July 20, 2016 • 44 mins
Women tattoo artists were a rare sight until recently. Cristen and Caroline uncover the history of these ink lovers, stylistic gender stereotyping and female tattoo industry trailblazers.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from how Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin and welcome to part two of our
to Too, I'm Sorry Tattoo episodes. I I am, much
(00:24):
like Kristen, cannot help it but say to two to
to two and also that just has a nice ring
to it, so cute and I just can't help reading
it in in that pronunciation. Well, in part two, we
continue unpacking the taboos of tattoos when it comes to women.
To boos also sounds cute when you put the emphascist
(00:47):
on difference levels. Uh well, Kristen, you mentioned in our
last episode that one of your larger tattoos was done
by a lady tattoo artists. So did you specifically seek
out this woman or did it just happen to be
a lady who did it. It was both and neither.
(01:07):
I actually ended up getting hooked up with her through
a freelance writing assignment. UM. She had recently opened up
a shop here in Atlanta, Only You Tattoo, which she
co opened with her husband, and I was gonna go
write a profile of her UM because she has been
(01:29):
tattooing for a long time and has a great reputation.
And I told my editor that I had been wanting
to get a tattoo, so why don't I do the
interview while she is tattooing. Man, that sounds like an
amazing article. I didn't know you did this. It was
it was great. Yeah. Um, I will say that it
(01:49):
was um only I only have two tattoos, um, and
it was the second one, and it is a very
intricately detailed battleship in my rib cage. So it took
a while, and that is a tender spot. When she
found out that that I only had one tattoo and
(02:12):
that I was going to get this larger piece on
my on my rib cage, she was like, how do
you handle pain? You're all right with that? And my
editor who came with me actually took me to um
the restaurant bar next door and having to a shot
at Jamie Cinema with him before before I got my tattoo.
(02:32):
So I but it made it even more significant that
she did it. I mean, there are all sorts of
you know, amazing tattoo is regardless of gender, but I
just especially for what the tattoo means to me. I
I like the way it all came together with a
(02:53):
woman doing it and also a woman entrepreneur, and it
was just a great experience. Yeah, you and I are
both part of this lady centric Facebook group that will
remain unnamed. Uh, But something I do love seeing on
there is when women come on and say, and I'm
seeing this more often women come on and say, I
(03:15):
want a tattoo or I want a new tattoo where
the cool, rad lady tattoo artists in town. Because I
mean that's totally ladies supporting ladies, and it's ladies supporting
women artists, women business owners, because a tattoo artist is
all of these things and like maybe she just works
(03:38):
at the businesses, isn't the actual owner. But I just
love seeing women support each other like that for something
that I feel like a lot of people would easily
dismiss or just say why do you even want to
get a tattoo? But for the people who love and
want tattoos and body modification in general, the person that
you go to to do that and trust with your
(04:00):
body basically, I mean that is significant. Yeah, I mean
it can be a really intimate experience. And while you know,
my my rib cage isn't exactly like on orogenous zone,
I mean, it's still like laying there for a couple
of hours with my shirt up. Um. It was not that.
(04:21):
I don't think that I would have necessarily been distinctly
uncomfortable if a guy had been tattooing me, because above
all their professional Um, it's like seeing a male kind
of collegist for instance. Um. But especially since I am
still kind of a newbie, it was I don't know,
it was just nice having having a woman do it,
(04:41):
get all up in my my rib business. And there's
nothing wrong with personal preference. Yeah, no, not at all. Um.
And we are dedicating, like you said, this episode to
looking at women in the industry, and we're gonna be
referencing Beverly and Thompson's book Covered in Ink Tattoos meant
in the Politics of the Body a lot, because she
(05:02):
spends a lot of time looking at the landscape of
gender in the tattoo industry, talking to women who have
been in the business for a long time, women who
are just getting in the business. Um. And there are
more women tattooing than ever before by a large margin.
Even though it is still very much a male dominated industry,
(05:26):
because I mean, if you look at pre nineteen seventies,
finding just another female tattoos would have been really hard
to do. Yeah, before the late twentieth century, you kind
of have to go all the way back to the
turn of the twentieth century to find a significant or
(05:47):
well known lady tattoo artist. And that's Maud Wagner. Uh,
the badass who you know, made it a family affair.
Her husband was also a tattoo artist. Uh, they would
tattoo each other. There. Otter became a tattoo artist who was,
as we discussed in our last episode, famously not tattooed
(06:07):
because her father died and so she wouldn't let anyone
else tattoo her. And of course they have my my
favorite first date story of all, which is that Gus
Wagner traded Maud a lesson in tattooing for a date. Yeah.
It seems like a good business decision. Yeah, I mean,
Maud was already just, you know, an entrepreneur. She was
(06:28):
an arealist of the circus and she was like, listen
that again, I gotta get some skills. Skills with a
Z and then when you jump forward to the nineteen forties,
you get chorus girl turned tattoo artist Mildred Hale. She
was cited as the only lady tattooist in New York
at the time. Yeah, I mean, and this was in
(06:49):
that came from nineteen forty three, but she had already
opened her own tattoo shop, which was a rarity at
the time. She died though, I think in the nineteen
forties at um a very young age, but yeah, I
mean she was. She was a rare tattoo artist who
(07:09):
didn't pick it up from a husband or boyfriend because
it was, you know, pretty much like a masculine subculture
at that time. Yeah, totally. But by the time we
do hit the nineteen seventies, you know, we're in the
second wave feminism. We've had the swing in sixties. Uh,
(07:31):
tattoos are coming up from being just like a part
of a dangerous biker subculture. Uh and illegal also in
a lot of places due to hepatitis see breakouts. Um.
In the nineteen seventies, you do see women becoming increasingly
interested in manning that tattoo gun. But uh, dudes weren't
(07:52):
always so keen on letting them into the clubhouse. Yeah,
so they definitely had to elbow their way in a
bit too into this our culture. But there were pioneers,
and we're gonna highlight two of them, starting with the
so called godmother of tattooing, Kate helen Brand a k A.
Shanghai Kate, who picked it up from her boyfriend around
(08:14):
ninety one and then she was just like, off to
the races, she will learn how to tattoo. She ended
up studying with Ed Hardy, who, yes, Ed Hardy is
the Ed Hardy of all of those very distressed genes
and um, very busy, let's put it that way, very
busy t shirt particular. It's a particular bro culture. Very yes,
(08:36):
it's a very particular aesthetic. Um. But Ed Hardy is
originally a tattoo legend who actually uh kind of pioneered
in the United States large back pieces, which explains the
style aesthetic of Ed Hardy brand clove. Um. But Kate
helen Brand is stuttying with him and other who's who
(08:59):
in the tat t world in the seventies and in
nineteen nine she becomes the first American woman to high
tail it to Europe. To set up shot by herself.
She's like traveling around tattooing on her own, making a
name for herself, collecting different techniques. She goes to Japan
and she's just figuring out all this, all this stuff. Well,
it's just funny that there are literally so few women
(09:21):
in the industry that it's even noteworthy that she's the
first woman to go to Europe to tattoo solo. Like
it does it that doesn't seem like, you know, first
woman in space is cool, and this not that this
isn't cool, but it's just indicative of how few women
are around that this is even noted. And Helen Brand,
(09:43):
in an interview, said that she was ridiculed, called crazy,
even physically attacked when she entered this industry. She said,
I was an economic threat because I was a cute girl,
and when the military guys came in on leave, they
always picked me over the others with more experience ants.
So not exactly welcomed with open arms. People were really
(10:04):
critical of like, oh, well, you're just skating by on
your womanhood, on your good looks. She was a sally
ride of tattoos. There we go. But you know, the
interviewer did ask her, like, so, uh, you're like sevent dy,
do you have any plans to retire? She's like, retire
from what? Having an awesome life? Think? Yeah, she was
like traveling around and making money. Why would Why would I?
(10:26):
Why would I do that? Because she's still tattooing. Um.
Someone else who is still tattooing? Whose shop? I'm pretty
sure I've walked past a number of times because I
frequent New Orleans. Um is Jackie Gresham, who in nineteen
seventies six became the first black female tattooists in the
(10:46):
United States. And I mean she became the first black
prominent tattooists male or female in the US. And she
says that when she got started, she knew of only
five other female professional tattooists. And in a mind bending
bit of historical trivia, Gresham told her interviewer at the
(11:09):
Gambit that her business partner back in the day wanted
to institute a shop rule that women customers could not
get a tattoo because it was socially unacceptable. What what?
