Can we start an anti "nail" campaign?

[2rebecca]

As a GP who frequently washes her hands, allotment owner and instrument player I really hate the trend for women to have immaculate nails that cost a fortune, scratch people and mean women can't do anything useful. Where t f did this horrible trend come from and how do we give women back the use of their wonderful hands?

Steroids not strips

Oh and I don’t work in healthcare.

You know, I don’t wear much if any makeup most of the time. I prefer to just take nice care of my skin (I don’t use any expensive products, just some stuff from The Ordinary and sunscreen every single day).

I don’t tend to fuss much about clothes beyond being clean and professional, or dressed suitably for the activity I am doing at the time. I wear a dress maybe once a decade. I never wear heels.

And I like to have my nails look nice (other than the weak, super short thin ones they would be), and I like my jewelry, and I like a nice handbag.

I have lovely natural red hair but maybe around 2-3 times a year I now get it dyed as close to my natural colour to bring back some shine, and yes, hide the bright white a little. I don’t actually do anything with with my hair day to day then brush it and pull it back. I even let it air dry.

I don’t look to be cheap when I pay others for services either, because I want to support others in their professions and livelihood, so no, I don’t aim to pay someone $10-$20 for an hour of their labour. I think $50-$60 once a month for my nails is reasonable for me. And they are far more low maintenance than having to deal with my natural nails. I get nice shiny colour for a month and don’t have to do anything else with them.

So I guess if some righteous people think I need to hand in my feminist card because of this, then they are free to think so. I instead will keep on focusing on the things that are important to me about feminism. About fighting for women’s reproductive rights, for their sex-segregated spaces, for women’s sports, for an end to the abuse by men of women, all while having my gel nails.

If the standard for being a feminist requires perfect conformity with a certain ideal of a feminist, then a lot of women are going to be lost from the fight.

Being a feminist to me does not mean rejecting any and all performances of “feminine”, it means being aware of the choices you make. I know men who get manicures and dye their hair too, so why if I do it I am somehow “too feminine to feminism”?

My goal is to not even think of things as feminine or masculine. Why do we have to “gender” things at all. I do many things and like many thing some would consider “masculine” too, but why should I have to prove that to balance myself out? I don’t even like to say I am gender non conforming because all it does is reinforce there is such thing as gender (aka sex stereotypes).

@MsMarvellous yes, due to the thickness of them I can't grab, pinch ,pull or scrape around with them. Irritating as fuck when I have a loose bit, or if I'm really stressed out but no bleeding,scabby fingers. I posted a pic of my nails/fingers many posts ago. They're pretty healthy at the moment.

There are a lot of subtitles, but we do need to keep a critical eye on society.

Sometimes what we think we are choosing is not actually what we get and sometimes what we think we are choosing is not actually a choice.

It is much easier to look at historical examples, because it takes the emotion out of it.

When I look at the likes of Love Island I do see plastic ( not very happy) people and I think this is the wrong direction for us to slide, women and more lately men.

nakedscientist

And as discussed, false nails have been around since the mid 50s/60s. Not a recent thing that is causing a collapse of society.

Further back that in some cultures. Yes we do need to keep an eye on it.

Lots of women do not have their nails done and are not made to feel they should.

It is a choice.

As for pubic hair. I remove my pubic hair because I am a scuba diver (often doing long and/or technical dives in a drysuit) and need to do so in order to stick a She-P (basically an external catheter) on with glob of glue and tape so I can stay hydrated and pee. Can’t have pubic hair in order to attain adhesion and um, because it would be awfully painful to remove the She-P if I did. Super glamorous. But good to know the only reason I must be doing it is porn and men.

In between dives I let it grow back some but still practice some “landscaping). Because I want to. Actually, any man I have ever been sexually intimate with did/does as well. If it were not for diving, I would not go totally bare, but I would still keep my pubic hair “landscaped”.

Anyway, as an adult woman, I know that my adult genitalia or body - which all went through puberty - does not suddenly look like a child’s just because I go bare. Older women often lose their pubic hair (or at least see it thin), as do adult people going through chemo or dealing with other illnesses, and I certainly don’t think they suddenly look like an pre-pubescent child when they do.

When I did a lot more competitive cycling I also removed as I found I could get uncomfortable pulling in my bike shorts if I did not.

In other words, don’t judge a woman’s ideals and reasons by her pubic hair (or lack of it) alone.

I know it misses the whole point of the thread @YourSarcasmIsDripping but I may look into short gel nails 😂

I am a bad bad influence.🙈

I work with a bloke who's always shaved his armpits, no reason, just prefers it that way. Random thought.

FeministCat - you learn something new every day! I've just looked up the She-P. They're not cheap are they. How long do they last? (love a gadget)

I wax my pubic hair, because that is my preference.

My husband hates it.

So, conundrum. If I don't wax I would be doing it because a man has asked me not to wax, which would be against my own preference.

Yet, because I wax I am apparently only doing it because of what men think.

HoppityChicken

No they aren’t cheap, but much better than avoiding fluids when diving (not healthy in general and especially not when diving).

I just replaced my last one - it probably had a couple hundred dives on it. I probably could have squeezed some more out of it but I got a bit aggressive cleaning it last time and tore some of the silicone and did not want to risk it failing on me in a dive. You need to baby the thing like a baby stingray, ha.

