Tattoos & Young Women

By: Christopher Confrey

Daddy’s little girl isn’t what she used to be.
Recent studies show tattoos are not a passing craze. More and more people are getting inked up every year and a record number of those people are young women.
“I got my first tattoo because I wanted one, not because something significant happened in my life,” a bartender and waitress from New City, Cheryl Ann Rodriguez said. “I think people can become hooked on tattoos, after getting my first I immediately began thinking about what I would get next.”
The National Geographic News reported in April 2000 that 15 percent of Americans or approximately 40 million people were tattooed. Of the 40 million, 36 percent were between the ages of 18 and 25 and 55 percent were women a fall 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center revealed.
“I got my first tattoo when I was 17,” Rodriguez said. “My friends and I went together, I used a fake id and got a nautical star on my tramp stamp,” Rodriguez, now 23 said.
By “tramp stamp” Rodriguez is referring to her lower back region, a popular location for tattoos among young women.
The next year, Rodriguez, then 18 had gotten another star tattoo, this time, on her stomach.
Rodriguez says she looks past the pain. “It’s not the type of pain that makes you jump away, the buzzing sound makes it so much worse,” she said.
In addition to her two star tattoos Rodriguez has what she describes as a scary angel on her left shoulder, a heart that points into an arrow on her left wrist, horseshoe prints on the top of her right foot, a tribal design in between her shoulders and a full sleeve of flowers on her right arm. A person achieves a sleeve when their entire upper arm, including the shoulder is covered in tattoos.
There are many young women who are open to the idea of getting a tattoo but have not actually done it yet.
“I definitely want to get a tattoo,” 19 year – old Stonehill College sophomore Anna Gills said. “I like the way they look, I think they are cool. I haven’t gotten a tattoo yet because I don’t know what I would get, nothing extremely significant has happened in my life yet. I am also scared of needles, they make me feel queasy.”
Gills, like many others, feel tattoos are a form of expression. “Tattoos say a lot about a person like their clothing or hairstyle, tattoos are just more permanent,” Gillis said.
“I would be open to getting multiple tattoos,” Gillis also said.
While millions of young women have gotten tattoos and millions more are planning on it, there are those who say they will never make a trip to the tattoo parlor.
“I don’t think I could ever care about anything enough to have it permanently on by body,” 20 year – old college sophomore Stephanie Mealey said.
There are many other factors young women must take into consideration other then where and what tattoo to get.
“I want to be a lawyer and I feel like I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I had a tattoo,” Mealey said.
Rodriguez, the bartender, understands that she has been stereotyped because of her tattoos. “I 100 percent know I am judged for my tattoos,” Rodriguez said. “I have no problem with people having their own ideas and opinions, I am not stupid, I work at two restaurants, and at one I have to wear long sleeves because the owner doesn’t think my tattoos are appropriate.”
“Some guy told me I was going to hell because the bible says you shouldn’t mark your body,” she said.
Rodriguez says she is ridiculed for her tattoos but usually takes it in stride.
“People always comment on my tattoos and I don’t take it personally I usually just answer their questions and they leave me alone. One day though a women came into a pizza place I work at and looked and me and said, ‘if you were my daughter I would kill you’ and I took her comment really personally and responded ‘if I were your daughter I would kill myself,’” Rodriguez said.
Many women also get tattoos in places that can easily be covered up. “I would get a tattoo on a place on my body that I could cover up for professional reasons, I wouldn’t want it to hinder my chances of getting a job,” Gillis said.
The stigma attached with tattoos also plagues many young, inked women. A 2003 Harris Poll found that 57 percent of people perceived tattoos as rebellious.
“I am not some biker chick running around in leather. There is nothing odd about me,” Rodriguez said. “I know I will be labeled as that mom when I have kids but I have accepted the fact that I am going to be a mom that has a lot of tattoos.”
Fear of what family or friends might think has also prevented many young women from getting a tattoo. “My father would kill me if I ever got a tattoo” Mealey said.
Rodriguez admits her parents were upset when they learned she had gotten a tattoo. “I hid it for a while but the more tattoos I got; the harder it became to hide. My mother was really upset at first, she didn’t yell, she wouldn’t talk to me for a few days. Now though, she accepts me for whom I am,” she said.
Permanence is something many young women must take into consideration before applying the ink.
“I would never want to get a tattoo because its forever and I don’t know how I might feel about something in 50 years,” Mealey said.
Despite the forever aspect tattoos give, the American Society of Dermatological Surgery, reported in 2005, that of all the people they treat with laser and light therapy, only 6% are getting a tattoo removed.
Rodriguez says she does not regret getting any of the numerous tattoos she has. “I might put them in a different place or change the design a little, but I would never take any away. Each tattoo means a lot to me,” she said.