What the what? Yeah? So she was actually working at
an engineering firm, of all places, when she met this guy,
(11:30):
Ali Singh, who would become her business partner. Um, he
had actually traveled around and knew how to tattoo and
taught her how to to tattoo. It's hard to say, um.
And they took a trip to New Orleans hoping to
land a job in either engineering her architecture, and New
(11:50):
Orleans was like, uh, two bad, so sad, we don't
have any jobs for you. So they realized that they
had a skill that not many other people new, so
they opened up shop and today Art Accent, that's Art
with two a's is the oldest tattoo parlor in New Orleans.
But that's also kind of on a technicality because there
(12:12):
were like two other tattoo shops open when they opened,
but they have since closed down, so it's the oldest
like continually running. Um, but she's still tattooing people. So
you're telling me that that she's kind of a double
groundbreaker in terms of women's professional history because she's got
this position as the earliest prominent black tattoo artists in
(12:35):
the country, but she was also an engineer. Oh yeah,
so I think she was more she studied architecture. Okay, well, again,
like going back to our women in Stem series and
our architecture episode, like not exactly a playground for ladies,
not exactly welcoming. Yeah, I mean I feel like Jackie
(12:55):
just kind of bulldozes her way into like whatever makes
sense in her life, and that led to tattooing. And
she's talked about how her architecture training and design training
has been helpful with tattooing because that she does really
awesome work well because of how you know, the body
curves and how like just kind of intuitively knowing how
(13:19):
to work with what is not a flat surface. And
she was also clearly self possessed because she's shut down
Ali's saying who I think was also her boyfriend at
one point, um, yeah, shutting him down, being like what, Okay,
I'm gonna give tattoos as a woman, but I won't
be able to tattoo other women. No, no, no, no no, yeah,
(13:39):
I get out of here, dude with your bad ideas. Uh.
And today, you know, women make up just ten of
American tattoo artists, but that still encompasses a lot of
growth what you might call the Cat Bondie effect. And
if you're not if you're somehow not familiar with who
Cat Bondie is, she was on my inc She's very famous.
(14:02):
She's the one that my mother always says like, oh wow,
would a beautiful girl like that tattoo her face? So
you know, she's got stars on her face, she's got
tattoos on her neck. She's like fully covered basically. And
she now has a line of makeup that I've heard
from people it's you, is you right? It's me. It's amazing.
I have yet to try anything beyond her lip glasses.
(14:23):
But if the rest of her makeup line is as
amazing as her lip glasses, they are long wearing. Uh,
they are incredible. I I love them, then I then
I should try the rest of the line. For sure.
They're at Sephora, Go get them. The Cat von Dei
effect has affected YouTube, Carolina. You don't even have any
to swapped up in it. Yeah, But the cat Vondi
(14:46):
effect and the relative ground swell of women into the
industry is something that Jackie Gresham talked about to the
New Orleans All Weekly the Gamba, saying that women who've
been tattooing over twenty years, there ain't a hundred in
this country, but they are tattooing now, and she thinks
(15:08):
It's good because here we get a little gender essentialists. Um.
She says that women are much more sensitive and caring
than men, and that they care more about what they do. Well, okay,
maybe that's her experience. Yeah, sure, maybe that's how she feels. Um,
but I mean I can only imagine, um, what her
(15:29):
perspective must be, considering that when she started literally like
five other people doing what she did in the country. Um.
But if we get to cat Bondie briefly, I did
not know much about her, specifically that she was born
in Mexico, Yeah, raised in l A. She actually got
her first tattoo at fourteen. She was against the law
(15:53):
in you know some places. Uh. But she ended up
dropping out of school and started working at a tattoo
shop at six Team, which proved spoiler, I already spoiled
it. It It proved to be a good investment because then
she got super hyper famous on Miami inc. And Um,
a lot of people, though, you know, they have dismissed
her as like the hot girl. Like again, you know,
(16:15):
here are women being dismissed because like, oh, you're just
skating by on your looks. You're attracting men with your
feminine Wiles and your Face Stars to your tattoo chair. Um.
But I mean so I don't know. I really know
nothing about her skill as a tattoo artist. I know
way more about how people dismiss her on the basis
of her appearance. I'm gonna say it. I mean, I
(16:37):
love I love her makeup. Just worth restating. Uh, this
episode is not brought to you by Kat Bondie. But
I think do you think that the part of her
brush off is because she she got her rise or
notoriety via TLC on a reality show. Yeah, I'm sure
that that had a lot to do with it. I mean,
(16:58):
they scouted her when she was In two thousand five,
she gets her spin off show l A Inc. And
the producers made her higher two other women to be
her assistance because they wanted the optics of all female
run tattoo shop. Um, and she ended up letting them
(17:18):
go after she was contractually allowed to because she wouldn't
have been working with them otherwise, not because they were
other women, but just because, like they weren't terribly good
at what they did, so the show might might not
have helped her so much in the eyes of the
tattoo industry. Even though obviously it raised her celebrity profile
(17:38):
well in the lip gloss industry, she is head and
shoulders above. I don't know many others, but Margot Mifflin,
who wrote the book Bodies of a Subversion, which all
those V sounds that's very hard for me to say. Um.
She wrote that Cat Bondie's success is more quote an
indicator of women's rowing profile in the industry than her
(18:02):
particular talents. So, I mean, do you think that it
is important to have those optics of women out there tattooing? Oh?
I mean, like, if you are a TLC reality show,
you know they want the optics for the novelty factor,
certainly not the optics of you know what, we need
to inspire more women to get into this male dominated
(18:24):
industry because we're TLC. So what I'm hearing you say
between the lines is that this is the new version
of the side show. Because we talked so much in
our first episode about women with tattoos in public that
becoming a thing in circus side shows because you were
(18:47):
such a freak, You were so transgressive, You were going
against every gender norm and social expectation that you had
as a woman, and you know, defiling your your pure
as the driven snow god given body. And so that's
really the only avenue for heavily tattooed women to make money. Uh.
(19:08):
But now you've got reality shows like TLC that, yeah,
exactly like you said, they're not trying to help women
get inspired or help anyone get inspired. Really, they're just
portraying people that we can all goc at, and that
goes across a lot of their programming. Caroline, my mind
is blown. I completely agree with your theory. Um, And
(19:29):
I'm now trying to imagine a mashup of you know,
Cat Vondi with Says to the Dress because I think
Monty would just lose his mind because how are you
going to cover all those tw twos? Oh god? And
again I'm just picturing because my mother is so judge
about Cat Bondie and obsessively watches Say Yes to the
Dress and is so judge about those people. So I
(19:50):
just I feel like Sally's head would explode with judgment.
I mean, it's the ratings bonanza waiting to happen. My god,
my mother would hate watch the crap out of it.
Um that there are in addition to issues of just
getting women into the industry and how many women are represented,
whether they're on TLC or not. There's also issues of
(20:11):
class and race that we have to grapple with, and
we are going to talk about that when we come
right back from a quick break. So, while there has
been a significant growth of the number of women in
the tattoo industry, it is growth particularly among white women,
(20:36):
like black women in particular, are a rarity in the
tattoo ist chair. Um Margot Mifflin, who wrote Bodies of Subversion,
actually calls them conspicuously absent from that growing diversity of
tattoo is which partially has to do with economics, since
some women might be interested, but they might not be
(21:00):
able to afford taking an unpaid apprenticeship. Yeah, I mean
that can apply to anybody who's having financial is concerns
where they don't want to take an unpaid internship. Well,
and an apprenticeship, we should note is not required to
become a tattoo artist, but it's a common way for
people to get into the industry. Find your mentor and
(21:23):
you know, find it a city job after that. Yeah,
And and there are definitely like you know, we haven't
talked at all about like d I y tattooists called scratchers.
But there are plenty of people to who you know,
they didn't necessarily take any classes. Yeah, Caroline, I'm going
to confess to you that my uh my first tattoo
is a scratcher tattoo. Wait what which? What my anchor
(21:48):
on my left wrist? Oh? I thought you meant like
you had I don't know, some like smiley face somewhere
that somebody did with a ballpoint pen when you were
in seventh grade. I mean it looks about as high
quality as a seventh grader at the ball point. So
who did it? Just some some amateur, yes, very much
an amateur. Um. Some friends of mine at the time
got a tattoo gun and some ink off the internet.
