Nail Practices

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See that? It's a nail polish rack hanging in the tenth floor of Middlebrook Hall. On it lies roughly 1000 dollars worth of assorted OPI and Deborah Lippman. Dozens of colors that don't find themselves utilized enough to warrant display are delegated space underneath the futon. All told, there are almost two hundred bottles of nail polish residing in this room, which also happens to house two of my best friends. Almost every day, they spend hours painting, priming, stripping, and repainting their nails. If that isn't a stereotypical female body practice, I don't know what is. The act of painting nails in this ritualistic, extreme fashion is but a facet of the modern praxis of femininity. Whether reaffirming conventional gender roles with pinks and purples to (supposedly) pushing the envelope with edgier shades, nail polish has become yet another medium upon which culture acts. My friends' bodies are docile bodies, culture has impressed OPI upon them and their bodies have consented to its subjugation. Similar to make up and hair, nail paint serves as another manifestation of self-modification, a recurring motif in the culture of gender and appearance. Painted nails also happen to make strenuous hands on labor very impractical (wouldn't want to scratch the coat) and serious business a non-reality, furthering the statement of what a feminine gender role should consist of. Nail polish is a body practice that compounds the feminine aesthetic by giving women an illusion of expression and individuality while all the while emphasizing a decidedly feminine practice and corralling those who partake into cultured conformity.