know it. It's true. And I joke that my high school yearbook and junior high school yearbook are pictures for nose jobs. 

CRISTEN: Gayle Kirschenbaum describes herself as a creative, a communicator, and a healer.

In 2007, she made a short personal documentary called ‘My Nose’ about her mother's relentless push for Gayle to get a nose job, even though. Like Barbara and Listener, a Gayle simply did not want one. When Gayle and I got on Zoom, I first read A's letter to her and just asked for her initial reactions.

GAYLE: I'm actually really sorry to hear this because, um, I could be her mother age wise and I was hoping that the generation below me, you know, which would be my children.

This. This would not be the case. The, the, uh, shaming into having a nose job, um, would've gone away because, uh, back in the day when I was a teenager in 20, it was all about fitting in and looking all American, kind of that blonde, blue eyed wasp look with the straight hair. So, and then if you even looked at the models, at that time it was like Christie Brinkley.

But then, you know, ethnic looking models came in and they had Mediterranean noses. So I'm really sad to hear this because her. Mother is my generation and I, I question, did her mother have a nose job? I guess so. Um, but I'm sorry she passed it on to her daughter. This sort of shaming about her nose, because I'm just gonna go broader on the Jewish culture here, if I could for a minute.

CRISTEN: Mm-hmm, please. Yes please. 

GAYLE: So, what I would say is, and how my mother has, um, how it was presented to me. I am second generation American, so that means my grandparents were the immigrants. And so the Jewish people that came to America, they were fleeing persecution for being Jewish, right? And so a lot of people changed their names.

My mother's maiden name was Abramowitz and Family doing business in the. They change it to Abbott because just from having a Jewish name, and so it was about fitting in. It was about passing, not looking Jewish because of antisemitism. And as I have done, I made a movie about this, I've done research on it.

The person who created the cosmetic. Nose job was a Jewish Berliner because the Jews of Germany, you know, often consider themselves German before Jews. So they were wanted to pass, and so they had their noses, anglicized, they changed their Jewish names, and that kinda seeped over to America. So I'm really disheartened to hear this, to tell you the truth.

Um, I was hoping, cuz I don't have children myself, but I will say, you know, now that I think about it, I have two nieces that had nose jobs, so, you know, that passed on and it, it's, it's really sad that the stereotype of what is considered beauty is this, you know, nose with no bump and sort of this Anglo looking nose.

So I'm really sad to hear this and, and to hear the, the, um, the frustration and what the emotional, um, stuff, the, the, your, uh, listener is going through. 

CRISTEN: Yeah, I was, I was going to ask, when you mentioned earlier, uh, the, the All-American look that was in when you were younger, what , what did an All-American in heavy air quotes look like?

Like what did an all-American nose. Women's nose look like, allegedly. 

GAYLE: Well, you know, your audience might not know that we're doing this interview on Zoom and the video's on mm-hmm. . So I'm gonna say your nose, real. Okay. Yeah. I mean, uh, I was gonna say, people pay for your nose. Okay. Which is, I don't exactly see the profile, but if you turn to the side, Yeah, Your nose, Oh my God, is a very desirable nose among people who have prominent noses and are unhappy with them.

It's a smallish nose, and it's got no bump. It's, you know, it's very nice and kind and sweet. 

CRISTEN: And was, first of all, I, I feel like I also need to let the listeners know. Um, I, I was not inviting you on to compliment my nose, but thank you. I, I didn't know I had a desirable nose until this very moment. , um, uh, when.

When you were in high school and seeing, you know, you have the diamond nose and it, it, it sounds like it was kind of, uh, not even necessarily an open secret, but just a thing that happened. Was there any secrecy or, or shame around getting this nose job when you were in high school? Or was it just kind of accepted?

GAYLE: Well, I have to comment on what your listener or your, uh, listener wrote. I, didn't she use the phrase rights of passage? Yes. Okay, so that's exactly right. It was the same in my generation. It was the rites of passage. It was what? N you know, a lot of people were doing, it was mostly women, but I had a, a male neighbor who did it, and I was so horrified.

You know, I liked his original nose and he went in for one, and my mother would come home, Oh, I saw your friend Donna. Her nose looks great. I mean, if you knew the campaign she started when I was quite young and continued for decades. I mean, not just years, but decades for me to have a nose job, it was pretty relentless.