(22:11):
Oh god, and they started hosting weekly tattoo nights. Well,
let me see it. I mean it looks good, it
doesn't you know? It looks good. It's a little crooked. Well,
I I don't live with your wrist. Well I have, Well,
I have a deep fondness for my crooked scratcher tattoo
because it was I didn't name it was definitely you
(22:33):
know a snapshot of that time in my twenties, and
I was like, yeah, I'll get a scratcher tattoo. Sure, fine,
why not? The needles were clean, people, The needles were clean. Good.
That's very important to note. Um. Well, so moving on
from your crooked scratcher wrist tattoo. I'm such an outlaw.
(22:54):
I know you are, you really are. You're so dangerous.
But that is falling back on stereotypes about tattoos tattoo culture.
And I apologize and me too, I I apologize. I
apologize to you for your apology. Uh. And that's a
very gender based thing for us to do. We shouldn't
even be saying sorry. Now what do we do? I
don't know. We just start saying justin actually to each
(23:15):
other a lot and then turn bright red and fall apart. Um.
But if we go back, insite Jackie Gresham, who was
this country's first African American lady tattooist, which I hope
she has that stone on a jacket somewhere. America's first
African American lady tattoo is No, it's spelled B A
(23:37):
D A S S. That's how you spell it. It's
an acronym for something. Um. But yeah, she said that
she didn't even meet other black tattoo artists until the nineties. Yeah,
she got started in nineteen seventies six, and it would
take her almost twenty years to meet just another black tattoo.
It's not even a black woman. Kind of speaking about that,
(24:00):
Gresham told the Gambit that black people in Louisiana have
always gotten tattoos, but their hand stuck. I think the
reason black people didn't get tattoos was because the tattoo
trade was predominantly a biker group and they weren't women friendly,
or black people friendly or any of that. It's a
gatekeeper issue. It's what we see across industries abilities all
(24:22):
of this stuff, especially you know, we talked about it
a lot in STEM for instance. But you know, look
at who is the gatekeeper of who enters the field
becomes professionalized, or whether the industry itself becomes professionalized. And
so if the gatekeepers of tattooing are white biker dudes
(24:42):
who might be a little surly and racist and racist.
Not not that all bikers are racist, you know, Tagontal bikers, um,
but you can imagine that that's not always the most
welcoming environment for people who were different than that, yeah,
I mean, and myth And writes about this as well
and Bodies of Subversion, saying that there has been just
(25:04):
straight up an historical lack of a Black American tattoo
tradition and a scarcity of tattoo is to emulate. So
if you look at rap and hip hop culture today,
there are tattoos galore, my favorite being Gucci manes ice
cream cone on his cheek um. But those tattoos like
(25:26):
Gresham talks about, are mostly hand stuck or scratchers or
flash tats where they aren't so much focused on, you know, artistry,
and you're not going to go to a professional tattoo
shop to get it done. You're going to go to
you know, just like I didn't did my friend who
just has a tattoo gun. And it's not like there's
(25:47):
a lot of media out there dedicated to black people
in this country who want or appreciate tattoos either. I mean,
in two thousand and eight, that's when we get the
first tattoo magazine dedicated to people of color, called Urban Ink.
But it wasn't really well made. It had a lot
of problematic and highly sexualized images of women, and just
(26:08):
not the work feature wasn't even that great. Yeah, I mean,
basically it was the result of a publishing company that
was already putting out a couple of tattoo magazines, and
they were like, Oh, let's capitalize on on this. We
can just we can just throw this thing together, right,
And there was one um black tattoo artist who just
(26:31):
so quickly realized what trash urban ink was because um,
I think that she asked whether or not she like
submitted a query about whether her work could be featured
in the magazine, and the editor was immediately like, yeah,
without even asking to see her work. But I'm really
surprised to learn, Caroline, that urban ink still exists. It
(26:56):
might be folded in with Ink magazine. I'm not entirely sure.
All I know is that I just googled it and
yeah it's there, and oh wonderful. It's an interview with
Chris Brown. Oh so there we go. Well that's eliminating.
He does have a lot of tattoos awkward silence. So
(27:18):
for perhaps a richer and more meaningful investigation of people
of color within the not just the industry, but the subculture,
the tattoo subculture, I would recommend checking out the twelve
documentary Color Outside the Lines, which focuses largely on renowned
(27:39):
tattoo artists and City of Ink owner Maya Bailey. UM.
But they also talked to, for instance, Jackie Gresham, whom
we've been talking about for the past two episodes, and
they dig in as well on issues of you know,
just even just the mechanics of tattooing black skin and
(28:00):
the kinds of ink shades that work the best and
proper techniques, um, and really fleshing out what has been
for a lot of people kind of having to navigate
their way through a very white dominated culture. And I
would be curious to know from African American listeners whether
(28:20):
there has been a feeling of marginalization when you have
kind of been in those spaces, if you have been
in a tattoo shop or have even just been talking
about tattoos, have just gotten a tattoo, um, whether there
is a sense of mother ring at all, um, or
if it's just getting a tattoo. Yeah, Because I mean,
when it comes to atmospheres of tattoo shops and you're
(28:44):
looking at gender, if you're backing away from looking at
race or skin color, you've got people like fame tattoo
artist Vivian las Anga and Seattle, who says that the
atmosphere is a way better for women today than it
was when they were working with men, even in the Indies,
when there was definitely a more competitive and cutthroat vibe
(29:04):
to the industry. Yeah. I mean, there's just a general
stereotype that women run shops are more welcoming um, whereas
men's shops UM are. I don't want to say hostile,
but I feel like it's the same. It's the same
kind of sensation that I get when I walk into
a mechanic garage, where it's like, oh am, I am
(29:27):
I welcome here? I don't have a sleeve, so am
I going to be taken seriously? I don't know? Um.
And in talking to a number of women tattooists for
Covered in Ink, Beverly Thompson writes about how the sense
(29:47):
of investment in their jobs and loyalty to their shops
um is very personal for female tattoo artists and and
something that she says has become almost feminine is that
that's considered like a feminine trait of a lady tattooist,
that you are more you have more of a collaborative sense. Interesting,
(30:11):
So they found more loyalty among female tattoo artists than
male tattoo artists. Yeah, I mean, but that was just
like anecdotally among the women she was talking to in
their observations. Um. And then there's there's kind of the
payoff and the upside of gender stereotypes, which is that
some women are simply more comfortable getting inked by other women,
(30:35):
like we talked about before, I mean, and especially if
it is and more intimate, uh body part. There was
one Chicana tattoo artist in l A that Thompson talked
to who said, I know, women feel safer with me
since I will understand their needs and will be respectful
of their desires. Yeah. And so yeah, you do have
(30:55):
that those issues weighing against each other of the gender
baas to benefit the personal preference to be tattooed by
a lady versus not wanting to be stuck in a
box as a female tattoo is to only tattoos women. Yeah, Well,
because a lot of women will experience customers walking into
(31:19):
a shop and saying, you know, oh, can I can
I speak to a tattoo artist like assuming that they're
just shop girls and not actually doing the work, not
to mention when it comes to the actual work. That
stereotype that spans street art and the art world at
large that women can only create feminine looking tattoos. And
(31:42):
of course there's something wrong with feminine looking tattoos, but
there are simply, you know, women who can Women create
a whole spectrum of aesthetics, just like fellows. Do you
know a male tattoo artist can probably tattoo me a
beautifully graceful bird. I could go to a lady and
she could make that bird like a zombie skeleton bird,
(32:04):
still a bird, though still a bird, zombie skeleton bird. Um, well,
wasn't it. There's also this weird stereotype that somehow women
are like a bargain when it comes to giving tattoos.
It wasn't a Jackie Gresham who said, like, I've got
these drunk people who come in from the bar next
door and they see me and they think that they're
going to get a deal. Well, the bartender didn't give
(32:26):
you a deal on your cocktails, so why would I
give you a deal on your tattoo. Yes, I've heard
that anecdotally from women tattoo artists. I mean, I guess
it's like the gender wage gap in action, or like
you're physically smaller than your male counterpart, which means somehow
that I should be you lest Yeah, maybe assuming that
(32:47):
they can't be veterans, you know, they must not be
at the top of their field, so you know, cut
me a deal because you've got to be an intern.
