researchinprogress:

by iJKos

hersute:

 

Last night at my local bar a rather common incident occurred. I was talking to my friend in the beer garden when a lone drunkard at the table next to us called over to me, ‘what are those tatts on your shoulders?’ Considering that barely anyone knows what military epaulets are, I usually dumb down my answer to something like, ‘it’s like a military jacket, ya know?’ I should have tried to ignore him but it was obvious he was going to hassle me anyway. He called back, ‘you don’t even know what they are, do ya?’ Before saying some other useless thing and retreating back inside the bar to where his nonexistent friends weren’t waiting for him.

It was a fairly insignificant and common event, yet indicative of some much larger truths. Why had this man, a stranger, felt more than comfortable to approach and antagonise a woman about her tattoos? (Aside from being a jerk.) What does it suggest about women’s bodies and public space?

The man in that story was drunk, but I get the same reaction all the time from sober people to varying degrees in any and all situations. Consider the time I was working in a health food store, when an older male customer told me that I ‘would regret those’ (my tattoos) after I had finished serving him. Why did he feel it was his place to judge my body and what I had chosen to do with it?

Tattoos also give people the idea that they can touch your body without permission. I experience this predominantly from men. The man at the local bottle shop recently remarked, ‘what are going to do about those when you’re older?’ (To which I replied, ‘well, I guess I’ll just be wrinkly with tattoos’ – is that like worse than being wrinkly? How terrifying?) He then proceeded to stroke my shoulder and remark on the fine detail of my design. So not only did this bloke insult me, he then touches me without permission to admire the thing he just previously insulted me about.

What I am leading you towards, dear reader, is the suggestion that tattoos may represent a woman’s bodily autonomy – in that she chooses to have these done, pays for them, wears them in public – and some men don’t like it. Separate from subjective taste, one reason they don’t like it because it is a direct example of a woman using her body in a way that appeals to her without consideration for how it may affect her fuckability. Disregarding the fetishisation of tattooed women (which is problematic anyway), and considering the more vocal bros go along the ‘tattoos on women aren’t classy’ and ‘I don’t like women with tattoos’ lines, it appears to be significant that it pisses men off that women choose to not be fuckable for them. How dare we choose to do what we want with our bodies? How dare we not care about whether you think we’re cute enough to do probably bad sex with? How dare we present ourselves in public without your approval of our appearance?

 Marking her body seems to make a woman fair game to public scrutiny, as if she has broken the rule about making sure to appeal to men as respectable, conventionally attractive and inoffensive/submissive. I am not suggesting tattoos are a radical, feminist statement, but to the degree that they represent autonomy, and the degree to which they attract public/male ire, they certainly tell us a lot about how women’s bodies are controlled, abused and policed simply for being female and doing what she wants.

rollerderp:

researchinprogress:

by Nikolaj

researchinprogress:

by Rimma