The expensive bit is actually the glue...it’s about $85 CAD for a small 3 oz pot that if you are not careful thickens up and is unusable after half the jar -though I did find a thinner that adds some longevity.

”Couldn’t do open heart surgery though? Or cliff hanging, or farming, or building work...”

Well it's good job I work in a fucking call centre then, isn't it?

Standing up for the right to be a plastic clone is a surprising interpretation of feminism.

Oh, piss off. And the OP wanting to start an anti-nail campaign because she doesn't like them is a good interpretation of feminism, I suppose?

Holdthedamndoor

Over three years.

'Catch yourself on' is a saying in Northern Ireland. It means 'wise up' which means learn from your mistakes, in a helpful manner and no judgement.

I did catch myself on. Shit. That is serious money. On hair that was bleached blonde and cut each time. Looking back on Facebook, my hair looks better now than it did then.

I could weep!

I work in a fucking call centre

Do you hot desk? I really don't want your bacteria on my key board. Green nails are not attractive.

Catch yourself on' is a saying in Northern Ireland. It means 'wise up' which means learn from your mistakes, in a helpful manner and no judgement.

I am from Creggan, Derry. I know what it means. I meant it doesnt make sense the way you used it.

You didnt wise up, by deciding to nor get your hair dyed. You made a decision for yourself that may or may not suit others.

Its not wiser to not dye your hair.

It’s a normal part of the human condition to use one’s appearance as a form of self expression. Many tribes do it with tattoos and piercings and we have our equivalents in the west. Sometimes there are deep social reasons for this, including to attract a mate. Sometimes it’s more an expression of personality. We all make conscious and unconscious decisions about the way we look and it’s impossible to avoid. No judgment from me about the way some women choose to express themselves, through their nails, hair, makeup or otherwise.

FeministCat - that's a really cool product! Good story behind it too. I'm silicone obsessed at the moment as I've been helping someone make something and it's looking like a silicone thingamy of some sort may be be the way forward - but would need to be custom made and coloured, so genuinely interesting. Thank you!

Do you hot desk? I really don't want your bacteria on my key board. Green nails are not attractive.

Jesus wept. If you think fake nails are the biggest health risk when hot desking you need to think again.

Do know how many people dont wash their hands then type on keyboard. Plenty of people without fake nails. Plus all the sneezing and coughing. Eating.

I knew one bloke who used to have eczema on his head and used to dust it off onto the desk.

Don't be so judgemental. Hold

Yes, I did wise up. I told myself to wise up and my brothers helped too. You do not get to tell me what I did and did not do.

I come from a nationalist part of Armagh, not the city. Though why I should have to state my 'credentials'.

Oh Decomposing, what a shock to see you hear trying to undermine the feminist line on something. I’m truly staggered.

Yet, because I wax I am apparently only doing it because of what men think

That’s a rather reductive way of looking at an issue, and I’ve never seen anyone who’s thought about it making such a statement.

Whether your individual DH prefers pubic hair (mine does, thanks to the porn he personally saw in his youth) or an individual woman (like myself) does not wish to remove it has no bearing on overall social standards or pressures.

Hold Now you are being nasty and vindictive.

I've grown up as a Catholic and I know vindictive and can smell it a mile off.

I come from a nationalist part of Armagh, not the city. Though why I should have to state my 'credentials'.

I didnt say you did. I was simply advising I was from NI too. I am sorry if you find that very offensive.

Yes, I did wise up. I told myself to wise up and my brothers helped too. You do not get to tell me what I did and did not do.

It took your brothers to help to decide not to dye your hair. You didnt wise up, because not dying your hair does not make you wiser. Women who do dye their hair are not less wise.

I've grown up as a Catholic and I know vindictive and can smell it a mile off.

Lol that doesnt even make sense. I am not being vindictive. And Catholics dont have an inbred sense of it. You have just proved it.

I am simply saying deciding to not dye your hair doesnt mean you are wiser.

If you think fake nails are the biggest health risk when hot desking you need to think again

Indeed. There was a thread a while ago in which 3/4 of the respondents demolished the OP for complaining about non-handwashers in the work toilets

I think there's been some confusion about class analysis in this thread. It's true that most (not all) women feel to some extent as if they're expected to decorate their nails, or as if it's a 'womanly' thing to do. I've certainly never seen a man with long false nails on, drag acts excepted.

It's not a feminist act to wear false nails. You can certainly be a feminist and wear false nails, because nobody is expected to slavishly follow an ideology. There's nobody waiting to cut up your feminism card. But it's also necessary to look beyond the idea of individual preference and into societal expectation, which affects everyone to some extent, even those of us who like to ignore advertising.

Personally, I think false nails are completely ridiculous and impractical. I'm entitled to think that, just as I'm sure some other people dislike the way I look and present myself. So as a personal example I'll give make-up. I wear a bit, I like wearing it, I think I look better with it on and wouldn't want to stop. I also recognise, however, that in an ideal world I wouldn't feel as if my natural face wasn't good enough, and that the images of beauty I've seen all my life do influence my decisions a little. That's the (simplified) feminist analysis.

JFC can you not understand bigotry and institutional discrimination re Northern Ireland Hold?

Seriously?

I am simply saying deciding to not dye your hair doesnt mean you are wiser.

I'm £2000 pounds the wiser. LOL!