So many ugly assumptions. Um, But by and large, I
say I put out a call also on the stuff
I've Never Told You Facebook page a little while back,
um for experiences from women in the industry, and overall
(33:09):
it was positive in the actual stores, like when you're
among your people, it's totally chill. But it's more the
thing when you go out and not only do you
probably have visible tattoos, and how people just forget how
to behave around women with visible tattoos, and then to
find out, oh wait, your tattoo artists too. Whoa, you
(33:35):
must want to have sex all the time, you know,
like something, you're so tough. Yeah, It's it's funny to
me to see how our attitudes about women's appearances have
trickled down and evolved over the years. Because I feel
like tattoos and makeup are very similar in that in
the early days, you know, if you look back to
(33:57):
the Victorians or whatever, you know, the women who were
wearing makeup were either women of the stage, or they
were prostitutes, or they were assumed to be prostitutes. And
so today that equates to like all those guys on
social media who are like, you're prettier without makeup. God,
shut up. But it's the same I think evolution when
it comes to tattoos, because they were so associated with criminality, gangs, prison, tattoos, prostitutes,
(34:27):
the subversive, the underground, the illegal, that now when you
see women with tattoos, it's like people they don't know
why they feel this way, but they still associate like
a criminal, underground, dangerous sexual meaning with women's tattoos. I mean.
(34:47):
Thompson points out that in our society it's so left
up because it's literally more socially acceptable for women to
get plastic surgery and to diet and too star of
themselves than it is to have a tattoo. So like,
what does that say about us? Like it's okay to
um focus on your body when it's an issue of
(35:09):
like vanity and looking pretty, but not okay when the
thing you want to do to your body is putting
a permanent mark on it. Yeah, I feel like it's
it's it either renders you a sex object or a
d sex object, because I feel like women with a
lot of visible tattoos or dropped in the bucket of either,
like you know, the your mom's cat Vondie responsive like,
(35:29):
oh whow would she do that to her face? Too? Well,
you know she's just given up. She doesn't even wanna,
you know, look at her. She must hate herself, she
must hate her body. She's trying to cover it up
with all of those tattoos. Um. And the thing is
a lot of tattoo media doesn't help matters. It's the
same thing that we see in marijuana subcultures, skateboarding subcultures,
(35:54):
where unfortunately a lot of the you know, magazines and
media around that just recycles these images of hyper sexy
tattooed centerfold. Well. Yeah, I mean I said earlier that, um,
people of color in this country don't have great tattoo
(36:15):
media dedicated to them or geared towards them. But that's
not I'm not I don't mean to necessarily single anyone
out who's a person of color. And also in tattoo culture,
because it seems like tattooed media across the board is
quite questionable. Yeah, I mean there it seems like there
are exceptions here and there. I forget the name of
the magazine, but there was one mentioned, I think in
(36:37):
Bodies of Subversion that was started by women to promote
more not even necessarily positive perceptions, but just like non sexualized,
non necessarily sexualized images of uh women in tattooing. And
I do feel like there is organically, um, just a
(37:00):
broadening of our idea of what a woman with a
tattoo looks like. Because of social media. Yeah, I mean, hello, Pinterest,
all of those tattoo spo what what would they be called? There?
The tattoo inspo words on Pinterest that show a range
of bodies. Because also, if you don't want to look
(37:22):
at the hyper sexualized tattoo imagery that's put out there
in a lot of media, um, you might take a
picture of yourself as an everyday human being, uh to
show what your tattoo looks like. And then someone on
Pinterest is like, oh my god, that's so cool and inspirational.
I'm going to pin that. So you get this distribution
of a variety of bodies, body shapes, body colors, body sizes,
(37:46):
all sorts of things simply because people want to trade
ideas and inspiration for their ink. And then you also
get the distribution of all sorts of different ideas about
uh tattoo trends. You know, I put out that call
at the end of our last up, so like, I
want to hear from tattoo artists about the trends that
they see, Like what goes in and out? Do you
see a lot of people, you know, a couple of
(38:07):
years ago it was the swallows on the chest or
the stars on the chest, you know. So I'm like
super fascinated by a tattoo trends even though I am
a person without tattoos. Well, Caroline, I think that's the
perfect segue to ask listeners out there all of their
thoughts on these tattoos. If you just want to talk
to us about your personal tattoos. Of course, if you
(38:29):
are a tattoo artist, whatever your gender, we would love
to hear from you, um and get your insider know
how on all the stuff that we've been talking about. Um,
and any suggestions for a tattoo that I should get,
please let me know. I'm itching to get one, and
I really don't want to just do it on impulse
(38:51):
and end up just getting the stuff I've Never told
you logo and kind of regretting it. Just get us
back to back on your back. Yes, I wish I
could get it like a three D tattoo somehow to
where like I could get you on my back, but
to where like we would be back to back, you
know what I'm saying, like at the right angle anyway, Um,
(39:14):
I doubt that would creep you out at all. That's fine.
I would never see it because it's a back piece.
It's going to be real to screet. Yeah, So send
us all of your tattoo thoughts mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com is our email address. You can
also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages on
Facebook and Hey, if you've got a rad tattoo that
(39:34):
you want to share with us, you can also go
on Instagram and just tag us where stuff Mom Never
told you and we can share it, oh with everybody,
because tattoos are really fun to look at. So at that,
let's get to some letters. All right, I have a
(39:54):
letter here from Inga in Norway. She still love your
podcast and as a librarian, I'm very still about your
librarian episodes. We did not cover Dewey's harassment in my education,
but it might just be that I'm from Norway and
Dewey wasn't extensively covered, just the Dewey decimal system. We did, however,
discussed Norwegian library pioneers usually dudes. I'm excited for more.
(40:15):
I'm really writing about the episode with Anne Marie Slaughter.
You mentioned Norwegian parental leave, and I thought you might
find it interesting to hear a real life example of
parental ly being a political divider. Parental leave in Norway
is split into three ten weeks for mom, ten for
dad or a co mother in twenty six or thirty
six weeks that you split however you like. Recently, though
(40:38):
mandatory paternity leave was fourteen weeks, our previous government, which
was a labor socialist government, expanded it to fourteen. In
ten we got a conservative right wing government and inteen
they reduced it again to ten weeks, expanding the shared weeks.
The idea being men can have fourteen weeks now too,
but they should have the choice. Sadly, Norway is not
(41:00):
a feminist utopia, and because of hashtag patriarchy, women are
likely to take most of the parental leave. I remember
when the government got into power and announced this, with
the journalists saying, well, won't this cause men to take
less paternity leave, and the Prime Minister said out loud, well,
women tend to earn less money, so it would be
a bigger burden if they worked more. I guess I
(41:22):
was outraged that none of the journalists raised the point
there might be a different solution to that problem, like
closing the pay gap. The most frustrating thing about this
both our Prime Minister and our Minister for Finance, one
of the most powerful people in the government, are women.
It's so saddening to me that they make it harder
for other women, particularly women less privileged than them. Anyway,
(41:44):
love the podcast, Keep up the good work. Big hugs
from Norway, inga big hugs from Atlanta, Georgia. Well, I've
got a let her here from Lauren. He writes, as
a young filmmaker, especially loved your series on rom coms.
Queering Romantic Comedies was my favorite of the series, But
I disagree with some of your thoughts on the film
Kissing Jessica Stein. I hate the fact that Jessica ends
(42:06):
up with a man at the end spoiler Well. I
agree that sharing sexual fluidity is a positive and in
some cases realistic portrayal. I have a hard time with
media that depict women who start out in a relationship
with another woman and, regardless of her sexual orientation, ends
up with a man or has an affair with a man.
The kids Are all Right is another cringe worthy example.
(42:27):
The reason I'm so sensitive to this is because my
mom has had a hard time with my coming out,
and she's been stuck in denial for several years. She
keeps saying and implying and praying, I'm sure that I
will eventually figure out that I'm not actually gay, and
or that I will find a man, even though it's
true that some queer women are attracted to men and
some end up with men. When media portray this so often,
(42:49):
it gives ammunition to parents like my mom, who are
hoping that their daughters will wake up one day and
figure out that marrying a man is the only way
to truly be happy. Sexual orientation be damned. It also
reinforces the myth that queer women aren't real and are
only with women to attract mail attention. I want to
see more media with queer women having happy endings with
(43:12):
other women and men with men, of course, and this
is something I'm working on in my own films. Well
here here, Lauren, um, I completely agree with you, and
I am excited that you are in the film industry
because you send us a link to your first short
film and I can't wait to watch it. It's apparently
about a man facing sexism in the workplace in a
(43:32):
gender swapped world, which sounds right up our alley. So Lauren,
good luck with your filmmaking, and thank you for all
your thoughts, and thanks to everyone who's written into us.
Mom stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address and for links to all of our social
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and
podcasts with our sources so you can learn so much
(43:52):
more about women in tattoos. Head on over to stuff
mom Never Told You dot com For more on this
and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff works dot com.