So it took a lot of work and confidence in my part because I never wanted a nose job to keep my imperfect yet original nose.

CRISTEN: Do you remember when you first became. Just aware of your nose and that it like said anything about you. 

GAYLE: Well, I just have to back up and say my nose never bothered me, but when I was, I was pretty young in school because, um, I st.

My birth is at the very end of December and somehow I got into the class, you know, so I was like the youngest in my class. And so at 15, when it was sweet, 16 time, and this was like the age where, you know, I'd say junior high into high school when it was a typical age of people having those jobs. And my mother would constantly come home and tell me she saw another girlfriend of mine or somebody that in the neighborhood who had a nose job and how great they look.

Um, it was what, what, what's gonna be my gift for my sweet si for my 16th birthday? And my mother gave me three options. Um, a teen tour. A party, Sweet 16 party or a nose job. And I did not want the nose job and I couldn't care less about the party. I wanted to travel. And so I went with that. I found a trip called Paint in Italy because I was an artist, so I'd be, you know, studying, painting.

And she threatened me probably till the day I left that she was canceling the trip and she was gonna give me a nose job. So even though my mother started going on about my nose, I mean, we'd be out a, With a group of people and she'd point to me and talk about if her nose doesn't stop growing. And you know, the irony of this story is there are people who have said, Oh, you have the same nose as your mother.

We don't, I mean, I'm an artist, so I, I, you know, I draw and I see everything. . In fact, she actually has a bigger nose, not a bicker bump, but a bigger nose. She has very wide, large nostrils. I have teeny little nostrils. The only difference, so if the size is, is small, is that I do have a bump. What do 

CRISTEN: you think motivated her to be so fixated on your nose? 

GAYLE: Okay. So it's part of what I started to say before. It's about passing. Yes. So I'm gonna back up. So you see I have curly here.

CRISTEN: Yes.

GAYLE: So she was having my hair straightened in elementary school and back in the day. Um, I know your, your listeners are too young to know this, but there was a product that you can buy over the counter, which was a hair relax called coral free, and it came with a pink comb.

Sorry. I always had a lot of pink combs, , so I was getting my hair relaxed. Either we were doing it at home or going professionally because this is Jewish hair, right? It's stereo curly hair is stereotypical Jewish, so curls were not re revered. It was horrible. And the. Is stereotypical Jewish, right? A bump on your nose is Jewish.

And I have to add to that. When I was on the Today Show, the first time with a, a movie I was making with my dog that ended up premiering many years ago on hbo, her first comment to me was, You sound too Jewish. You need to take allocution classes. So it's all. Hiding that you're Jewish. And here's my mother raised in Brooklyn.

I was raised in a kosher house. Even though, you know, um, for your Jewish listeners, they might under, you know, get a kick out of this. Yes. But you know, the leftover Chinese food, you know, we ate on the paper plates, , and when we went out, we certainly ate our spares in our lobsters, which is all non kosher.

But it was all about passing.

CRISTEN: How did, how did your, your nose and your mom's fixation on your nose affect y'all's relationship?

GAYLE: Well, so, um, there was one time when, I'll tell you, I stopped talking to her for maybe one or two weeks, and I'll tell you why. So, um, due to, I guess my, Issues that I was having.

I, I used to, when I was a TV producer, I was on a plane a lot cuz I was traveling around the country shooting stories and I had a cold once and this is many, many years ago. So, I don't know if you know, there's now something called airplane plugs. So if you have sinus issues, you can, They, they look like rubber little screws you can put in.

Mm-hmm. your ears. And it helps the pressure. But this is pre those ever existing. So if I was on a plane and mighta had a cold that was happening or coming on, and the plan was descending. It was so painful. And so it was so bad that I ended up in the ER once and had broken blood vessels in my ears and it was really horrible.

And so of course I ran to the E N T and they said, Well, you know, we need to remove these polyps. And you know, I, I, you know, I do a lot of research and I went to a couple of doctors and I thought, Okay, you know, I guess I better do this. . And so of course my mother's like, Well, of the going in there, you might as well have your nose done.

