Steve’s nails
Brendan on the narcissism of I don’t even have to say whose narcissism it is.
In his new book None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary, nonbinary writer Travis Alabanza cites this dilemma [to paint the nails or not to paint the nails] as proof of the ‘oppression [of] the gender binary’. He introduces us to Steve, a man who had ‘wanted to paint his nails for years’. But he didn’t because, like the rest of us cis squares, he’d been conditioned into ‘upholding the gender binary’ which says men don’t do that.
But then he saw Alabanza on stage and was EmPowered to paint those mofos.
Alabanza is moved by this brave strike against the forces of oppression. ‘My urge was to hug him’, he writes. Free at last! Thank God Almighty, free at last!
It’s almost too ridiculous for words. There’s page after page in this memoir-cum-nonbinary-treatise about Steve and his nails. Alabanza refers to the ‘trials’ of Steve, to Steve’s ‘oppression from the gender binary’. Turning the histrionics up to 11, he says he found himself ‘mourning Steve’s lost time’. Just to remind you: Steve wasn’t dead or in jail or under house arrest; he just didn’t paint his nails.
It is of course the case that we’re all limited in what we can do by a billion conventions, and that can be more or less sad, limiting, frustrating, and so on. But, as Brendan hints so subtly, there is a limit. It’s not all that sad, for the most part. The Steves of the world could surely wear nail polish for the weekend, for instance, and then remove it if they didn’t want to be giggled at on the job.
The story of Steve’s oppressed unpainted fingernails is only one mad example of gender-binary ‘oppression’ in Alabanza’s book. There’s also the tragic tale of Alabanza feeling he cannot go out in public dressed as a witch.
He can though, but people might laugh at him. Now if he did it in for instance Nigeria he could get himself killed, but Alabanza isn’t talking about Nigeria. He’s talking about getting laughed at.
Alabanza says in his book that the reason he couldn’t go into the ‘male changing rooms’ is because it would be an ‘unsafe place to change’. The men in there would pose a threat to him; he would be ‘at risk from harassment’. So the solution is to make all spaces ‘gender-neutral’ and allow those same men you fear to go anywhere they like, including into the girls’ changing room? The arrogance of this position, the narcissism of it, is astonishing.
But all too typical.
The preoccupation with what 1950s magazines portrayed as women’s primary concerns is equal parts nauseating and enraging.
I can help. All poor, oppressed Travis has to do is go to a hardware store, buy a box of nails, and while away the hours painting them. Then he can have all the satisfaction he can possibly derive from painting his nails, and risk nothing! For example, he could go online and say “I painted my nails last night and today at work I didn’t overhear a single rude remark!” And thus single-handedly end the ‘oppression [of] the gender binary’.
One correction to the article: Rosa Parks wasn’t sitting in the white section of the bus–if she had been, they wouldn’t have waited for a white person to ask her to move before arresting her. She was in the section that was ostensibly set aside for Black people, but because all the “white” seats were full, she was required by law to give up her seat.
It’s sort of like, I dunno, you set aside a bathroom for one class of people, but then allow the other class (who already have their own bathroom, which doesn’t get as full) to use it if they want to, and if you complain, to jail (or internet hell) you go!
Just trying to figure out when sociopathy became so trendy. Probably the 90’s.
The amount of work they have to do to find oppression is stunning. Paint your nails? Go ahead! I won’t laugh at you. Some might. Get over it. People have laughed at me for years because I bite my nails; that hasn’t stopped me from biting them. I don’t paint my nails, either. It isn’t oppression, it’s choice. Because, seriously, that’s hardly worth getting worked up over.
Now, when I have worked at jobs that required high heels? That, my friend, is oppression. It oppressed my feet into triangles and lifted my heels up too high. Fortunately, I only had that job a short time, and most of the rest of the time I have been able to choose my footwear as long as I wore shoes appropriate for the job.
These stories need to get wider dissemination, so people will realize just exactly what these narcissists are talking about when they talk about oppression.
Because Steve is suffering from first world problems – he wants to paint his nails fancy and is worried other men will giggle at him – he wants women to suffer third world problems – not having safe, same-sex bathrooms to use.
