I love long nails; there is nothing more elegant than the appearance of long thin fingers/hands by having nice kept finger nails. A very silly -yet very much unfortunate- thing occurred to me last week: I broke one of my nails. And it wasn't that I chipped. My nail broke so far down into my nail bed that it continously bled for much longer than I had anticipated. So how did this all happen? By adjusting the level of the computer chair.
This really had me thinking of beauty and the lack of practicality in most of these "looks" we try to obtain. Heels are a very obvious example and my mishap made me realize that my claws were very prohibitting of the most simple tasks such as opening the cap to my shampoo bottle or putting on mesh tights to adjusting a silly computer chair. Women must always portray grace in any action, and could perhaps be the reason why its so common to see ads of a woman in the kitchen with heels on or do house cleaning in a dress. Our manuel labor must project our femininity, and what better way of doing this then by our looks? If the demands of the male gaze makes us compromise our ability to do the most basic activities, then why do we continue to submit to them?
I find this SO interesting because I do the same thing! I LOVE to constantly have my nails painted, and when I do have them painted I treat dealing with things very differently. I am definitely more careful when I open a soda can, or a shampoo bottle because it could chip my nice nail job! Also, when I wear heels I go down the stairs very slowly and always hold onto the railing for fear of falling down the stairs (which I have done before). It makes me wonder as well why we do these things that are obvious hindrances to our daily lives. I always believed in the old saying that "Beauty is pain" and I think it's true because in order to uphold the societal standards of beauty and to submit to the male gaze we must have a little pain to go along with it--such as your nail breaking. I'm not sure exactly why women continue to do these things that hinder us, but even I still do them. I think if you understand what goes along with your choices, (such as: I painted my nails and I know that they might chip) you then can decide if you want to keep on making them.
ReplyDeleteI find your 'Beauty is pain' comment very interesting and so very true! Why do we do all of these things just to beautiful? Like both of you I like doing these things for beauty such as painting my nails, wearing heels and girly clothes. When I was in high school I participated in pageants. I find it so interesting to look back at the pageants that I participated in, and now help run, and apply things we discuss in class and on the blog. Things like, 'Beauty is pain'. Everything is painful when you are on stage for a pageant. You wear heels that are a half size too small so they don't slide off your feet on stage, tight evening gowns and business suits and your blinded by all the lights shining right into your face. And these are the things that make us beautiful? It just seems so ironic. Although I was one of these girls multiple times, and will argue that they are (depending on the pageant) very intellectual, I just don't understand why we go through things like this to be 'womanly' and beautiful. It's just as you said, it's all about submitting to the male gaze.
ReplyDeleteI think it is good that we are able to acknowledge the source of this conceptualized/socially constructed idea of beauty aka the "male gaze" but should we not do more than acknowledge it? Shouldn't we try to deconstruct these concepts, should we perpetuate the pain? Or should we "transform" our understanding of what it means to be beautiful. I hear us saying that it is unfortunate that we live in a society that upholds this painful, sacrificial form of beauty but what should we do to change it? Surely we have to do more than acknowledge it (although that is a good first step)?
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