So I had this little moment of going, All right, I'm gonna go interview plastic surgeons, because I certainly did not want the diamond nose. And I consider myself symmetric looking and I'm thinking, Well, if they can just maybe shave a little bit the. But I don't wanna lift, I don't want anything. And I did interview a couple of doctors and one had, one had that, Dustin Hoffman knows when I went in and as soon as they would say, Well shave this, and then we'll lift.

And I heard the word lift. I was like out the door. And I'm like, Why am I doing this? And then you know what? It was so unbelievable. What. I ended up getting another producing gig that did have me flying and I canceled my surgery. I lived in Santa Monica then. I went to a homeopathic drugstore in Santa Monica, and I bought all these, uh, homeopathic things for sinus issues, and I never even had the sinus surgery.

And I'm fine. I mean, I, I use airplane plugs if I have a problem. I've never had those problems again. So, I can't say, but that, that two week period of her hoking me, cuz I was gonna have that sinus surgery, I just couldn't even answer the phone. But you know what, uh, you know, I lived through it and, uh, we have a great relationship today.

And then that's what my big story's about. I learned how to forgive her. That's, you know, as I said, the nose is what, how we met through the nose, but it's bigger than the nose. It's a whole thing. our own self-esteem. And why do other people criticize? But they are coming from a, you know, we have to change how we look at them, and we have the power we can turn that relationship around only takes one person.

You know, people always tell me, Wow, you know, I'm not gonna forgive. My mother, whoever hurt them. Usually with the women, it's a mother, but whoever it is, unless they say they're sorry, acknowledge what they did. You know, It's like asking a blind person to drive a race car. You're asking somebody to do something that they don't know how to do.

So we have to do it. We do the work, even if that person's long deceased. Cuz you so many people still suffer from a person who's long deceased and they still hold onto that rage. So, and we only forgive for ourselves, nobody else. It doesn't mean we forget, and it doesn't even mean we have to reconcile. Mm.

And I say the most powerful gift we can give ourselves is the ability to forgive. That is the most powerful gift, and it's only for us.

CRISTEN: Like Gayle said, it's bigger than the nose. So much bigger and deeper than the no's and resisting it, yes, takes a personal level of acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, and also some very important myth busting.

[AD BREAK]

CRISTEN: Our next guest, Sharrona Pearl, is an associate professor of medical ethics and history at Drexel University. She's trained as an historian of science and medicine, and her research focuses on the face like I did with Gayle. I started our conversation by, you know, just gently prompting her to compliment my nose.

OK, I'm, I'm totally kidding. I read her A's letter and asked her initial thoughts. 

SHARRONA: Well, Cristen, a bunch of pieces jumped out at me, uh, and probably to all of the listeners as well. Obviously it begins with saying, I can say I have a Jewish nose as a Jew, and we can all recognize the nature of in group.

Bonding and the role that maybe reclaiming certain kinds of stereotypes might play in creating community, but given that this, as we'll talk about later, is actually an invented and externally imposed stereotype, I do think that it's one of the things that we have to be a little bit careful of. I speak as somebody who is a very active member of my Jewish community, and it's not just this.

Although I, I see it a lot. I see people within the community making jokes about this a lot. There are other terms that leap to mind that I think are problematic in a similar way, like Jap, Jewish American Princess, which I think is highly problematic and maybe shouldn't be reclaimed. So that kind of, I can say it because I'm Jewish.

I, I feel the inclination to own it. And at the same time, I, as somebody who's also Jewish, I would caution against engaging in those kind of externally and post stereotypes, particularly in this case where it's both not true and also exclusionary because Jewish people like everybody else, have all kinds of noses.

The second piece for me is the language of fixed, right. So the letter is about potentially getting some kind of plastic surgery, which, and I'll speak for one second to this question of shame. I wanna be absolutely clear that my perspective is fundamentally supporting. People's autonomy over their bodies in all kinds of surgical and healthcare realms.

And I'm very deliberate about being extremely clear about that. Any kind of surgical intervention that you need to support your health, be it mental or physical, um, in reproductive and all other arenas absolutely need to be supported and so  I feel her pain and shame on the one hand getting these kinds of surgeries, and we'll talk about that, I imagine.