Does Steve think that the only way to rebel against gender stereotypes is to pretend that sex isn’t binary? Does Steve not understand that gender stereotypes aren’t the same as biological sexes? Does Steve think it’s impossible for him to wear nail polish if males and females are in any way different sexes? Does Steve think that by declaring himself neither male nor female he’s on the path to convincing us all that male and female literally don’t exist? Or is it not a matter of whether sex differences do or don’t exist, but whether they should or shoudn’t exist?
None of this makes any sense for more than a second or two. One goes from “ok, nonbinary is like gender bending” — fine so far I guess — but then one sees “oh, wait, they’re saying they’re neither male nor female because they’re gender bending” and after about two seconds of thought, the whole thing just turns into a self-contradictory jumble that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.
That this Travis person can write an entire book without putting so much as two seconds of thought into what he’s talking about is such an incredible level of narcissism, in the words of Ron Burgundy, I’m not even mad; that’s amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euI3v2jpTlI
Good grief, what a snowflake whiner. I’ve known guys – non-trans, in fact straight – who’ve painted their nails because they wanted to. Sure, not many of them, and sure, they get second looks. So what? If you don’t have the confidence to pull off a bright shirt or a pair of yellow jeans, don’t do it. Same with painting your nails. Society can’t be 100% responsible for every feel for every person.
Hey, Travis! Freddie Mercury had painted nails on the album cover of Sheer Heart Attack in nineteen-seventy-fucking-four.
P.S. Grow the fuck up.
Rob:
Hear! Hear!
There’s a distinction between being allowed to do something and being able to do something without getting laughed at. To expect that the former entails the latter is just ridiculous. As in deserving of ridicule. As in mocking laughter.
I mean seriously. I’m guessing there are some jobs where the higher ups would prefer employees not to be too non-conforming or flamboyant, but other than that – it’s not really much of an issue, is it.
So, he wants to go to a gender-neutral restroom to escape the nasty cismen. But what’s to stop the cismen from following him around from restroom to restroom?
He needs to stop weaponizing his trauma, doesn’t he? If he did a little self-crit every once in a while, he’d learn how to reach deep within to find the courage to face the cismen.
[…] a comment by Artymorty on Steve’s […]
Papito #6
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Women have been railing against gendered oppression for a very long time indeed. Certainly centuries, probably millennia. Ask any woman, and she can give you a very long list indeed of the ways in which women’s lives are restricted and our ambitions curtailed by patriarchal expectations. Women usually willingly add that patriarchy hurts men, too.
So along comes a man to delineate all the ways in which men are hurt by patriarchy, and comes up with the example of a man who is too embarrassed to wear nail polish. Really? Is that the very worst imposition of patriarchy on men that he could think of? Nail polish?
I can think of a much longer and far more important list. In no particular order:
How about the expectation that boys and men can’t be nurturing? That they should be domineering towards girls and women? That being friends with another man means being competitive, and becoming friends with those of the opposite sex should only ever be a ruse to get into their knickers, because friendship for a man should be all about rivalry and conquest? That disagreement should be settled with violence?
I could keep going, but I’m sure that’s not necessary. Suffice it to say that fashion choices are a long way down the list, and don’t attract nearly the levels of opprobrium that, say, being gay brings.
I can’t begin to understand the level of narcissism necessary to make a man believe that any bloke in the toilets will be looking at Steve’s hands and will beat Steve up for wearing nail polish. From what I have gathered from male relatives, men are assiduously keeping their attention on themselves lest they accidentally make eye contact with another man in the toilets and be accused of being a poof.
First off, thank you to both Pepito @6 and What a Maroon @3–“First world vs. third world problems” is a great way to sum it up, and while I knew the Rosa Parks details, I hadn’t considered that analogy, and yes, it’s spot-on.
I just want to know when “Gender non-conforming” became “Non-binary”. The former was an attitude, a declaration of facing down the BS being pushed as gender norms. One of the guys who did escort work with me at Planned Parenthood liked to show up in glittery nail polish and lipstick–not because he was exalting his identity, but because it made him more of a target (and thus, the patients less of one) for the verbal abuse of the protestors. It was strategic, and brilliant.
But “non-binary”, with its identity bullshit, has become a new way to whine about how much of a poor (well, usually middle-class or higher), oppressed minority (well, sure, they’re mostly white, but they’re a minority of whites, see?) they are.