Firemen's male manicure campaign ‘a load of absolute woke nonsense'

Telegraph

26-03-2025

A fire service has been accused of wasting time and resources by taking part in a male manicure campaign designed to ' redefine masculinity '.
Firemen from Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service painted their nails red last week as part of the 'Hard as Nails' campaign which seeks to 'break down barriers' by 'challenging stereotypes, building empathy and redefining masculinity'.
It sparked a backlash online from critics who branded it 'utterly embarrassing' and ' a load of absolute woke nonsense '.
The firemen, based at Stapleford Fire Station on the outskirts of Nottingham, took part to prompt 'conversations about allyship and ultimately, men supporting women '.
In a statement, the fire service said it was 'extremely proud' of the firemen.
A spokesman said: 'Supporting the Hard As Nails initiative was a very small, but hopefully powerful, gesture and just one of many examples of the work we do with those in our communities.'
'We're extremely proud of our team at Stapleford Fire Station who got involved in this. Unfortunately, we did receive some negative feedback when we celebrated this work on our Facebook page.'
The spokesman said this sort of backlash is not new for the fire station, and that they 'understand that people have different views '.
He added: 'However, we are proud and passionate about making people safer right across the county, and that does look different now to how it did many years ago.
'We did also receive some overwhelmingly positive feedback on this work, too, which outweighed some of the negativity and was nice to see.'
One Facebook user said: 'You can't convince me that paying staff to get their nails painted on station is a good use of time and resources.'
Another added: 'What sort of picture are you trying to paint? [I am] pretty sure the public don't want to see this. Having a manicure whilst at work, no way.'
Jeff Buck, 70, from Hard as Nails, told the BBC the initiative was important because of the need to debate masculinity.
Mr Buck said: 'The whole purpose of Hard as Nails is to stimulate that debate, to get people talking, to have those conversations about masculinity, gender identity, all those things that need to be discussed.
'It's a nice antidote to all of that toxic masculinity, isn't it? Here were firefighters, who are some of the bravest men we've got in our society, who are quite happy to symbolically paint a nail and say: 'Yes, I'm supporting this project.'
'It can be light-hearted but with a very serious message and a very serious purpose. It really struck me that, when I was reading those messages, people probably didn't really understand what it was about.'
Mr Buck said the firefighters were not 'sitting around, drinking cocktails and having a manicure'.
'They were doing something symbolic to show their support for a very important project.'