If femininity is a performance, sometimes I feel like a very bad actor. There are aspects of my gender presentation that I ace on a regular basis – winged liquid eyeliner, shopping efficiently for particular occasions, matching hair accessories to outfits – but there are also components of conventional femininity that I’ve never quite been able to get a handle on. Keeping my body uniformly and consistently shaved is one of them, heat-styling my hair is another, but perhaps the one that’s most obvious to me on a daily basis is my nails.
I’ve never been much for nail polish, careful filing, or going for regular manicures. I’m a chronic nail-biter (anxiety ahoy!), plus I play musical instruments, and I tap-tap-tap on a keyboard all day for a living, so long nails don’t really fit comfortably into my lifestyle. On the few occasions I’ve visited a manicurist (usually either in a fit of indulgent self-care or in preparation for an event far too fancy for the likes of me), they’ve always commented on how short I keep my nails. With very few exceptions, my nails are never even long enough to protrude past the edge of my fingers. “Doesn’t that hurt?!” people will ask, and… no, not really, because I’m so used to them being this length. When they start to get longer, a mental itchiness overtakes me because it just feels so wrong to have talons where usually I have stubs.
However, sometimes in moments of sudden gumption, I’ll make a promise to myself that shit is going to change. I’ll paint my nails – a careful and slow process, both because I’m bad at it and because I know I won’t have the energy to do it again for a while so I take my time with base coats and topcoats – and suddenly I’ll feel like a new woman. Sure, it’s always weird for the first few hours, when I feel like a cat whose collar has been swapped out for a diamond necklace – who thought this was a good idea?! – but then I start to lean into the traditional femininity being signalled by my new-looking hands. I feel somehow delicate, considered, beautiful.
Nails make a big impact on your presentation and the overall effect you create in the world. I think, in our culture, impeccably-kept nails signal either that you’re well-off enough to have someone attend to yours on a regular basis, or that you care enough about your aesthetic to keep them looking nice yourself. Both statements feel like status symbols. With depression and fatigue and a freelance writer’s constant feast-or-famine cycle pressing down on me, I often feel like I’m just clawing my way through life, barely able to keep up with the day’s bare-minimum tasks, let alone additional upkeep – so there is something particularly decadent about having colorful, sparkly nails. The ritual of painting them is an investment in self-care and self-esteem, and I am reminded of my commitment to those goals each time I glimpse my glinting nails.
Nails are one of those odd things that women are told to care about for attractiveness’s sake even though men don’t really seem to care about them much. Like a great eyeliner wing or a structural sharp-shouldered dress, flashy nails mostly seem to not even register on straight men’s radar – or if they do, they may even be a source of scorn (“How do you type with those things?” “Do they have to be so bright?” “Ow, you’re poking me!”). This is perhaps one of the reasons they’re such a powerful, and often seemingly unattainable, symbol of femininity for me. I’ve spent so many fruitless hours of my life trying to attire myself in ways that would make men think I was pretty that even now, at an age when I would’ve liked to have already internalized my inherent worth outside of romantic partners’ approval, it still feels strangely rebellious and guilt-inducing to spend time on aesthetic pursuits no man will ever compliment me on. And true, men aren’t the only people I date (in fact, it’s been a while since I dated one) – but that’s not the point. The point is that questing for potential paramours’ lust and praise is not, in and of itself, the best way to inspire yourself into an aesthetic that truly resonates with your most authentic inner self. You can get hints that way, sure, because in navigating your own ideas of desirability for others, you will inevitably encounter your own ideas of desirability for yourself. But I think it’s an incomplete picture.
When my nails are done, I either feel like an ice-cold rich bitch from a Gossip Girl novel, or the bright and badass queer femme I show up as in my juiciest fantasies. Both of those are powerful and useful brainspaces for me to be in, depending on what I’m up to on any given day. I know well-appointed nails aren’t necessary for me to feel good and sexy and cute, but I also know that they can help me to feel that way – so why not spend more time on them, more often? Why not devote myself to this occasional self-care activity that I know has such a high self-esteem output for a relatively low effort input?
It’s interesting how sometimes, in exploring the intersections of gender and aesthetics, you can stray so far from dominant cultural paradigms that you find yourself looping back around to the traditional trappings you had earlier rejected. This is what I love so much about queer femme as an aesthetic and as an identity: some parts of it are based on conventional (i.e. straight, cis) femininity, some parts are exaggerated versions of that, some parts are invented completely anew by queer femme geniuses – and all of it is accepted, and joyful, and desirable (rampant femmephobia and femme erasure notwithstanding). I love that I’ve been raised in queer and progressive communities open-minded enough that heels, makeup, and painted nails often feel to me like paraphernalia I’ve picked up of my own volition, rather than weaponry forced into my hands by society (though obviously, they are a bit of both). It feels strikingly powerful to know that huge swathes of your appearance were chosen by you, to meet certain goals that you, personally, define as important for yourself – and every time I look at my sparkly, girly nails, I remember all the queer femme heroes who fought so hard so people like me could one day feel this joy.