Ye
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from how Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin and welcome to part two of our
to Too, I'm Sorry Tattoo episodes. I I am, much
(00:24):
like Kristen, cannot help it but say to two to
to two and also that just has a nice ring
to it, so cute and I just can't help reading
it in in that pronunciation. Well, in part two, we
continue unpacking the taboos of tattoos when it comes to women.
To boos also sounds cute when you put the emphascist
(00:47):
on difference levels. Uh well, Kristen, you mentioned in our
last episode that one of your larger tattoos was done
by a lady tattoo artists. So did you specifically seek
out this woman or did it just happen to be
a lady who did it. It was both and neither.
(01:07):
I actually ended up getting hooked up with her through
a freelance writing assignment. UM. She had recently opened up
a shop here in Atlanta, Only You Tattoo, which she
co opened with her husband, and I was gonna go
write a profile of her UM because she has been
(01:29):
tattooing for a long time and has a great reputation.
And I told my editor that I had been wanting
to get a tattoo, so why don't I do the
interview while she is tattooing. Man, that sounds like an
amazing article. I didn't know you did this. It was
it was great. Yeah. Um, I will say that it
(01:49):
was um only I only have two tattoos, um, and
it was the second one, and it is a very
intricately detailed battleship in my rib cage. So it took
a while, and that is a tender spot. When she
found out that that I only had one tattoo and
(02:12):
that I was going to get this larger piece on
my on my rib cage, she was like, how do
you handle pain? You're all right with that? And my
editor who came with me actually took me to um
the restaurant bar next door and having to a shot
at Jamie Cinema with him before before I got my tattoo.
(02:32):
So I but it made it even more significant that
she did it. I mean, there are all sorts of
you know, amazing tattoo is regardless of gender, but I
just especially for what the tattoo means to me. I
I like the way it all came together with a
(02:53):
woman doing it and also a woman entrepreneur, and it
was just a great experience. Yeah, you and I are
both part of this lady centric Facebook group that will
remain unnamed. Uh, But something I do love seeing on
there is when women come on and say, and I'm
seeing this more often women come on and say, I
(03:15):
want a tattoo or I want a new tattoo where
the cool, rad lady tattoo artists in town. Because I
mean that's totally ladies supporting ladies, and it's ladies supporting
women artists, women business owners, because a tattoo artist is
all of these things and like maybe she just works
(03:38):
at the businesses, isn't the actual owner. But I just
love seeing women support each other like that for something
that I feel like a lot of people would easily
dismiss or just say why do you even want to
get a tattoo? But for the people who love and
want tattoos and body modification in general, the person that
you go to to do that and trust with your
(04:00):
body basically, I mean that is significant. Yeah, I mean
it can be a really intimate experience. And while you know,
my my rib cage isn't exactly like on orogenous zone,
I mean, it's still like laying there for a couple
of hours with my shirt up. Um. It was not that.
(04:21):
I don't think that I would have necessarily been distinctly
uncomfortable if a guy had been tattooing me, because above
all their professional Um, it's like seeing a male kind
of collegist for instance. Um. But especially since I am
still kind of a newbie, it was I don't know,
it was just nice having having a woman do it,
(04:41):
get all up in my my rib business. And there's
nothing wrong with personal preference. Yeah, no, not at all. Um.
And we are dedicating, like you said, this episode to
looking at women in the industry, and we're gonna be
referencing Beverly and Thompson's book Covered in Ink Tattoos meant
in the Politics of the Body a lot, because she
(05:02):
spends a lot of time looking at the landscape of
gender in the tattoo industry, talking to women who have
been in the business for a long time, women who
are just getting in the business. Um. And there are
more women tattooing than ever before by a large margin.
Even though it is still very much a male dominated industry,
(05:26):
because I mean, if you look at pre nineteen seventies,
finding just another female tattoos would have been really hard
to do. Yeah, before the late twentieth century, you kind
of have to go all the way back to the
turn of the twentieth century to find a significant or
(05:47):
well known lady tattoo artist. And that's Maud Wagner. Uh,
the badass who you know, made it a family affair.
Her husband was also a tattoo artist. Uh, they would
tattoo each other. There. Otter became a tattoo artist who was,
as we discussed in our last episode, famously not tattooed
(06:07):
because her father died and so she wouldn't let anyone
else tattoo her. And of course they have my my
favorite first date story of all, which is that Gus
Wagner traded Maud a lesson in tattooing for a date. Yeah.
It seems like a good business decision. Yeah, I mean,
Maud was already just, you know, an entrepreneur. She was
(06:28):
an arealist of the circus and she was like, listen
that again, I gotta get some skills. Skills with a
Z and then when you jump forward to the nineteen forties,
you get chorus girl turned tattoo artist Mildred Hale. She
was cited as the only lady tattooist in New York
at the time. Yeah, I mean, and this was in
(06:49):
that came from nineteen forty three, but she had already
opened her own tattoo shop, which was a rarity at
the time. She died though, I think in the nineteen
forties at um a very young age, but yeah, I
mean she was. She was a rare tattoo artist who
(07:09):
didn't pick it up from a husband or boyfriend because
it was, you know, pretty much like a masculine subculture
at that time. Yeah, totally. But by the time we
do hit the nineteen seventies, you know, we're in the
second wave feminism. We've had the swing in sixties. Uh,
(07:31):
tattoos are coming up from being just like a part
of a dangerous biker subculture. Uh and illegal also in
a lot of places due to hepatitis see breakouts. Um.
In the nineteen seventies, you do see women becoming increasingly
interested in manning that tattoo gun. But uh, dudes weren't
(07:52):
always so keen on letting them into the clubhouse. Yeah,
so they definitely had to elbow their way in a
bit too into this our culture. But there were pioneers,
and we're gonna highlight two of them, starting with the
so called godmother of tattooing, Kate helen Brand a k A.
Shanghai Kate, who picked it up from her boyfriend around
(08:14):
ninety one and then she was just like, off to
the races, she will learn how to tattoo. She ended
up studying with Ed Hardy, who, yes, Ed Hardy is
the Ed Hardy of all of those very distressed genes
and um, very busy, let's put it that way, very
busy t shirt particular. It's a particular bro culture. Very yes,
(08:36):
it's a very particular aesthetic. Um. But Ed Hardy is
originally a tattoo legend who actually uh kind of pioneered
in the United States large back pieces, which explains the
style aesthetic of Ed Hardy brand clove. Um. But Kate
helen Brand is stuttying with him and other who's who
(08:59):
in the tat t world in the seventies and in
nineteen nine she becomes the first American woman to high
tail it to Europe. To set up shot by herself.
She's like traveling around tattooing on her own, making a
name for herself, collecting different techniques. She goes to Japan
and she's just figuring out all this, all this stuff. Well,
it's just funny that there are literally so few women
(09:21):
in the industry that it's even noteworthy that she's the
first woman to go to Europe to tattoo solo. Like
it does it that doesn't seem like, you know, first
woman in space is cool, and this not that this
isn't cool, but it's just indicative of how few women
are around that this is even noted. And Helen Brand,
(09:43):
in an interview, said that she was ridiculed, called crazy,
even physically attacked when she entered this industry. She said,
I was an economic threat because I was a cute girl,
and when the military guys came in on leave, they
always picked me over the others with more experience ants.
So not exactly welcomed with open arms. People were really
(10:04):
critical of like, oh, well, you're just skating by on
your womanhood, on your good looks. She was a sally
ride of tattoos. There we go. But you know, the
interviewer did ask her, like, so, uh, you're like sevent dy,
do you have any plans to retire? She's like, retire
from what? Having an awesome life? Think? Yeah, she was
like traveling around and making money. Why would Why would I?
(10:26):
Why would I do that? Because she's still tattooing. Um.
Someone else who is still tattooing? Whose shop? I'm pretty
sure I've walked past a number of times because I
frequent New Orleans. Um is Jackie Gresham, who in nineteen
seventies six became the first black female tattooists in the
(10:46):
United States. And I mean she became the first black
prominent tattooists male or female in the US. And she
says that when she got started, she knew of only
five other female professional tattooists. And in a mind bending
bit of historical trivia, Gresham told her interviewer at the
(11:09):
Gambit that her business partner back in the day wanted
to institute a shop rule that women customers could not
get a tattoo because it was socially unacceptable. What what?