And why their shame leveled upon people, and particularly women who want to get plastic surgery, cosmetic plastic surgery. And the shame of not doing it because somehow she is betraying both her local family heritage, uh, by denying this rite of passage and a broader obligation. That we place again, particularly on women, to make ourselves be acceptable for other people to consume our faces and bodies as defined by an incredibly narrow, and I would say kind of white misogynist sense of what constitutes appropriate appearance, right?

So she's caught in the space between these two things, but her language really reveals the sense that she, even if she's resisting, this pressure feels broken in some way. She feels like. Her nose, her presumably completely functional nose that does all the work that a nose should do is somehow failing in its job.

And that isn't something that we can just turn and say, Oh, but really your nose is fine. Right? There's some real pain here. Uh, and it's coming from a lot of different directions.

CRISTEN: Yeah, I, I think that that core conflict. Hey, I, I actually feel okay about my nose, but it seems like I'm not supposed to. And the, the, you know, as she describes it, the guilt and shame wrapped up in it, which is what really, really grabbed my attention with her letter.

Um, so to start peeling back all of the layers in here. What is a so-called Jewish nose and how, how did this myth even become a thing?

SHARRONA: Right. So when we say the Jewish noses, probably everybody knows what we're talking about, right? It's a big, prominent, really noticeable nose and notices are actually pretty noticeable things in general.

It's struck me even more intensely during this period of time of the pandemic when people have been wearing. We talk about the eyes as kind of the mirror of the soul, or at least the poets do, or eyes somehow really being features that identify you. But that's not really the case, right? If you want to change somebody's appearance or make it difficult to identify them, then you manipulate the nose.

Just look at Nicole Kidman in the hour, or Charise Theron in Monster to dramatically change their appearances in particular ways. Their noses were the things that changed because noses stick out. We see them a lot. So there's this long historical trajectory of something called physionomy, which is the study of facial features in their relationship to character.

So the idea that somehow the features on your face or the face that you have actually is specifically tied to who you are inside, and we can tell something about somebody. Based on those features, and they spend a lot of time in these astronomical manuals talking about noses because they are so prominent and they are so dominant.

And the Jewish nose, let's just say in both astronomical terms and historical terms is a bad version of this. So if you have one, it's to tied to all kinds of negative features and negative traits. But, and here's the point that I wanna be really clear about. It is fundamentally an invention for two really important, and I would say equal reasons, and I wanna highlight the less empirical or scientific one, which is that Jews represent an extremely wide swath of the people in this world.

So, When we talk about a Jewish nose, what people really mean is an Eastern European or Ashkenazi light-skinned nose, and that is only a very small part of who Jews are. And so there's a kind of erasure when we talk about a Jewish nose of Jews of color, Jews by choice. Uh, Jews who have been adopted, Jews who came into Judaism not through biological inheritance, but through all other kinds of mechanisms.

And also Jews, sephardi Jews who are from the Iberian Peninsula and Mera Jews who historically from the Middle East. So number one, there are lots and lots of Jews and they all have different noses. And number two, there are lots and lots of Jews, and they all have different noses.

So even amongst the Ashkenazi Eastern European Jewish community, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever. That as on a population level, we, and I'm from that community, have bigger noses than anybody else. Our noses are distributed and precisely the same way as most people's noses, but there is an origin to this myth, and I want to highlight here the work of historian Sarah Lipton, who has done a lot of the really deep evidence exploring how and why.

This kind of myth was imposed upon the Jews. And she talks about the need and the origin of identifying Jews as somehow different and distinct. So in the 12th century, you begin to see ways of Jews being marked visually. And there it's that they were. Marked by hats in paintings and other iconographies to say, Okay, person in hat.

That's a person who is Jewish. But it's only later that we see large and hooked Jewish noses as a way and a very strategic way to identify Jews as ugly, grotesque, and recognizable. And there's a very long history to this being specifically imposed through portraiture and other. To say, Okay, well now we know who's Jewish because we can look at this grotesque feature.

And then once this narrative emerges, particularly in the 18th and 19th century, we can see it being aggressively adopted through literature. Um, we see the Sy Dickens. Fagan and all these other characters, right? We see it aggressively adopted on screen and state while screen is later on stage and plays.

