I have been thinking about this alot lately.
It has, over the years, become more and more acceptable for a woman to have tattoos, and to be heavily tattooed... In my community, lots and lots of young women get heavily tattooed (usually with garage garbage starting in high school), or they get visibly tattooed. it is considered normal. But, there still is a stigma to being a tattooed woman, even one as lightly tattooed as myself.
With my grand total of three tattoos, when people see my chest, its ooh's and ah's and where did you get that done?
but on the flip side, I've had people ask me, what will your children think? How will you look in your wedding dress? What man will find you, obese with tattoos, attractive?
I, planning on becoming more and more tattooed (but never heavily tattooed, just not my thing), feel like in the eyes of the world, when we get tattooed, especially in visible places, we are surrendering our femininity in the eyes of our peers.
My father and brother both said my chest tattoo was too big... though it only covers the front of my shoulder. Girls who get their chest plate done, a sleeve of tattoos, are all at the mercy of our peers, who degrade us for being "trendy"and not truly feminine.
But isn't this decoration of our body seizing and controlling our sexuality and femininity? This has parallels, in my opinion, to the current contraception/abortion debate.
Not that they are morally equivalent, but that each appears to be an attack on a woman's autonomy of her body and her own control of her sexuality.
I get the impression, especially with my field of interest (Political Science), that tattoos are for people who are ok with being somehow "lesser", and for men. Lesser, in the sense that those who get tattooed come from a pretentious side, and won't amount to anything, or that they are low class. And that tattoos are for men, because a woman with an arm tattoo is a big "dyke", that a woman's tattoo is pretty and small and soft, but never visible. But men can get tattoos with impunity, for they have been the realm of men for a long time.
Tattoos are becoming more and more common among the population in general, and more and more acceptable. But we are held back by what a woman is "supposed" to look like. This is one facet of the struggle of the modern American woman. She must be traditionally feminine, want a family, look the part... But with the rise of equality for women, now we are supposed to go out, get high paying careers, make our mark on the world, be as successful and intellectual as men... These are contradictory demands. We have this cult of ultimate womanhood, ultimate motherhood, that has no room for tattoos, no room for ugliness, no room for personal freedom. The ultimate woman in our society is a devoted mother, who is totally involved in every aspect of her children's lives, who looks pretty on the outside, with nothing deviating from the norm. No visible tattoos, a normal hairstyle, clothes that fit the contemporary mold.
We are taught by our society we must fit into this womanhood, this being, in order to be a good woman. But now, we must both be what we want to be, and what society wants to perceive us as. It's a complex issue. Tattooing is becoming more acceptable, but, in my opinion, still held back by traditional values and norms for women.
