Tattoos and Women

I hear it all the time; “why does such a pretty girl have to go and deface herself with ugly tattoos”. Not that it is of any concern to the public why I choose to get art permanently placed in my epidermis, it is mine after all. Truthfully, there is still a negative stigma regarding tattoos, especially when it concerns women getting them. I grew up around this negative stigma, which may be the reason I was completely captivated by the artistic medium of tattoos. I got “inked” the first time at nineteen as an expression of my unique individuality and ever since have faced constant criticism for that choice. The negativity surrounding women with tattoos is in need of a thorough examination because tattoos are a form of art, not body graffiti.

The stigma surrounding women with tattoos is completely amazing due to the fact that women have been getting tattoos for thousands of years. According to historical findings, the practice of decorating the human body comes from before history was ever recorded in written form. Archaeologists have found painted representations of women with tattoos dated back to 4000-3500 B.C. Mummified remains dating back to 2000 B.C. have also been unearthed that have tattooed symbols visible on the skin. Moving forward to present day, in 1927, Betty Broadbent was one of the first famous women with a complete body tattoo and worked for the Ringling Brothers. Delving into research, many examples can be found of women with tattoos and the many reasons for this particular form of artistic medium.

Sometime during the 1890s, the view on tattoos in American society changed because tattoos were being associated with criminals and people with loose morals. “…in the late 1920s, the conviction of a rapist was overturned because a small butterfly tattoo was found on the victim (Hawkes, Senn, & Thorn). Both the judge and jury agreed that the tattoo had sexual implications and as a result, it was held that the woman was in part responsible for misleading the man who raped her.”(5) This shift forced tattoo artists to begin practicing their art form in backrooms, in a sense, tattooing as a whole became an underground activity. Slowly as technology became more modern, tattoos began to present a face to society again, mostly due to the military members. Eventually, the face shifted again to include rock stars, actors, models and other public celebrity figures. Today in society, the leading customer base revolves around middle income suburban females in the United States. 

The major changes in the past three decades have led to the development of tattoos into a new, large growing artistic media. This expression of artistic self and uniqueness is something that women are taking seriously. With the development of new inks, equipment and methods; a vast array of possibilities are now available to those seeking to express themselves through tattoos. Through different sociological studies, it has been found that there are different types of tattoo options that women are able to choose from. Feminine tattoos mostly consist of hearts, butterflies, flowers and dragonflies. A feminine twist can be put on what were previously considered male tattoos through changing colors or adding feminine elements such as flowers. Due to the ever-changing cultural view on tattoos, many work environments are changing their policies regarding hiring people with tattoos; they are considering tattoos to be a form of body art and not a reason for discrimination in the hiring process.

The ever-evolving art of tattooing poses a unique cultural issue in society today. Tattooing has been going on for thousands of years and yet the negative stigma remains imbedded in society’s views. Tattooing is quite simply a beautiful, evolving artistic media that many people indulge in world-wide. “In many societies, the tattoo is not an outside inscription on the surface of an already complete body but an external manifestation of the internal. The tattoo's purpose, therefore, is to explain or display a person's internal self on the outside of the body, cementing and solidifying the internal by marking the external. From this perspective, the unmarked body can be constructed as the unnatural because it bears no reflections of what is internal.”(6) Tattoos do not make a woman more inclined to crime or immoral behavior; there remains no such link between the two. As a part of culture, tattoos on women are just another expression of personal uniqueness.