Cupcakes, Pinterest, and Ladyporn by Elana Levine

Author:Elana Levine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Nail Polish and Femininity

A number of popular authors and bloggers have associated nail polish applications with normative femininity. According to Stylish Eve, “every woman loves to care about her nails as they express her femininity and elegance.”40 She articulates women's interest in their nails as “care” and also evokes maternal caregiving and feminine bodily maintenance. In a related manner, admin has advised that fingernails “clad in girlish nail polish” provide a “feminine touch.”41 This relates physically touching to women's aesthetics and ways of being. Nails continue to be part of women's tactile engagements and creative practices. This includes nail polish bloggers’ production of bodies and media content and comparison of their applications to other bloggers’ texts. However, nail bloggers have not ordinarily been able to specify what constitutes feminine nails and gendered ideals. Female nail polish bloggers mention femininity but have trouble articulating its features and their relationship to it.

Such confusion over defining femininity is evident in participants’ struggle to create a manicure based on the theme of “Feminine Nails” in a 2012 nail bloggers’ polish challenge.42 In this kind of participatory challenge, bloggers respond to a series of topics and post about applications over a period of time. Nail challenges also provide opportunities for individuals to collaboratively communicate about and develop nail polish culture. In the case of the feminine nails challenge, this resulted in participants suggesting that cultural understandings of nail polish make it difficult to conceive of and produce something feminine. vicerimus had a “hard time” with the feminine nails theme because painting nails has usually been “considered feminine, so, basically, it was an open theme.”43 Cuti-CLUE-les found it difficult to differentiate among all the possible applications. She does not have her “own definition” of feminine and has “never seen a manicure and thought ‘jaysus that looks awful masculine.’”44 Fabby also had a hard time and asked, “[What the] heck are feminine nails?! Does that mean there are manicures that are not feminine” and “Where is the line?”45 She inquired, “So, what's your verdict?” and sought validation for her manicure and her visual and physical instantiations of the feminine. The lack of replies to Fabby's query suggested other bloggers’ confusion over the concept of the feminine and feminine nails.

Manicures have been linked to diverse femininities, including the association of glitter polishes with girlishness.46 Black nail polish has been deemed more acceptable for men. However, nail polish bloggers have not articulated the qualities of unfeminine manicures in any detail. The women in the feminine nails challenge even suggested that they were prevented from rendering femininity because of nail polish's feminine position. This suggests that insistently feminine objects and roles can make it difficult to further self-present as and conceptualize the feminine. The challenge did not produce definitions of the feminine but it did provide varied means of interrogating gender conceptions and norms. Fitzy, who has identified as a “queer kid,” declared that gender “deserves to be completely shaken up.” He “had a hard time coming up with ANYTHING”

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