And then of course, the narrative that perhaps we are most familiar with is through the Nazi propaganda and iconography that always identified the Jews as both vermin who needed to be exterminated. So it's a fundamentally dehumanizing move. And these vermin always had large hook noses. So when we buy into this history, Hmm.

That is not true. We are also buying into a narrative that fundamentally wants to undermine our humanity.

CRISTEN: Well, and why this, this might be an obvious question maybe, but why has it been such a persistent and powerful myth? Myth. That we're still seeing today despite, you know, the, the very clear reasons that you just pointed out of like, hey, all kinds of, all kinds of people, all kinds of noses.

SHARRONA: It's such a, you know, I would love to know the answer to that question because people really are buying into this. They, you know, it's something that's been adopted so much and we don't see it. For example, uh, you know, people who are white, Anglo sax and Protestants who might also actually have long, sharp, identifiable noses.

And if you look into the physi me manuals of the 19th century, they talk about a Jewish nose and they talk about an aquiline nose. They talk about a Greek nose. And these are also really, really big, but. Somehow not bad. So this probably isn't a satisfying enough answer, but I would say that because of internalized antisemitism and externally, And aggressively presented antisemitism.

It's not, There has been an adoption of this idea that my big nose is bad, as opposed to your big nose being good. So it's less about saying all Jews have big noses and more about saying, Well, the Jews who have big noses have big noses that are bad and need to be. Right. Whereas other people's big noses are somehow less problematic.

Now, the flip side of that might be of course, that maybe there's less shame in other communities, or maybe people are getting their nose jobs and we just don't talk about it. I mean, I, Again, haven't done this labor, but if we took a survey of all the people getting nose jobs in the 1980s where a very particular type of nose was very in vogue, I don't know that it would be concentrated in a particular religious or ethnic group.

It might be concentrated more in a social class, but again, because the association. Jews and bad noses was so prevalent. That was the narrative. So there's even medical textbooks from seventies and eighties that talk about nose jobs for Jewish noses. And the slippage is that it wasn't necessarily Jews who are getting them, but there was still this category of a Jewish nose.

CRISTEN: I wanna know also, speaking of the, uh, flip side. , What does an allegedly good nose look like in this, this framework we're talking about? And maybe even more importantly, who? Who decided that?

SHARRONA: Well, Cristen, these things change with fashion. Appearance changes with fashion. I will say that a lot of. Is rooted in pretty racist assumptions about what the ideal face looks like more broadly.

So the most conventionally attractive symmetrical face is drawn. Drawn from a deeply embedded notion of whiteness, right? So bigger, wider noses would be less desirable in a broad history of racialized and racist science, which would correlate these features to. Quite literally your level of humanity, your intelligence, all these other pieces.

So that's certainly underpinning some of this, particularly in the 19th, 18th, and 19th century. But the Jewish knows narrative. Might even predate that to a certain extent. So let's certainly recognize the role of racism they're in. But I open by saying that these things have a style and a fashion. So if you look at these physionomical textbooks of the 19th century may not textbooks, these physionomical guidebooks of the 19th century.

One of the undesirable noses would be a pug nose, which you can't see my face. It probably looks a lot like mine. Those kind of little button noses. And those were in these narratives associated with Irish people who were also in these narratives of creating hierarchies of humanity quite low. So some of this was about the imposition of that.

Of course, now those little noses are much more popular, at least they have been at certain times and places. So there's an attempt to fold in a lot of these scientists and really quite racist narratives into. Kind of discourse about what's good and what's bad, but a lot of it is also about fashion and style.

And to that point, Aquiline noses. These bird-like big noses were a good thing. And those were associated with aristocrats in these physionomical guidebooks in the 19th century. But were they meaningfully different in size than the so-called and bad Jewish nose? Probably not. So it was less about the shape of your nose and more about who had it, and that's probably still true today.

CRISTEN: Could you talk a little bit more about that? The, the idea of fixing. The knows.

SHARRONA: I think some of that has to do with the assimilation tendencies, the assimilation ness, tendencies of certain segments of the Jewish community. So again, the deep history of a lot of this is an attempt to artificially impose a way to tell Jews apart from the rest of the population.