What the what? Yeah? So she was actually working at
an engineering firm, of all places, when she met this guy,
(11:30):
Ali Singh, who would become her business partner. Um, he
had actually traveled around and knew how to tattoo and
taught her how to to tattoo. It's hard to say, um.
And they took a trip to New Orleans hoping to
land a job in either engineering her architecture, and New
(11:50):
Orleans was like, uh, two bad, so sad, we don't
have any jobs for you. So they realized that they
had a skill that not many other people new, so
they opened up shop and today Art Accent, that's Art
with two a's is the oldest tattoo parlor in New Orleans.
But that's also kind of on a technicality because there
(12:12):
were like two other tattoo shops open when they opened,
but they have since closed down, so it's the oldest
like continually running. Um, but she's still tattooing people. So
you're telling me that that she's kind of a double
groundbreaker in terms of women's professional history because she's got
this position as the earliest prominent black tattoo artists in
(12:35):
the country, but she was also an engineer. Oh yeah,
so I think she was more she studied architecture. Okay, well, again,
like going back to our women in Stem series and
our architecture episode, like not exactly a playground for ladies,
not exactly welcoming. Yeah, I mean I feel like Jackie
(12:55):
just kind of bulldozes her way into like whatever makes
sense in her life, and that led to tattooing. And
she's talked about how her architecture training and design training
has been helpful with tattooing because that she does really
awesome work well because of how you know, the body
curves and how like just kind of intuitively knowing how
(13:19):
to work with what is not a flat surface. And
she was also clearly self possessed because she's shut down
Ali's saying who I think was also her boyfriend at
one point, um, yeah, shutting him down, being like what, Okay,
I'm gonna give tattoos as a woman, but I won't
be able to tattoo other women. No, no, no, no no, yeah,
(13:39):
I get out of here, dude with your bad ideas. Uh.
And today, you know, women make up just ten of
American tattoo artists, but that still encompasses a lot of
growth what you might call the Cat Bondie effect. And
if you're not if you're somehow not familiar with who
Cat Bondie is, she was on my inc She's very famous.
(14:02):
She's the one that my mother always says like, oh wow,
would a beautiful girl like that tattoo her face? So
you know, she's got stars on her face, she's got
tattoos on her neck. She's like fully covered basically. And
she now has a line of makeup that I've heard
from people it's you, is you right? It's me. It's amazing.
I have yet to try anything beyond her lip glasses.
(14:23):
But if the rest of her makeup line is as
amazing as her lip glasses, they are long wearing. Uh,
they are incredible. I I love them, then I then
I should try the rest of the line. For sure.
They're at Sephora, Go get them. The Cat von Dei
effect has affected YouTube, Carolina. You don't even have any
to swapped up in it. Yeah, But the cat Vondi
(14:46):
effect and the relative ground swell of women into the
industry is something that Jackie Gresham talked about to the
New Orleans All Weekly the Gamba, saying that women who've
been tattooing over twenty years, there ain't a hundred in
this country, but they are tattooing now, and she thinks
(15:08):
It's good because here we get a little gender essentialists. Um.
She says that women are much more sensitive and caring
than men, and that they care more about what they do. Well, okay,
maybe that's her experience. Yeah, sure, maybe that's how she feels. Um,
but I mean I can only imagine, um, what her
(15:29):
perspective must be, considering that when she started literally like
five other people doing what she did in the country. Um.
But if we get to cat Bondie briefly, I did
not know much about her, specifically that she was born
in Mexico, Yeah, raised in l A. She actually got
her first tattoo at fourteen. She was against the law
(15:53):
in you know some places. Uh. But she ended up
dropping out of school and started working at a tattoo
shop at six Team, which proved spoiler, I already spoiled
it. It It proved to be a good investment because then
she got super hyper famous on Miami inc. And Um,
a lot of people, though, you know, they have dismissed
her as like the hot girl. Like again, you know,
(16:15):
here are women being dismissed because like, oh, you're just
skating by on your looks. You're attracting men with your
feminine Wiles and your Face Stars to your tattoo chair. Um.
But I mean so I don't know. I really know
nothing about her skill as a tattoo artist. I know
way more about how people dismiss her on the basis
of her appearance. I'm gonna say it. I mean, I
(16:37):
love I love her makeup. Just worth restating. Uh, this
episode is not brought to you by Kat Bondie. But
I think do you think that the part of her
brush off is because she she got her rise or
notoriety via TLC on a reality show. Yeah, I'm sure
that that had a lot to do with it. I mean,
(16:58):
they scouted her when she was In two thousand five,
she gets her spin off show l A Inc. And
the producers made her higher two other women to be
her assistance because they wanted the optics of all female
run tattoo shop. Um, and she ended up letting them
(17:18):
go after she was contractually allowed to because she wouldn't
have been working with them otherwise, not because they were
other women, but just because, like they weren't terribly good
at what they did, so the show might might not
have helped her so much in the eyes of the
tattoo industry. Even though obviously it raised her celebrity profile
(17:38):
well in the lip gloss industry, she is head and
shoulders above. I don't know many others, but Margot Mifflin,
who wrote the book Bodies of a Subversion, which all
those V sounds that's very hard for me to say. Um.
She wrote that Cat Bondie's success is more quote an
indicator of women's rowing profile in the industry than her
(18:02):
particular talents. So, I mean, do you think that it
is important to have those optics of women out there tattooing? Oh?
I mean, like, if you are a TLC reality show,
you know they want the optics for the novelty factor,
certainly not the optics of you know what, we need
to inspire more women to get into this male dominated
(18:24):
industry because we're TLC. So what I'm hearing you say
between the lines is that this is the new version
of the side show. Because we talked so much in
our first episode about women with tattoos in public that
becoming a thing in circus side shows because you were
(18:47):
such a freak, You were so transgressive, You were going
against every gender norm and social expectation that you had
as a woman, and you know, defiling your your pure
as the driven snow god given body. And so that's
really the only avenue for heavily tattooed women to make money. Uh.
(19:08):
But now you've got reality shows like TLC that, yeah,
exactly like you said, they're not trying to help women
get inspired or help anyone get inspired. Really, they're just
portraying people that we can all goc at, and that
goes across a lot of their programming. Caroline, my mind
is blown. I completely agree with your theory. Um, And
(19:29):
I'm now trying to imagine a mashup of you know,
Cat Vondi with Says to the Dress because I think
Monty would just lose his mind because how are you
going to cover all those tw twos? Oh god? And
again I'm just picturing because my mother is so judge
about Cat Bondie and obsessively watches Say Yes to the
Dress and is so judge about those people. So I
(19:50):
just I feel like Sally's head would explode with judgment.
I mean, it's the ratings bonanza waiting to happen. My god,
my mother would hate watch the crap out of it.
Um that there are in addition to issues of just
getting women into the industry and how many women are represented,
whether they're on TLC or not. There's also issues of
(20:11):
class and race that we have to grapple with, and
we are going to talk about that when we come
right back from a quick break. So, while there has
been a significant growth of the number of women in
the tattoo industry, it is growth particularly among white women,
(20:36):
like black women in particular, are a rarity in the
tattoo ist chair. Um Margot Mifflin, who wrote Bodies of Subversion,
actually calls them conspicuously absent from that growing diversity of
tattoo is which partially has to do with economics, since
some women might be interested, but they might not be
(21:00):
able to afford taking an unpaid apprenticeship. Yeah, I mean
that can apply to anybody who's having financial is concerns
where they don't want to take an unpaid internship. Well,
and an apprenticeship, we should note is not required to
become a tattoo artist, but it's a common way for
people to get into the industry. Find your mentor and
(21:23):
you know, find it a city job after that. Yeah,
And and there are definitely like you know, we haven't
talked at all about like d I y tattooists called scratchers.
But there are plenty of people to who you know,
they didn't necessarily take any classes. Yeah, Caroline, I'm going
to confess to you that my uh my first tattoo
is a scratcher tattoo. Wait what which? What my anchor
(21:48):
on my left wrist? Oh? I thought you meant like
you had I don't know, some like smiley face somewhere
that somebody did with a ballpoint pen when you were
in seventh grade. I mean it looks about as high
quality as a seventh grader at the ball point. So
who did it? Just some some amateur, yes, very much
an amateur. Um. Some friends of mine at the time
got a tattoo gun and some ink off the internet.
