Įach chapter of the book opens with a personal story of my own before sharing the similarities and differences across women’s experiences in the varied contexts of their lives - the family, the workplace, and the larger societal beauty culture within which women define themselves. I share their experiences in this book and also a documentary film, Covered. These beautifully tattooed women were an inspiration to me, and their stories did overlap with my own in many ways. The women are giving the middle finger to these old timers views on women. They are sitting in font of a picture of Lyle Tuttle and Burt Grimm, famous tattoo artists who spoke out against women working in the profession in the early days.
Shorty and Kody Kushman are tattoo artists at Outer Limits Tattoo in California.
Janis joplin tattoo skin#
Did other women hide their tattoos from their fathers, or carry around a sweater in their car for last minute tattoo hiding, as they went about their day? Did strangers approach them and to touch their skin without permission? Was it common for them to worry about losing their jobs, in the chance that a tattoo might pop out from under their sleeve? Tampa Tattoo Fest 2007 hosted a tattooed women beauty contest.įrom 2007 when I attended my first Marked for Life all-female tattoo convention held annually in Orlando in January until 2010, I traveled to tattoo studios, conventions, and the homes of seventy women tattoo artists and collectors. I started this research as a heavily tattooed woman who herself wondered if her experience was representative of other women who chose to cover their bodies in ink. While other tattoo ethnographies study people with one or more tattoos, Covered in Ink exclusively focuses on “heavily tattooed” women or those who violated that traditional mandate to keep their ink small, cute, and hidden.
Kristen Wall, a student in Texas.Įmbodied gender transgression is the topic of my recently published book, Covered in Ink: Tattoos, Women, and the Politics of the Body(NYU Press, 2015). It is not uncommon for heavily tattooed women to be sexually harassed with public comments, like: “You’re such a pretty girl, why would you do something like that to yourself?” In other words, why would you “make yourself ugly?” Women should be objects of beauty. history, women are beginning to outnumber men as tattoo collectors, and they are also becoming “heavily tattooed.” But if women are supposed to strive for beauty, then collecting large, visible, and not-so-cute imagery such as snakes or skulls crosses a socially appropriate gender line. In fact, for the first time in recent U.S. Over the last few decades, women’s ink started to creep out from under their shirts to cover their bodies in earnest, with images that are not so meek or mild. After awhile, having one or two “small, cute and hidden” tattoos became “gender appropriate,” and if the tattoos were visible, like the Joplin bracelet, small and mild was still the norm for years. He went on to put the Joplin bracelet on hundreds of women.
Janis Joplin popularized the small tattoo style for women after she got a delicate Florentine bracelet tattoo on her wrist from famed tattoo artist, Lyle Tuttle at his shop in San Francisco.
Back in the 1970s when tattooing was just starting to become an interesting, edgy way for people to express themselves, tattoo shops even had a special section of art dubbed, “for the ladies.” Little hearts and cute animals were something for women to hide away on a breast, hip, or shoulder. It’s different for women to collect tattoos than men.
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