Right? So there's. Jews are somehow this awkwardly distinct group of people who are both a race, race and an ethnicity and also a religion. And that kind of gets really messy because if you're trying to determine who's good and who's bad, a lot of this we assign difference visually and we assign value visually.

And there isn't a really obvious way to do that with Jews because of this ambiguous, difficult way to place us. So part of the Jewish nose emerged as a way. I would say artificially impose visual markers of distinction upon this community and attempts to kind of visually remove these markers of distinction and be as American as possible might start with.

Kind of rhinoplasty intervention, right? So if you buy into this myth, and we absolutely have seen that people buy into this myth of the Jewish nose, then a solution, a fix. To looking Jewish, as it were, would be to fix the Jewish nas. Now again, some of this is vested in class. A lot of this emerged in popular culture, um, around the kind of like J young Jewish girl, Sweet 16 gift of a nose job.

I don't know. If that actually happened in any meaningful way, but that certainly became a rhetoric and certainly some segment of the population engaged in it. And you know, this is something that people consistently get wrong all the time. Americans in the United States write. Represent what 2% of the population?

I feel extremely confident with no data whatsoever that the bulk of nose jobs given to people in the United States historically, and certainly in the relevant periods when the myth most began to take hold. Were not Jewish. because again, of the 2% of the population, you then have to pull out all the people who were not interested in getting those jobs.

All the people who were not women, all the people whose. Class situation, culture situation made this not even a realizable possibility. It's gonna get you to a pretty small number, right? But there's a way in which this began to occupy an outsize position in the imagination. But these are really small numbers we're talking about.

Now, some of this might also be about urban concentrations, right? So maybe. Rhinoplasty was concentrated, particularly in places that were more urban, maybe had bigger Jewish populations. But even still, we're talking about really small numbers, and I bet that most people got those jobs, not Jewish.

[AD BREAK]

CRISTEN: When it comes to rhinoplasty in particular. From my lay perspective, it seems like it has a very fraught reputation as, uh, almost the most, uh, like as particularly. Perceived as vain and kind of punishing if people can recognize that someone has had a nose job. And I'm thinking just, I mean just about like celebrity tabloid culture, they're constantly talking about nose jobs and things like that.

SHARRONA: Well, I think that ties into the fact that a lot of women find themselves in around beauty culture more broadly, which is that if women get, and let's just use the work of the language of work done, then we're not supposed to see it, right?

It's supposed to be invisible. So even in the context of aging, it's not that we don't want people to change how they look. We want them to change how they look in a way that makes them look the same, right? Mm-hmm. , so everybody age. Uh, but people get shamed. They get shamed for aging because aging is tied into, you know, again, supposed lack of sexual appeal, but also, uh, declining cognitive function.

And all of these really, really, you know, ableist and agest assumptions. We, but when people do interventions to make the. Somehow look like they're not aging, they aren't changing how they look, right. But in order to try to look the same, and of course it's one of these truisms of plastic surgery that you don't look young, you just look rich, right?

You can't stop aging , but you can make people look somehow wealthier, you know? And everybody kind of has these age same ageless faces. So when it comes to noses in particular, which is what your question was referring to, There's a really, really narrow window, and that is a recurring theme here. The acceptable parameters here are incredibly narrow, so you can't have a bad nose, but you also can't have a badly done nose, right?

So somehow you're supposed to have a nose or whatever work you've done that looks natural, even though the pressure is so profoundly unnatural, and I don't wanna make a sort of fetish of natural. There are lots of wonderful, wonderful things in the world that aren't natural, like vaccines and all kinds of other things out there.

But in this particular narrative, the, the pressure on not recognizing the work on not being able to see it, that's the most desirable thing. And when you think about that, that. Incredibly narrow set of acceptable parameters. So you're shamed if you don't have the work done. If you have this nose that is somehow repugnant to the people who have to look upon your face, right, And I say that tongue firmly and chic because I think we actually can cultivate a lot more tolerance around the wide and wonderful variety of ways that people can look and you are shamed if somehow the things that you have done to make yourself look acceptable to people are identifiable.

And some of it becomes the punchline of a joke, right? That ski slope noses of the 1980s, uh, that, you know, became a thing that everybody got, like your nose became branded. And you can see why there's some discomfort with making everybody look the same on the one hand, but on the other hand, like, That's what this project is, right?

