Yesterday I spent my day in a tattoo studio getting two new tattoos (my arms are full, I’ve started on my legs now), and in the four hours that I was in the shop, three people came in, for which they were all women. And that got me thinking about the cultural shift that’s occurred in recent years for that not to be an ‘unusual’ thing when, only a decade or two ago, tattoos were mostly reserved for men of the stereotypical ‘manly’ variety, to emphasise their big, muscly, ‘tough guy’ look…
This article is an exploration of the increase in women getting tattoos, and what might have caused such a shift in our perception.
When the person is political, ‘body politics’, people tend to view women with tattoos as more ‘out there’/’non-conforming’ than women without.
This is because, while men supposedly become more masculine with tattoos, thus supporting the prescribed way in which men are ‘supposed’ to look, for women, the opposite occurs. In getting tattoos, women are supposedly rebelling against the norm for how women ‘should’ look.
When we’re brought up being told that we should look and act a certain way, serving as a form of rebellion against normative bodies, tattoos allow us to reclaim control, creating an identity that is not dictated by others or limited by society, therefore allowing us to challenge imposed restrictive identities relating to gender and/or sexuality.
Most likely to be of the opinion that tattooed women are ‘rebels’ are people, overwhelmingly men, of older generations who remember when tattoos were reserved for men in gangs, the biker subculture, and ‘prostitutes.’
‘They are permanent and unhealthy. On young women, they are unsightly and a turn-off for normal heterosexual males.’
For the few women who did get tattoos back in’t day, the only permissible designs were small, easily hidden ‘feminine’ images (think butterflies, flowers, and love hearts- i.e., boring).
Older generations are more likely to degrade women with tattoos, either for not being ‘feminine’ enough or for being overly ‘sexual’, as though everything that we do, even to our own bodies, is for the male gaze…
The reality of why so many women get tattooed though is actually for the opposite reason to this. Not ‘FOR’ the male gaze, but as a ‘FU’ to the male gaze…
Tattoos give us, as women, a sense of control and ownership over our bodies that can, all too often, feel totally beyond our control.
In terms of why I personally get tattoos, besides thinking that they look cool af (reason enough), my tattoos are a nod to the subcultural way in which I try to live my life, ‘punk-inspired’, a ‘fuck you’ to, not only the male gaze, but so too to all the systems of oppression that tell us, as women, who we ‘should’ be, rather than letting us work out who we want to be…
As Emily McCombs, the Deputy Editor of HuffPost Personal writes, her relationship with tattoos has evolved from ‘looking cool’ to a more profound appreciation of the art form and culture.
‘Despite the trauma I’d experienced,’ she writes, ‘and the way society tries to exert control over women’s bodies’, McCombs finds the process empowering, giving her a sense of ownership over her body.
Whether it’s going out at night in a skirt and heels as a ‘fuck you’ to all the people who, in the event of you coming to any harm, overwhelmingly at the hands of men ask, ‘But what were you wearing?’, or covering your body in tattoos to laugh in the face of all the people who tell you that you’ll look ‘stupid’ when you’re older (or just outright tell you that you already look stupid- it’s happened!), when it is our flesh, we can do with it as we please…
A mark (or rather, several marks) of individuality, tattoos allow me to resist the pressure for normative beauty — ‘ it’s my body, my choice.’
Allowing my external self to align with my internal self, each piece of art I get on my body represents a piece of who I am.
With tattoos becoming so mainstream, there will come a day when tattoos on women are what trousers on women once were…
Once taboo, women, up until 1923, were not allowed to wear trousers. In fact, it was illegal for women to wear trousers in the US until the late 1920s…
Can you imagine the outrage that such a law would entail if it were in practice today?!
Whereas it was once unheard of, a criminal offence, even, today it is the mainstream. And the same is true of tattoos. No longer reserved for ‘criminals and prostitutes’, tattoos are becoming as commonplace as jewellery on women. And it is for this reason that whenever I see similarly alternative-looking people/women with tattoos, I get…
excited.
Excited because it gives me hope for a future where freedom isn’t some fantastical idea, but a reality.
‘I think people are just trying to wear their ideals as a badge of honour,” Jess Koala, a San Francisco-based tattoo artist says. ‘It’s permanent — you’re making a very clear statement: ‘This is what I believe in, this is who I am.’ That just fits very naturally with activism.’
