Spenser Robnett
In Paula J. Martin’s book Suzanne Noel: Cosmetic Surgery, Feminism and Beauty in Early Twentieth-Century France, Martin writes about Noel’s groundbreaking contributions to the femme moderne movement (the fascination in women’s beauty), the modernization of cosmetic surgery, and her powerful impact on the French Feminism movement. Suzanne is so important to the topic of early Nineteenth Century French consumerism because of her aestheticization of beauty as a physical extension of power for woman. With control of beauty, Noel believed that women had a more dominant societal role; there fore beauty culture excelled Noel’s roll in society, as well as achieving her own economic success through her cosmetic surgery procedures. As one of the most prominent beauty surgeons and experts, Noel used her pulpit to provide momentum to not only the French feminist movement, but women’s suffrage as a whole. Therefore, Madame Beudet’s internal battle with her image and passive role in her own home is representative of the female’s struggle of self image and finding her roll in Early 1900s France. Because Noel’s practices were so important to beauty consumerism, they must not go unnoticed in French history, beyond just women’s activism, and replicated by future generations of female pioneers..