It's the convergence of what Geo to Andino has called geo to andino is called Instagram face, right? This kind of deviation towards a really, really narrow norm, and then the state's there for losing. Easily identifiable connections to your family and your history. Right? My face really looks a lot like my mother's face, and that's, there's something really quite powerful in that on the one hand, but on the other hand, I don't want to undermine people's wishes or desires to change how they look or exercise autonomy over their body.

I just, my hope would be that there would be a much wider variety of, of ways for us to feel good about how we look.

CRISTEN: Yeah. Cuz it, it also, it feels like such a, you know, you've got the double bind and then just these bind, Oh, , you have the double bind and then also these. Binary choices of like extreme intervention or you just have to live with it and all the feelings that go with it. And there's no, there's no room for any, any nuance.

SHARRONA: Yeah. I think that's right. And of course, in real life there's all kinds of nuance, right? We are talking about very specific categories and, and very most people, Don't do a lot of this stuff, but we all do something. Right. Uh, we all do stuff to a certain extent.

We all experience these pressures. Oh, I remember I was going, So when I was talking about the gendered assumptions and gendered pressures upon women in particular, I don't know if you've noticed this trend or engaged with people who have expressed this, but a lot of women who enter menopause. talk about becoming invisible in a particular kind of way.

And the Amanda Cross, who, which was the non plume of a writer named Carolyn. He Bran actually explores this in one of her novels, one of her Kate Fansler novels. And we see this repeated in all kinds of different ways and places. And on the one hand, there's a real loss. Like you don't wanna be invisible.

You wanna say words and you want people to hear them. You wanna be seen, you wanna be counted. But there's also a lot of the time, a massive relief or people talk at least about having a massive relief, both in being able to navigate public space in a way in which you're accosted less in particular ways, although there's probably other things that are more challenging, uh, but also because there's a lot of pressure that is removed.

No, not everybody feels it a way, and for some. Only increases the pressure to be visible and be counted, and I certainly understand that and appreciate it, but at the same time, there's a way that the enormous relief of these pressures no longer even being applicable, can feel really powerful.

CRISTEN: At the end of her letter, she asks, I want to love my nose.

How can I, when it feels like most people around me think there's a problem with it.

SHARRONA: Wow. . So I wanna acknowledge my own privilege here as a white woman who as I shared earlier, and you can't see me, doesn't have a nose that I've ever had that kind of relationship with. So I would hesitate to try to…

Really claim any sort of authority except to say that I think the keywords there are what other people think around her nose and whether or not that's actually true, you know, is worth sitting with. And maybe she can reflect a little bit on the fact that this Jewish nose is a myth. I don't know if that gives any comfort, but is really quite invented and.

To really reflect on whether her discomfort is with her nose or with the reaction of other people to her nose. And if it sounds like the latter, then there might be space there for resistance. And I don't wanna belittle the very, very real challenges of navigating space when people really. Discount or belittle, how one looks.

That's just really, really hard on the one hand. But on the other hand, it sounds like she has a real sense of power and empowerment around how she looks and who she is. And I would say that if it's possible, maybe she should really rejoice in that.

CRISTEN: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's just to me as well, An example like her, her feelings and all of this that she's wrestling with.

Is also an example of how as a, as a feminist, it's like you can, you can be aware of beauty myths and all of this pressure. We can logically identify it and say like, Hey, that that's not how it should be. But it can still get to us. It still messes with our heads whether we like it or not.

SHARRONA: A hundred percent. And also I, you know, I wanna leave space for play and for joy, and you wanna wear bright lead red lipstick and that's part of your cultural heritage, or it's just really fun, then like, go for it. You know? And you wanna wear clothes that make you feel amazing and you really enjoy. Go for it. And maybe sometimes they're really uncomfortable clothes and maybe you don't care.

And that can also be awesome. So how do we sit in the space between those two pieces, right? How do we sit in the space of bodily autonomy and choice and making decisions about who and what and how? You feel great with the knowledge that maybe a lot of that is actually a reaction to what other people.

