Double Standard: Heidi Montag's Fake Breasts Vs. Meghan McCain's Real Breasts

Meghan McCain suggested that America is obsessed with breasts in her Tuesday column of The Daily Beast, but noted that Americans are more apt to be "celebratory" and to accept augmented breasts as opposed to the more naturally occurring variety. In "America's Boob Police" she blames the mammary obsession on our "Puritanical hypocrisy," an obsession with modesty balancing against an obsession with more. Meghan McCain, no stranger to a breast expose herself, believes there is a fake vs. natural war going on, where the social acceptance of augmentation demands that the newly augmented be displayed whereas those that have developed naturally seem to be spurned and ordered into hiding.

There seems to be something to her argument.

Meghan McCain was openly ridiculed a few months back for posting a picture of herself on Twitter in her night clothes. All manner of insults were sent her way, when all she did was display a little cleavage (okay, a lot of cleavage) in the picture. In her Daily Beast column, McCain added singer Jessica Simpson to the list of people who have been openly berated for a plunging decolletage exposing ample breasts.

However, Heidi Montag's recent breast augmentation garnered the reality show star a cover and spread in People magazine. Heidi Montag's augmented breasts are being shown everywhere. Meghan McCain finds this an unacceptable double standard.

She's correct, of course. Breasts are breasts and should be seen (or not seen, or strategically kept from view) for just that. Women should not feel compelled to cover up all or portions of their breasts because of some strange bowing to false modesty, no more than women should feel some form of social inferiority for having smaller breasts. There should be no social pressure to have larger breasts, nor should there be a greater acceptability that augmented breasts have more of a displayable quality. But that does seem to be the current view toward breasts. And there does seem to be a true vs. false hypocrisy involved.

There may be something as simple as the competing ideas of natural modesty and capitalism involved. For the most part, as a society we instill the idea of humility and modesty for all things natural, from intelligence to sports skill to breasts. Although these abilities and attributes can and will undoubtedly be seen by many, it is customary not to brazenly display one's natural advantages. It is seen as bad form, unseemly. Nobody enjoys a braggart.

At the same time, society seems to tell us that if you paid for it (capitalism at work), you can show it. The idea has evolved that what one has gained through hard work (and sometimes natural talent), one can be immodest in displaying the results or rewards thereof. Although ostentation is also seen as bad form, showing off one's new car, MVP trophies, or fake breasts has become somewhat acceptable. Just don't overdo it.

To summarize: If it's natural, one should be humbled and thankful for one's advantages. If it's bought, one should simply display proudly.

But those are generalizations, oversimplifications (even if it is at the same time accurate), of strange social restraints and double standards imposed upon many things, including women and their breasts. They are contradictory. They are hypocritical. Even worse, they are unfair.

Meghan McCain suggests a happy medium be found, one that can celebrate a woman's natural beauty without feeling immoral and at the same time not foster an atmosphere where so many women feel the need to undergo cosmetic surgery to increase their breast size to increase feelings of self worth. But where does one find a happy medium in our strangely breast-obsessed attraction/rejection social structure? More importantly, can it be found?

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Source:

"America's Boob Police," Meghan McCain, TheDailyBeast.com