Women and Tattoos
I WAS IN a hospital emergency room today with my mother (it’s been a busy week) when a young woman came walking out of the triage room. She was wearing a tank top, slacks and a backpack. She was obviously there for some medical reason.
The arresting thing was, her arms and neck were covered with large, scribbly, black tattoos. It was as if a child had taken a black marker and scribbled all over her or a graffiti “artist” had used her as a canvas. Even in this age of tattoos, it was shocking how disfigured this young woman was. If she was there because of her tattoos, undergoing an emergency tattoo-removal by a concerned physician, that would seem right. But she was apparently there for some involuntary disorder and people were just acting as if it was all perfectly normal.
She reminded me of another woman I saw recently in a very different setting, on a beautiful lake beach in New Hampshire. She was about 20. Her hair was dyed black, she was wearing black-red lipstick and a black tank top. Her body also was covered with black tattoos. One of her arms was entirely blackened. It appeared to be an ink sleeve. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. All in all, she looked like a restless spirit who had risen up from the nether world to haunt children in the sand and rob them of their innocence.
When I returned home from the hospital (my mother is fortunately doing much better), I found a note from this blogger, Desire to Return, recommending his post on woman and tattoos. He writes:
These days, it’s rare to see a young woman in public who doesn’t have some ink on display, or who hasn’t added some metal adornment to her face via an additional hole.
I’m not crazy about tattoos on men either. But, they’re worse on women. Tattoos suggest toughness, pain, grittiness. However bad tattoos look on men they at least emphasize traits that are not at odds with the central nature of the masculine.
Not so with tattoos on women. A woman with a tattoo is declaring herself to be at odds with the essential nature of her own femininity. She has marked herself with a sign that says, “Look at me! I’m hard!” The decoration on her skin suggests a distortion in her soul. It suggests that she does not see feminine modesty, elegance and reserve as valuable or worth cultivating. (more…)