Makes you look great and maybe what other people makes you think looked great is rooted in all of these structural oppressions and misogynies and racisms, and all of those are incredibly problematic. And at the same time, you know, I really want to wear that great lipstick or whatever it is, and knowing that I'm buying it and, you know, putting money in the pocket of people who really do not have my best interests at heart.

Right. You know, this is, this is a challenge. This is a challenge that so many people struggle with. I just reviewed a book called, Everyone else is perfect or so, I think that's what it was called. Uh, and, and it really sits in the space of, you know, women's media trying to make women's media more progressive.

Uh, but the fundamental thing about women's media is that it's supposed to make you feel bad about yourself and have an ideal standard of beauty. So does it matter if you have more diversity on the cover of these magazines, size, diversity, age diversity, racial, and ethnic diversity. abled and disabled body diversity when you're still saying, Okay, here's all the ways that we can be beautiful, but beauty is still the thing that we're holding up as the ideal.

CRISTEN: Right and here are all the things that we would like you to buy. 

SHARRONA: Right? So that in order, that could be one of these instead of four ways of being beautiful. 12 ways of being beautiful.

CRISTEN: Right? Right. Uh, is there anything I have not asked you about? Noses, plastic surgery, et cetera, that you wanna make sure listeners know in this context?

SHARRONA: Well, I just maybe wanna add one tiny piece, which is that, or maybe two pieces. Uh, We've actually just emerged or in the course of emerging. And the pandemic is by no means over, uh, from a period of time where we haven't had access to people's faces in the same ways, the portrait artist and disability activist Reva Lair writes a lot about face hunger and the desire to actually see an access faces.

And one of the interesting things about people walking through the streets with masks on are women told. To smile a little bit less because people can't see our mouths. And is that a relief? Are people who have facial disfigurements feeling like they are able to navigate space differently and in some way, does that undermine their identity at the same time as it might be a bit of a, a relief?

Right? Uh, and so how does that, you know, How does taking away access to our faces actually make us reconsider what the status of our faces are? And those are some of the questions that I think about. And I actually just finished a book, and it'll be coming out next year with Johns Hopkins University Press about, uh, the face recognition spectrum.

So people who are completely face blind and can't recall. Associate particular people with their faces all the way to people who are super recognizers. And one thing that's emerged is that people who are face blind tend to have incredibly diverse communities of friends and actually tend to attract. Or be attracted to people who have distinctive features because then they're more identifiable.

So is there a way that we can actually reimagine things like really big distinctive noses as something to be celebrated? Not just because it connects you to your family or not just because you're reclaiming this mythical Jewish knows as a positive thing, but actually because that's just part of who you are.

And the people who see you and know you and love you, see that as a part of you as well.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

CRISTEN: Unladies, the last question in a's letter is actually for y'all. They ask, Have other listeners struggled with nose guilt? Well have you? Hello, at unladylike.co is the email address or DME on Instagram at Unladylike Media. And y'all guess what? I am talking to A soon after this episode comes out. So hashtag watch this space to hear what they thought in a few weeks, and I'll just tell you that I am sitting in a room alone and I nonetheless just held up my.

Both my index and middle fingers and made the hashtag sign like I'm a goddamn YouTuber. Thank you, Thank you. Thank you to A, for trusting me enough to help you answer these questions. Thank you to Gail Kirschenbaum. You can learn more about her personal doc, my nose, and her more recent work around healing and forgiveness on her website, gail kirschenbaum.com.

I also highly recommend checking out her TikTok at Gail Kirschenbaum for some cameos of none other than her mother, who's apparently a bit of a TikTok star now . And also, thank you so much to Sharon Pearl. You can find her brilliant face work@sharonpearl.com. To support Unladylike, you can join the Patreon for $5 a month.

You get full-length guest interviews, weekly bonus episodes, and free swag. If you want it, just head to patreon.com/unladylike Media. Unlady like is a Starburns audio production, written and executive produced by me, Kristin Coner. Rebecca Steinberg is our senior producer. Katherine Calligori is our associate producer. Engineering and post production is by Ali Nikou.

Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Hudson. Until next week.

CRISTEN: Well, I have just one last question for you that we ask all of our. What is the most unladylike thing about you?

SHARRONA: I think the most unladylike thing about me is that I would very happily burn it all the fuck down. To see a better world.