面对当下社会的美颜热潮，本研究采取技术女性主义的分析理路，立足于美颜技术与女性的互动，考察美颜技术对于女性的解放潜力。首先，本研究聚焦技术本身的性别文化意涵，通过对时兴的16款美颜软件广告中的294个女性形象进行内容分析，并结合对4位美颜技术研发人员的访谈发现，美颜技术偏好的是一种“芭比娃娃”式的女性原型，表现出美、瘦、白、年轻等特质，这延续着男权价值观下关于女性身体与女性气质的传统观念，并体现出了特学美学、平滑美学、幼态美学与消费美学的审美价值取向，分别带有意识、个性、年龄与阶级层面的价值观偏向问题。这一技术审美观根植于当下网红产业的快速扩张，以及将美丽作为商业资本的网红意识形态的渗透。在美颜技术与网红复制逻辑的交织中，单一标准的审美观得到了螺旋式的强化和合理化。在此基础上，本研究对27位美颜软件的年轻女性用户进行了半结构访谈，了解她们的技术实践与美颜经验，进而解读技术对于女性的影响。研究发现，女性对于美颜技术本身是依赖的，但对于技术内置的审美价值观则保持审慎与批判接受的态度。她们视美颜为一种工具式的“自我技术”，并在数字自我的建构中表现出较强的主体意识。经由摄影与美颜技术的中介，多个身体被生产出来，共同构成了女性自我认同的基本要素。若视生物性身体为真实之存在，女性对美颜后的仿真身体表现出还原真实、建构真实和无关真实三重真实观的矛盾共存。这种多重的身体与真实观反映出，当下后人类主义的自我认同出现却尚未被普遍接受的现实。从女性主义的角度看，美颜技术表面上对女性的自我建构实现了一种技术赋权，但从根本上来说，女性仍然未能走出“集体无意识”的困境，她们在美颜技术与网红意识形态的合谋之下，将主流霸权的审美凝视内化，心甘情愿地进行着越来越精细化的自我审查、自我规训和自我物化。父权文化和消费主义对女性的管控与束缚并非消失，而是以更隐蔽的形式与女性主体对抗。因此，本研究认为，美颜技术之于女性并不具有根本上的解放潜力，而是为维持社会现状提供了一个后女性主义的解决方案。
With the popularity of selfie, beauty applications (apps) are developed and more widely used for assisting women in beautifying their digital appearance. Drawing on a techno-feminist approach, this study examines the interaction between beauty apps and women, and then, foregrounds the potential of beauty technology to liberate women's body and consciousness. First of all, this study focuses on the symbolic representation of the technology itself. Through the content analysis of 294 female images in the screenshots of 16 fashionable beauty apps, combined with interviews with 4 beauty technology developers, it is found that the beautiful female subject promoted by these apps embodies one type, namely "Barbie". This theme fixes skinny, white, young and flawless female bodies as the standards for beauty, which continues the traditional ideas about femininity under the patriarchal values. From the perspective of aesthetics, it reflects the aesthetic value orientation of specialty aesthetic, smooth aesthetic, juvenile aesthetic and consumer aesthetic, with the value bias of consciousness, personality, age and class. This technological aesthetics is rooted in the Internet celebrity (Wanghong) industry and the new Internet ideology that capitalizes beauty. In the interweaving of beauty technology and Wanghong ideology, the single standard of aesthetics has been spirally strengthened and rationalized. This study also conducts semi-structured interviews with 27 young female users of beauty apps to understand their technical practice and beauty experience, and then interpret the impact of technology on women. It is found that women are dependent on the beauty technology, but remain cautious and critical of the technological aesthetics. They regard beauty apps as a tool of "self-technology" and show a strong sense of subjectivity in the construction of digital-self. Through the medium of photography and beauty technology, multiple bodies are produced, which together constitute the basic elements of a woman's self-identity. Simulated bodies are tied to reality through three paradoxical concepts: (1) restoring reality, (2) constructing reality and (3) invisible reality. Such multiple views of body and reality reflect that the post-humanist self-identity is appearing, but it has not been generally accepted. From a feminist perspective, beauty technology ostensibly realizes a kind of technological empowerment for women's self-construction, but fundamentally, women still fail to get out of the dilemma of "collective unconsciousness". Under the collusion of beauty technology and Wanghong ideology, women are engaging in more and more refined self-censorship, self-discipline and self-objectification. The restraint of women by patriarchal culture and consumerism does not disappear, but in a more hidden and invisible form. Therefore, this study argues that beauty technology does not have a fundamental liberating potential for women, but rather offers a post-feminist solution to maintain the social status quo.