(22:11):
Oh god, and they started hosting weekly tattoo nights. Well,
let me see it. I mean it looks good, it
doesn't you know? It looks good. It's a little crooked. Well,
I I don't live with your wrist. Well I have, Well,
I have a deep fondness for my crooked scratcher tattoo
because it was I didn't name it was definitely you
(22:33):
know a snapshot of that time in my twenties, and
I was like, yeah, I'll get a scratcher tattoo. Sure, fine,
why not? The needles were clean, people, The needles were clean. Good.
That's very important to note. Um. Well, so moving on
from your crooked scratcher wrist tattoo. I'm such an outlaw.
(22:54):
I know you are, you really are. You're so dangerous.
But that is falling back on stereotypes about tattoos tattoo culture.
And I apologize and me too, I I apologize. I
apologize to you for your apology. Uh. And that's a
very gender based thing for us to do. We shouldn't
even be saying sorry. Now what do we do? I
don't know. We just start saying justin actually to each
(23:15):
other a lot and then turn bright red and fall apart. Um.
But if we go back, insite Jackie Gresham, who was
this country's first African American lady tattooist, which I hope
she has that stone on a jacket somewhere. America's first
African American lady tattoo is No, it's spelled B A
(23:37):
D A S S. That's how you spell it. It's
an acronym for something. Um. But yeah, she said that
she didn't even meet other black tattoo artists until the nineties. Yeah,
she got started in nineteen seventies six, and it would
take her almost twenty years to meet just another black tattoo.
It's not even a black woman. Kind of speaking about that,
(24:00):
Gresham told the Gambit that black people in Louisiana have
always gotten tattoos, but their hand stuck. I think the
reason black people didn't get tattoos was because the tattoo
trade was predominantly a biker group and they weren't women friendly,
or black people friendly or any of that. It's a
gatekeeper issue. It's what we see across industries abilities all
(24:22):
of this stuff, especially you know, we talked about it
a lot in STEM for instance. But you know, look
at who is the gatekeeper of who enters the field
becomes professionalized, or whether the industry itself becomes professionalized. And
so if the gatekeepers of tattooing are white biker dudes
(24:42):
who might be a little surly and racist and racist.
Not not that all bikers are racist, you know, Tagontal bikers, um,
but you can imagine that that's not always the most
welcoming environment for people who were different than that, yeah,
I mean, and myth And writes about this as well
and Bodies of Subversion, saying that there has been just
(25:04):
straight up an historical lack of a Black American tattoo
tradition and a scarcity of tattoo is to emulate. So
if you look at rap and hip hop culture today,
there are tattoos galore, my favorite being Gucci manes ice
cream cone on his cheek um. But those tattoos like
(25:26):
Gresham talks about, are mostly hand stuck or scratchers or
flash tats where they aren't so much focused on, you know, artistry,
and you're not going to go to a professional tattoo
shop to get it done. You're going to go to
you know, just like I didn't did my friend who
just has a tattoo gun. And it's not like there's
(25:47):
a lot of media out there dedicated to black people
in this country who want or appreciate tattoos either. I mean,
in two thousand and eight, that's when we get the
first tattoo magazine dedicated to people of color, called Urban Ink.
But it wasn't really well made. It had a lot
of problematic and highly sexualized images of women, and just
(26:08):
not the work feature wasn't even that great. Yeah, I mean,
basically it was the result of a publishing company that
was already putting out a couple of tattoo magazines, and
they were like, Oh, let's capitalize on on this. We
can just we can just throw this thing together, right,
And there was one um black tattoo artist who just
(26:31):
so quickly realized what trash urban ink was because um,
I think that she asked whether or not she like
submitted a query about whether her work could be featured
in the magazine, and the editor was immediately like, yeah,
without even asking to see her work. But I'm really
surprised to learn, Caroline, that urban ink still exists. It
(26:56):
might be folded in with Ink magazine. I'm not entirely sure.
All I know is that I just googled it and
yeah it's there, and oh wonderful. It's an interview with
Chris Brown. Oh so there we go. Well that's eliminating.
He does have a lot of tattoos awkward silence. So
(27:18):
for perhaps a richer and more meaningful investigation of people
of color within the not just the industry, but the subculture,
the tattoo subculture, I would recommend checking out the twelve
documentary Color Outside the Lines, which focuses largely on renowned
(27:39):
tattoo artists and City of Ink owner Maya Bailey. UM.
But they also talked to, for instance, Jackie Gresham, whom
we've been talking about for the past two episodes, and
they dig in as well on issues of you know,
just even just the mechanics of tattooing black skin and
(28:00):
the kinds of ink shades that work the best and
proper techniques, um, and really fleshing out what has been
for a lot of people kind of having to navigate
their way through a very white dominated culture. And I
would be curious to know from African American listeners whether
(28:20):
there has been a feeling of marginalization when you have
kind of been in those spaces, if you have been
in a tattoo shop or have even just been talking
about tattoos, have just gotten a tattoo, um, whether there
is a sense of mother ring at all, um, or
if it's just getting a tattoo. Yeah, Because I mean,
when it comes to atmospheres of tattoo shops and you're
(28:44):
looking at gender, if you're backing away from looking at
race or skin color, you've got people like fame tattoo
artist Vivian las Anga and Seattle, who says that the
atmosphere is a way better for women today than it
was when they were working with men, even in the Indies,
when there was definitely a more competitive and cutthroat vibe
(29:04):
to the industry. Yeah. I mean, there's just a general
stereotype that women run shops are more welcoming um, whereas
men's shops UM are. I don't want to say hostile,
but I feel like it's the same. It's the same
kind of sensation that I get when I walk into
a mechanic garage, where it's like, oh am, I am
(29:27):
I welcome here? I don't have a sleeve, so am
I going to be taken seriously? I don't know? Um.
And in talking to a number of women tattooists for
Covered in Ink, Beverly Thompson writes about how the sense
(29:47):
of investment in their jobs and loyalty to their shops
um is very personal for female tattoo artists and and
something that she says has become almost feminine is that
that's considered like a feminine trait of a lady tattooist,
that you are more you have more of a collaborative sense. Interesting,
(30:11):
So they found more loyalty among female tattoo artists than
male tattoo artists. Yeah, I mean, but that was just
like anecdotally among the women she was talking to in
their observations. Um. And then there's there's kind of the
payoff and the upside of gender stereotypes, which is that
some women are simply more comfortable getting inked by other women,
(30:35):
like we talked about before, I mean, and especially if
it is and more intimate, uh body part. There was
one Chicana tattoo artist in l A that Thompson talked
to who said, I know, women feel safer with me
since I will understand their needs and will be respectful
of their desires. Yeah. And so yeah, you do have
(30:55):
that those issues weighing against each other of the gender
baas to benefit the personal preference to be tattooed by
a lady versus not wanting to be stuck in a
box as a female tattoo is to only tattoos women. Yeah, Well,
because a lot of women will experience customers walking into
(31:19):
a shop and saying, you know, oh, can I can
I speak to a tattoo artist like assuming that they're
just shop girls and not actually doing the work, not
to mention when it comes to the actual work. That
stereotype that spans street art and the art world at
large that women can only create feminine looking tattoos. And
(31:42):
of course there's something wrong with feminine looking tattoos, but
there are simply, you know, women who can Women create
a whole spectrum of aesthetics, just like fellows. Do you
know a male tattoo artist can probably tattoo me a
beautifully graceful bird. I could go to a lady and
she could make that bird like a zombie skeleton bird,
(32:04):
still a bird, though still a bird, zombie skeleton bird. Um, well,
wasn't it. There's also this weird stereotype that somehow women
are like a bargain when it comes to giving tattoos.
It wasn't a Jackie Gresham who said, like, I've got
these drunk people who come in from the bar next
door and they see me and they think that they're
going to get a deal. Well, the bartender didn't give
(32:26):
you a deal on your cocktails, so why would I
give you a deal on your tattoo. Yes, I've heard
that anecdotally from women tattoo artists. I mean, I guess
it's like the gender wage gap in action, or like
you're physically smaller than your male counterpart, which means somehow
that I should be you lest Yeah, maybe assuming that
(32:47):
they can't be veterans, you know, they must not be
at the top of their field, so you know, cut
me a deal because you've got to be an intern.
