Tattoos Among Women Essay

Tattoos are culturally rich forms of self-expression and fulfillment, and hold power for their owners, both internally and externally. Tattoos are powerful identity markers because of their social projections and meanings in the greater social formation. The power of tattoos lays in their oppositional nature to the status quo, and the ability of people with tattoos to use them as tools for contesting existing power structures and accepted body ideologies. This paper will demonstrate the conflicts and contradictions of contemporary extreme tattoo practices among women in the West, and the relationship of such practices to the media representations of these women. decisions to acquire tattoos and radical piercings are no longer bound by social class, expressions of deviance and pathology, or themes of ideology, but are purchased merely as commodities in a consumer culture.
Tattoos are created by introducing pigment into the skin to …show more content…
An increasing number and broadening demographic of individuals get tattoos, more individuals of all ages and groups are obtaining them (Kosut, 2006). Displaying a tattoo makes a personal statement to the rest of society, but the way in which others interpret that statement has shifted back and forth with time. Doss and Ebesu Hubbard (2009) noted that tattoos may communicate regardless of the tattooed individual’s desired intention about communication. Tattoo motivations can be emotional, practical, complex, or very simple. While tattoos are images applied into the skin, there is nonetheless a communicative connection. Doss and Ebesu Hubbard (2009) noted “tattoos are informative and have significance for individuals” (p. 64). Potential communication regarding a tattoo leads naturally into an examination of its visibility. Individuals are enacting agency in electing to use time, spend money, and endure pain to obtain tattoos (Doss & Ebesu Hubbard,