At a family picnic over the recent holiday weekend, I couldn't help but notice all of the beautiful manicures on the women in attendance. Pinks, reds, patriotic, swirls, stripes, designs reflecting the individual woman's taste and style. Long, luscious nails, perfectly polished and shiny, a glittering outward signal of socially acceptable femininity. Here are my nails, hear them roar.
These are not my hands.
The picnic provided a respite from the work that my man and I are doing on his boat to finish prepping it for the season. I have cleaned, swept, painted, sanded, stacked, and organized, yanked and pushed. My hands grip hoses, paint brushes, silicone caulk, and screws. Before we left for the picnic, I looked down at my hands. My nails were a mess; dirt underneath, two ripped and in need of an emory board, unpolished, uncolored. Unfeminine.
I'm a fan of pedicures instead of manicures because of the variety and amount of work that I do with my hands. Even my toes get roughed up with some activities, but not as much as my hands. Typing and grading papers are easy on the nails, but ripping up a bathroom floor, cleaning and mixing river pebbles for the new floor, painting, sanding, removing grout, weeding, planting, boat work? Not to mention fishing, paddling, clamming, crabbing, walking the beach and picking up horseshoe crabs or shells or rocks to examine.
These are my hands.
Many of my friends have beautiful nails on their hands - they care for them meticulously and get new manicures when the current one starts chipping and looking unkempt, imperfect, less whole and ragged. Manicures smooth out the rough edges, polish the appearance, present an idea of beauty and hygiene that women and men find attractive.
These are not my hands.
I wish I could get manicures like so many women I know. But I know it's a waste of my money if I did. Because of the tactile nature of so much of what my hands do on a daily basis. I love the feel of dirt, prickly plant leaves, smooth fishing line and sharp metal hooks, the weight of a hammer or nail gun in my grip, the grit of the pebbles as I wash them and make them clean enough to accept the epoxy coating, the soft yielding of ripe tomatoes right off the vine, the sticky hardening of silicone as I smooth it between the wood baseboard and the tub, the slickness of a piece of mackerel head pushed onto a bait hook...
These are my hands.
Pondering the difference, I wonder why we consider polished, manicured nails to be a sign of femininity? Why aren't female hands that clearly do tactile, rough, and dirty work also feminine? Why is softness more feminine than strength? Why is the suggestion that no work is being done more feminine than clear evidence of work? Why must our markers of femininity only include the pretty, the perfect, the smooth and clean? Because I also know an awful lot of women who work really hard doing all kinds of work - teaching, running businesses, mothering. But this work doesn't show on their hands.
Maybe it is time for us, as a society, to appreciate and value the rough, the unpolished, and the imperfect in women, as well as those outward signs of work evident on hands and bodies, and celebrate these as truly feminine qualities. As much as I admire those beautifully manicured hands, I can't bring myself to buy a manicure because it wouldn't last a day.
These are my hands. And they are beautiful, strong, hard-working, and feminine.
5 comments:
I cannot begin to express the adoration I hold for this blog post. And: amen. My toes? Always done. My hands, however, are ripping up weeds and digging in tomato dirt seven out of seven days per week. I always check (too late) the dirt under my nails as I hand back a paper or reach for the elevator button. I am the echo of grandmothers: biscuit making, flower tending, chicken keeping hard hands.
Nothing more womanly than that, my sister. Fine blog post. Just damn fine.
I think it also has to do with a particular class-femininity, or a desire to be a part of the middle class. And also class ideas about who does manual labor work, who doesn't, and devaluing that work. My approach? I painted my own nails alternate red, white, and blue, promptly smudged them, and then proceeded to live my life as per normal, which meant that the polish is still on my nails but super chipped and, you know, ew. But honey badger don't care. Cuz I'm busy doing other things. The polish was an indulgence for me; expressing my creativity in a way I don't normally do because I generally have no patience for REMOVING nail polish, much less putting it on. At any rate, what I'm trying to say (though it might not be coming out this way) is, I feel you. Your hands are awesome for doing the things that they do. Pedicures feel more awesome than manicures anyway. :)
Yes! Yes! I have friends with beautiful, well-kept hands, but mine are always icky. I care for my kids, wash my hands a million times a day, and still nibble at my nails (sometimes) if I get nervous...nothing "beautiful" about them. But this post this morning has helped me to view them differently, changed my perspective. Thank you!
P.S. My toes are always done--and I always choose something glittery or sparkly, mostly because glitter makes me happy. :)
I dunno...maybe I'm doing the mothering thing wrong because my nails (finger or toe) are never done. Like ever. I'm always crawling around on the floor with Mel, chasing her, playing games with her, changing her diapers, feeding her...all those motherly things. And they are rough on my nails. I guess the last time I had a mani/pedi was for graduation in December, but it barely lasted to the ceremony. All I cared about was that my hands looked good for the pictures, which we took a couple of days before the ceremony.
I used to ascribe to the ideas that you describe here, A.Mo. I used to think that others wouldn't find me pretty or feminine if my hands weren't elegantly polished. But now I look at them, and the nails are short, unpolished, and a bit chipped. And I hope that if someone sees those hands, they'll see Melly nearby, and maybe they'll recognize that my hands are the hands of a mother. I've discovered that being a mother has made me feel more beautiful and feminine than any nail treatment could ever hope to do. My motherhood isn't the 1950s version. My motherhood is dirty and playful and all over the place.
I like to see women's hands put to work, no matter what that work is. Strength, capability, and work are extremely attractive qualities. Maybe one day we can band together and help dispel some of the social prescriptions for beauty and attraction. But I have always found your hands to be beautiful and feminine, A.Mo., and that's because of the strength, capability, and work they do. Your hands inspire me.
I am almost 56 years old and have never had a manicure or a pedicure. I have been tempted to get a pedicure, for the same reasons given previously. But a manicure just seems like a waste of money!
Post a Comment