This is, to me, another way in which men are trying to control women. Maybe unconsciously that was one of the reasons I chose to get large, visable tattoos. I mean I wasn't like, "Oh, I want to piss off men," because I wasn't thinking about them. I personally like the way tattoos look....pissing men off is just an added bonus.
It is true that I have had backlash from having large tattoos that I rarely cover. I'm threatening to some people because my tattoos highly the fact that I am a huge queer (come on, really, what straight woman has tattoos all over her arms?). If I gain weight my tattoos will stretch and I will still like them.
It's not likely my tattoos are offensive. They are anything but. One is an African tribal woman with the Kenyan flag, another is a totem pole, the third is an abstract person with arrows pointing in all directions, and the fourth is a women's symbol with a fist, inside of a inverted triangle, the fifth is on my chest, and therefore, not for public view. Now, how could the first three possibly be offensive to anyone?
Maybe it is the bright colors or the intricate designs. The fourth tattoo is on the inside of my wrist and barely visable, but I know that it probably scares a few people who know that it means that I am a feminist and I'm queer, and so what! It's MY body; I'll do what I want with it. Don't like it Dad? Too bad. Hey, dude walking past me giving me dirty looks, go fuck yourself.
Reclaim yourself girls. Not necessarily by getting a tattoo, because tattoos aren't everyone's thing.
But find another way to reclaim the body that American culture has taken away from you. For example, stop shaving. Do you personally care if your armpit is hairy? I don't know about anyone else, but I don't really look at my armpit all that much, so I don't notice that it is. Does your boyfriend care? Probably. A lot of straight women go through all that trouble to look nice for men to attract them. A lot of straight women and queer women feel that they have to look nice for men at their jobs (their male bosses and co-workers).
If you really like to do your hair, make-up, and nails, that is fine, but do it for yourself. I mean, why else would you want to spend hours each week "fixing up" and hundreds of dollars a year to get the equipment to do it? How about telling him that you want him to start painting his fingernails, spending an hour each day doing his hair, and getting his bikini area waxed once a week and see how he reacts...
Reclaim Your Body (from the MSUM Campus Feminist Organization zine) by: me
Before writing this, I looked on the internet because I couldn't figure out how to start talking about body image and tattoos. All I saw were articles (coincidentally ? all written by men) about how women shouldn't get tattoos because it would interfere with job opportunities, how it is unfeminine if women have tattoos other than flowers and butterflies, how tattoos always, always must be hidden under clothing, and how women shouldn't get tattoos because when they lose weight (which they all should be doing of course) or become pregnant, the tattoos will stretch and become unsightly.
