The Feminist Movement and Tattoos
There have been many stereotypes, stigmas, and negative attitudes associated towards women with tattoos. Even though these associations may exist, there are tattooed women out there who are attempting to strengthen perceptions of their femininity by getting tattoos. During each wave of the feminist movement, women get tattoos to reinforce a feeling of power during a time of empowerment (Hawkes, Daina, Charlene Y. Senn, and Chantal Thorn). Women, who decide to get tattoos, especially large tattoos or tattoos in visible places, may be doing this to make a statement about their body. However, even though women are getting tattoos to reclaim control over their bodies, there has been much backlash against the women’s movement since the 1980s (Hawkes, Daina, Charlene Y. Senn, and Chantal Thorn). There has always seemed to be little support by men for the women’s movement and this is why it is believed that men have negative reactions towards women with tattoos. These negative attitudes towards women with tattoos may stem from their resistance toward women’s rights (Hawkes, Daina, Charlene Y. Senn, and Chantal Thorn).
“…the written body may only speak from a patriarchal script that tries to limit women’s voice and bodies to supporting roles and scenery. So on a woman’s body any tattoo becomes the symbol of bodily excess. When a woman’s body is a sex object, a tattooed woman’s body is a lascivious sex object; when a woman’s body is nature, a tattooed woman’s body is primitive.” (Harlow, Megan Jean).
As mentioned earlier, women tend to get tattoos to show control over their bodies. For instance, tattooing is seen as a radical form of feminist self-identification (Harlow, Megan Jean). One group of feminists that still exist today are the Suicide Girls. The Suicide Girls is a website that hosts nude sexually provocative images of women. These women are not the typical Playboy model and they usually are covered with tattoos as well as piercings. The Suicide Girls website is a rather unique site compared to traditional sites such as Playboy where only seventeen percent of viewers are identified as women. On the other hand, the Suicide Girls website has more than forty-eight percent of women as viewers (Harlow, Megan Jean). The reason behind this is because the Suicide Girls is a powerful site for the debate over sexual identification. Throughout society, women’s bodies have been plastered across magazines, billboards, and the list goes on. Young girls grow up surrounded by these images of artificial beauty and many of these images influence how these young girls see themselves; these images influence how they “think” they should be. However, women like the Suicide Girls do not commit to these “social norms” and instead they go against them. The Suicide Girls goal, which is on their homepage, is to redefine beauty through “Suicide Girls” who commit social suicide and assert their own version of non-conventionally aggressive beauty (Harlow, Megan Jean). The Suicide Girls as well as other feminists, use tattoos to transform their beauty from a silent canvas to a beauty that speaks.
The feminist movement and women getting tattoos, allows women to communicate a wide range of personal and cultural messages. These messages challenge the long-standing association between tattooing and masculinity. So as women get tattooed, they not only challenge these long-standing associations, but they express diverse sensibilities about femininity and the feminine body (Atkinson, Michael). Some people see tattoos as something a person got because they thought it looked cool, but as you can see the meanings behind some tattooed people are more than that. Tattoos are now becoming widespread, and they’re no longer a male-dominated subculture. These tattooed women tend to subvert hegemonic ideologies about femininity, such as images of the weak, sexually objectified, or otherwise submissive woman (Atkinson, Michael). In conclusion, even though there are many negative attitudes towards women with tattoos it is now clear that these negative attitudes, stereotypes, and stigmas will no longer be accepted. Women who are a part of the feminist movement and even women, who are just tattooed, show that they will no longer accept the typical social gender rules on how a woman should look. Tattoos are basically a way women reject the typical beauty standards and it screams that we will no longer try to look the way a man wants us to be. We will no longer try to be that model in the Playboy magazine, and as women’s participation in tattooing expands and diversifies, so must our sociological understanding of women’s tattooing (Atkinson, Michael).