So many ugly assumptions. Um, But by and large, I
say I put out a call also on the stuff
I've Never Told You Facebook page a little while back,
um for experiences from women in the industry, and overall
(33:09):
it was positive in the actual stores, like when you're
among your people, it's totally chill. But it's more the
thing when you go out and not only do you
probably have visible tattoos, and how people just forget how
to behave around women with visible tattoos, and then to
find out, oh wait, your tattoo artists too. Whoa, you
(33:35):
must want to have sex all the time, you know,
like something, you're so tough. Yeah, It's it's funny to
me to see how our attitudes about women's appearances have
trickled down and evolved over the years. Because I feel
like tattoos and makeup are very similar in that in
the early days, you know, if you look back to
(33:57):
the Victorians or whatever, you know, the women who were
wearing makeup were either women of the stage, or they
were prostitutes, or they were assumed to be prostitutes. And
so today that equates to like all those guys on
social media who are like, you're prettier without makeup. God,
shut up. But it's the same I think evolution when
it comes to tattoos, because they were so associated with criminality, gangs, prison, tattoos, prostitutes,
(34:27):
the subversive, the underground, the illegal, that now when you
see women with tattoos, it's like people they don't know
why they feel this way, but they still associate like
a criminal, underground, dangerous sexual meaning with women's tattoos. I mean.
(34:47):
Thompson points out that in our society it's so left
up because it's literally more socially acceptable for women to
get plastic surgery and to diet and too star of
themselves than it is to have a tattoo. So like,
what does that say about us? Like it's okay to
um focus on your body when it's an issue of
(35:09):
like vanity and looking pretty, but not okay when the
thing you want to do to your body is putting
a permanent mark on it. Yeah, I feel like it's
it's it either renders you a sex object or a
d sex object, because I feel like women with a
lot of visible tattoos or dropped in the bucket of either,
like you know, the your mom's cat Vondie responsive like,
(35:29):
oh whow would she do that to her face? Too? Well,
you know she's just given up. She doesn't even wanna,
you know, look at her. She must hate herself, she
must hate her body. She's trying to cover it up
with all of those tattoos. Um. And the thing is
a lot of tattoo media doesn't help matters. It's the
same thing that we see in marijuana subcultures, skateboarding subcultures,
(35:54):
where unfortunately a lot of the you know, magazines and
media around that just recycles these images of hyper sexy
tattooed centerfold. Well. Yeah, I mean I said earlier that, um,
people of color in this country don't have great tattoo
(36:15):
media dedicated to them or geared towards them. But that's
not I'm not I don't mean to necessarily single anyone
out who's a person of color. And also in tattoo culture,
because it seems like tattooed media across the board is
quite questionable. Yeah, I mean there it seems like there
are exceptions here and there. I forget the name of
the magazine, but there was one mentioned, I think in
(36:37):
Bodies of Subversion that was started by women to promote
more not even necessarily positive perceptions, but just like non sexualized,
non necessarily sexualized images of uh women in tattooing. And
I do feel like there is organically, um, just a
(37:00):
broadening of our idea of what a woman with a
tattoo looks like. Because of social media. Yeah, I mean, hello, Pinterest,
all of those tattoo spo what what would they be called? There?
The tattoo inspo words on Pinterest that show a range
of bodies. Because also, if you don't want to look
(37:22):
at the hyper sexualized tattoo imagery that's put out there
in a lot of media, um, you might take a
picture of yourself as an everyday human being, uh to
show what your tattoo looks like. And then someone on
Pinterest is like, oh my god, that's so cool and inspirational.
I'm going to pin that. So you get this distribution
of a variety of bodies, body shapes, body colors, body sizes,
(37:46):
all sorts of things simply because people want to trade
ideas and inspiration for their ink. And then you also
get the distribution of all sorts of different ideas about
uh tattoo trends. You know, I put out that call
at the end of our last up, so like, I
want to hear from tattoo artists about the trends that
they see, Like what goes in and out? Do you
see a lot of people, you know, a couple of
(38:07):
years ago it was the swallows on the chest or
the stars on the chest, you know. So I'm like
super fascinated by a tattoo trends even though I am
a person without tattoos. Well, Caroline, I think that's the
perfect segue to ask listeners out there all of their
thoughts on these tattoos. If you just want to talk
to us about your personal tattoos. Of course, if you
(38:29):
are a tattoo artist, whatever your gender, we would love
to hear from you, um and get your insider know
how on all the stuff that we've been talking about. Um,
and any suggestions for a tattoo that I should get,
please let me know. I'm itching to get one, and
I really don't want to just do it on impulse
(38:51):
and end up just getting the stuff I've Never told
you logo and kind of regretting it. Just get us
back to back on your back. Yes, I wish I
could get it like a three D tattoo somehow to
where like I could get you on my back, but
to where like we would be back to back, you
know what I'm saying, like at the right angle anyway, Um,
(39:14):
I doubt that would creep you out at all. That's fine.
I would never see it because it's a back piece.
It's going to be real to screet. Yeah, So send
us all of your tattoo thoughts mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com is our email address. You can
also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages on
Facebook and Hey, if you've got a rad tattoo that
(39:34):
you want to share with us, you can also go
on Instagram and just tag us where stuff Mom Never
told you and we can share it, oh with everybody,
because tattoos are really fun to look at. So at that,
let's get to some letters. All right, I have a
(39:54):
letter here from Inga in Norway. She still love your
podcast and as a librarian, I'm very still about your
librarian episodes. We did not cover Dewey's harassment in my education,
but it might just be that I'm from Norway and
Dewey wasn't extensively covered, just the Dewey decimal system. We did, however,
discussed Norwegian library pioneers usually dudes. I'm excited for more.
(40:15):
I'm really writing about the episode with Anne Marie Slaughter.
You mentioned Norwegian parental leave, and I thought you might
find it interesting to hear a real life example of
parental ly being a political divider. Parental leave in Norway
is split into three ten weeks for mom, ten for
dad or a co mother in twenty six or thirty
six weeks that you split however you like. Recently, though
(40:38):
mandatory paternity leave was fourteen weeks, our previous government, which
was a labor socialist government, expanded it to fourteen. In
ten we got a conservative right wing government and inteen
they reduced it again to ten weeks, expanding the shared weeks.
The idea being men can have fourteen weeks now too,
but they should have the choice. Sadly, Norway is not
(41:00):
a feminist utopia, and because of hashtag patriarchy, women are
likely to take most of the parental leave. I remember
when the government got into power and announced this, with
the journalists saying, well, won't this cause men to take
less paternity leave, and the Prime Minister said out loud, well,
women tend to earn less money, so it would be
a bigger burden if they worked more. I guess I
(41:22):
was outraged that none of the journalists raised the point
there might be a different solution to that problem, like
closing the pay gap. The most frustrating thing about this
both our Prime Minister and our Minister for Finance, one
of the most powerful people in the government, are women.
It's so saddening to me that they make it harder
for other women, particularly women less privileged than them. Anyway,
(41:44):
love the podcast, Keep up the good work. Big hugs
from Norway, inga big hugs from Atlanta, Georgia. Well, I've
got a let her here from Lauren. He writes, as
a young filmmaker, especially loved your series on rom coms.
Queering Romantic Comedies was my favorite of the series, But
I disagree with some of your thoughts on the film
Kissing Jessica Stein. I hate the fact that Jessica ends
(42:06):
up with a man at the end spoiler Well. I
agree that sharing sexual fluidity is a positive and in
some cases realistic portrayal. I have a hard time with
media that depict women who start out in a relationship
with another woman and, regardless of her sexual orientation, ends
up with a man or has an affair with a man.
The kids Are all Right is another cringe worthy example.
(42:27):
The reason I'm so sensitive to this is because my
mom has had a hard time with my coming out,
and she's been stuck in denial for several years. She
keeps saying and implying and praying, I'm sure that I
will eventually figure out that I'm not actually gay, and
or that I will find a man, even though it's
true that some queer women are attracted to men and
some end up with men. When media portray this so often,
(42:49):
it gives ammunition to parents like my mom, who are
hoping that their daughters will wake up one day and
figure out that marrying a man is the only way
to truly be happy. Sexual orientation be damned. It also
reinforces the myth that queer women aren't real and are
only with women to attract mail attention. I want to
see more media with queer women having happy endings with
(43:12):
other women and men with men, of course, and this
is something I'm working on in my own films. Well
here here, Lauren, um, I completely agree with you, and
I am excited that you are in the film industry
because you send us a link to your first short
film and I can't wait to watch it. It's apparently
about a man facing sexism in the workplace in a
(43:32):
gender swapped world, which sounds right up our alley. So Lauren,
good luck with your filmmaking, and thank you for all
your thoughts, and thanks to everyone who's written into us.
Mom stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address and for links to all of our social
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and
podcasts with our sources so you can learn so much
(43:52):
more about women in tattoos. Head on over to stuff
mom Never Told You dot com For more on this
and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff works dot com.
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