It should come as no surprise then that an increase in women being tattooed is in line with an increase in activism, and a more liberal/increasingly progressive way of life.
Although quite outdated, the latest figures (from 2015) highlight a difference in the popularity of tattoos among men VS women in the UK.
As of 2015, 8% more women than men reported having a tattoo. This figure is likely to be higher today as society has arguably become even more open-minded over the past decade, undoubtedly.
Whether it comes to LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, or our attitudes toward racism, on the whole, we are far more open-minded as a nation.
With the founding of several movements that have contributed to this established, and much-needed, ‘open-mindedness’, from the Me Too movement to the Black Lives Matter movement, one common factor that runs through them all is their steadfast approach to our right to freedom and autonomy over our own bodies… And, when such movements have led to a widespread recognising of the importance of our right to do with our bodies whatever we want to do with our bodies, tattoos are no exception…
With an increasingly secular society within which religion has far less of an influence on our decision-making than it used to, the sense of tattoos being ‘immoral’ has largely been removed.
‘Immoral’ to whom?
Rather than viewing God as an external entity, a ‘man in the sky’, people are more likely to view God as ‘energy’, internal, which resides within everyone and everything, hence the increased popularity of meditation… A substitute for traditional prayer, trying to talk to God via an empty sky, through meditation we get in touch with our deepest inner selves- our consciousness/the energy that is ‘God.’
Knowing that the answers lie within us, we have less fear of being ‘punished’ for doing what we want to do, when we ourselves are God….
And the same is true of sexuality and gender identity- where fewer people are prescribing to traditional, organised religion, people have no excuse for their prejudice. With nothing/no one to hide behind, they can’t cite ‘God’ as the reason for their bigotry…
When people ask me the ‘what will you look like when you’re older’ question I have to bite my tongue, resisting the urge to say ‘the same as everyone else, because all the bigots like you will be dead.’
It might seem harsh but it’s true. In the same way that the UK government, under new laws, is increasing the legal age for cigarette sales by one year every year, meaning that people born in or after 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes, and thus will never get to experience a life with cigarettes, people born in generation Z and above will never get to experience a life with the bigotry that has informed so much of our grandparents lives…
(Thinking out loud here, but there’s a general election coming up in the UK next year, and how great would it be if all the people born after 2025 never had to experience the shitshow of life under Tory leadership?? A UTOPIA).
Older people are more likely to still hold a sense of prejudice against people who sit outside the ‘norm’, either due to their sexuality, gender identity, or, as this article is focused on, tattoos, because it’s harder to let go of a belief that has always been there.
It’s doable, but it’s hard.
My grandma, for example, who will be 90 in a few months, was brought up in a society where being gay was a crime, where male and female were the only recognised genders, where there was no differentiation between gender and sex, and certainly no women with tattoos, only ‘wrong ‘uns’, has a harder time coming to terms with the more liberal nature of society than people in my generation, for example (something which makes sense when our early years are our most formative).
Evidently, then, prejudice often arises due to generational differences in perception…
If I have children though, then having never been around to witness a society where being gay was illegal, for example, the prejudice won’t be passed on because there is no prejudice there to pass on. The point being that there will come a time when all we have ever known is liberalism. Liberalism which sees us having less tolerance for oppressive regimes, and a greater pull to stand up in the face of such oppression and demand change.
It’s why so few young people vote for the Tories* (conservatives) because we can see through their false promises- hate masked as concern from the Tory scum, as always.
*(As of 2024, only 7% of people aged 18–24 reported that they would vote conservative. The overwhelming majority, 68% said they would vote labour).
The point is that we are far less likely to accept that things are the way they are because it’s what the 1% are telling us/because ‘that’s just the way it’s always been.’
Just because something has always been done a certain way it doesn’t make it right.
People are more likely to, not only ask for change, but demand it.
As Emma Goldman, an anarchist revolutionary and political activist’s quote:
‘Ask for work. If they don’t give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread.’
Far less likely to accept things, far more likely to REVOLT.
Generation Z might be hailed as the ‘snowflake’ generation, but we’ll take it. We are also the ‘taking no shit’ on LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, liberty, and freedom (and tattoos) generation.
Get the f*****g tattoo.
I literally got two nuns kissing on my lower calf yesterday, with ‘born sick’ written above it. Anyone who asks me to ‘think about what you’ll look like when you’re older’, I’ll look like the coolest old lady ever, and for that, I cannot wait. :))
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