"Thrifty pampering tactics"

Many nail salons in the UK are evidently staffed by slave labor. While it's commonly understood that nail-salon work is potentially dangerous (the fumes! the sharp objects!) as well as symbolically demeaning (a job that is quite literally rubbing people's feet), I suspect most who use these services assume the staff gets paid. The guilt-tip that follows (in the States, at least) is more about tipping being customary, or about this seeming like a particularly crappy job, than any deeper sense that one is somehow mitigating a great wrong (let alone inadvertently giving additional money to human traffickers).

Holly Baxter's piece about this controversy leaves a bit to be desired. Must there be such a long introduction referring back to SATC? And some of the evidence for this problem is kind of weak: "A friend of mine remembered that the last time she had her nails done, it was in a salon entirely staffed by Vietnamese workers, none of whom said a single word during the hour she was there." Maybe this was because the workers had been trafficked, but it could also be that they were Asian (is this friend even sure they were Vietnamese) and not especially chatty (must that always be viewed with suspicion?) or not English speakers.

But mostly, the issue is that she sets things up as if the problem isn't an unregulated sector of the economy, but women being frivolous and amoral, disposing of their disposable income as they see fit: "The thrifty pampering tactics of western women in an economic downturn have provided the perfect opportunity for those who deal in people." In a sense, Baxter is just saying that interests converged. But "tactics"? As I've said so very many times before on WWPD re: cheap clothing, consumers pay what they think is reasonable, based on what things generally cost, and are not sneakily trying to pay an unfair price. If some t-shirts are $5, others are $50, $15 is going to seem reasonable. How's a consumer to know if $15 is or is not a fair price, let alone if, if $15 might be a fair price, $14.99 of that isn't going to the CEO? Along the same lines, if a manicure usually costs X, it's asking a bit much for those who partake to extrapolate how much one would need to cost to cover the rent, materials, and a living wage for the staff. This isn't a consumer issue, but a regulation-from-above one.

But between the nature of the topic and Baxter's own angle, the comments go... as one imagines they would:

One commenter gets to the root of the problem: "Painted, squared-off nails are deeply unattractive. Stop it, women."

Because that's the only style people get done at nail salons? Because women with nails that style necessarily had them done at a place? The idea is that if only women would listen to dude (and it's a dude), two birds would be done in with one stone: an end to human trafficking, and dude's own aesthetic preferences (who knew men even noticed nails?) would be met. Clever!

Another commenter has never heard of prostitution, restaurants, agriculture... "If it wasn't for female vanity, trafficking in cheap labour wouldn't be a problem."

There's of course one of these: "it does always amaze me how easily middle class women are willing to overlook cruelty for the sake of fashion. So these cheap nail bars. Workers dying in Bangladesh to supply cheap clothes, workers dying of lung disease from sanding jeans for that 'just worn' look."

But we get the essential from this gentleman: "As a male I must ask...what price beauty?"

As it always seems to go, women are faulted for not somehow anticipating the revelation the reporting itself contains. It's not enough to question nail salons now and raise awareness of the issue. Women who use them must have known all along. Because it's never just about the issue, whatever the issue is. There needs to be some gratuitous shaming of behavior that's in and of itself relatively harmless.