This document summarizes a study on how tattoo practices have negotiated and changed notions of femininity for women in Australia. It finds that while tattoos were once hidden on women and linked to sexuality, women now have increasingly visible tattoos in places like arms and hands. Tattoo modelling has also emerged, though emphasizes very narrow beauty standards. Some women embrace pin-up styles to balance femininity with tattoos, though tattooed women still face sexualization. The study examines how tattoos can empower women individually while also shifting power dynamics through challenging gazes.

1. Tramp stamps,
Pin-up and
Tattoo Modelling
Negotiating femininity
through contemporary
Australian tattoo
Mair Underwood
School of Social Science
The University of Queensland

2. Introduction
• Tattoo and other body decorations part of ethnographic literature
since before the birth of anthropology.
• Inscribed skin highlights issues central to anthropology:
• the boundary between individual and society, between societies, and
between representations and experiences (Schildkrout 2004:322).
• Little attention has been paid to Western practices.
• Tattoo prevalence in Australia today:
• women beginning to outnumber men
• now highest among women aged 20-29 years (29.4%)(Heywood et al 2012).

3. This study
• What can tattoo tell us about changes to the embodiment of femininity?
• Are tattoos ‘simply the latest forms of modification that have constrained, minimized
and contorted women’s bodies in the interests of men’s approval in previous periods’
(Jeffreys 2000:425)?
• Do tattoos only punctuate meanings already attached to women’s bodies
(Braunberger 2000:1-2), or do tattoos change the meaning of that body?
• Multi-sited ethnography of women’s tattoo practices in SE Queensland:
• participant observation at two tattoo events and online
• 6 in-depth interviews with tattooed women (5 tattoo models, and a female
tattooist).
• non-academic publications e.g. 27 issues of Australian tattoo magazines.
• approximately 20 years of experience in the Brisbane tattoo scene.

4. Western women and tattooing
• Beginning in 1882, “tattooed ladies” as part of
circuses and carnival sideshows (Braunberger
2000:9).
• Level of nudity required to display tattoos was an
added attraction, thus:
• upstaged tattooed men.
• at the point of entry into tattoo Western women were
sexualised.
• 1960s: ‘the last tattooed lady trod the boards in
Australia’ (Cohen 1994:49).
• Women continually dissuaded from involvement
in tattooing.
• Not until 1970s that Western women became
tattooed in significant numbers (Atkinson
2003:44).
Bev Robinson: last “tattooed
lady” in Australia (Cohen
1994:171).

5. A gender divide in placement
• 1970s - early 90s:
• Western women’s tattoos were generally
private, men’s more public
• Women: breasts, hips, shoulder blades and
abdomen (Sanders 1989:413).
• Men: arms by far the most common site
(Sanders 1989:413).
• Prior to mid 1990s most tattoos on
women could be easily hidden and were
only selectively revealed.
Images from Australian
Tattoo magazine issue
1 (1991).

6. Lower back tattoos:
An increase in
visibility
• From mid 1990s increased in popularity
• Often consisted of butterflies, flowers, tribal
patterns or a combination of these.
• Low pants, short tops = visible when the
woman bent over, and sometimes even
visible when standing.
• About 2005 the term “tramp stamp” was
coined (precise origins unknown).
• Through use of the term “tramp” a symbolic
connection between lower back tattoos and
sexual promiscuity was made.
Image circulated on the internet

7. The increasing visibility of women’s tattoos
• Since the “tramp stamp” the size and visibility of women’s
tattoos has drastically increased.
• 21st C:
• arms, upper chest, neck, hands and legs increasingly popular
• popularity of hidden, private tattoos on the decrease amongst some
women
• Primarily hidden and emphasising secondary sex
characteristics (e.g. breast, hips, abdomen) →
occasionally visible (e.g. lower back) →
readily apparent (arms and upper chests) and
visible despite clothing (e.g. hands and necks).
• Appropriation of masculine placements
Images from
Custom
Tattooz issue
27 (2013).

8. Tattooed women increasingly visible as
the “face” of tattoo
• Images of women:
• used to advertise tattoo
conventions
• frequently featured on the covers
of tattoo magazines.
• only 2 out of the 28 (7%) issues of
Custom Tattooz (since 2007) have
featured men on the cover (and one
of these was pictured with a woman).
• 71% of covers of Tattoos Down Under
featured “cover-girls”
• no men appeared on covers of these
magazines for the last 2 years.
Latest issues of Tattoos Down
Under and Custom Tattooz

9. The gendered subject matter of tattoos
• Previously a fairly distinct
gender boundary:
• Women: flowers, butterflies,
fairies, cute cartoon characters,
celestial motifs and the like.
• Men: stronger and more violent
images such as skulls, dragons,
monsters, scantily clad or nude
women, and predatory animals.
Australian Tattoo, issue 3 p44 (1991 or 1992).

10. Contemporary subject matter: diminishing
gender differences
• Due to rise in popularity of:
• oriental designs
• “old school”, traditional
Facilitator:
When I first started getting tattooed,
it seemed that men’s and women’s
tattoo were quite distinct. Has that
changed?
Interviewee:
Yeah, it's totally different now. With
the full sleeve, it could generally be on
a boy or a girl. It wouldn't really make
too much of a difference (Interview 4).

11. The persistent sexualisation of tattooed
women
• Tattooed women are viewed as promiscuous (Swami and Furnham 2007).
• Gueguen (2013):
• More men approached the tattooed women and the mean latency of their approach was
quicker.
• Men also thought they would have more chance of obtaining a date, and having sex on the
first date, with tattooed women.
I get a lot of guys come up and start a conversation with me now [that I am
tattooed]. Even when I go out and I don't have any visible tattoos there's a massive
difference between guys that approach you when they can see tattoos, to guys that
approach you when they can't see tattoos (Interview 5).
I think a lot of men look at me like “Oh, she'll be easy to pick up or let's go talk to
her”, because a lot of people hit on me in that sort of sleazy way (Interview 4).

12. Sexualisation = can’t meet mum!
Senior member of the clergy:
They’re loose [laughs] not the sort of people that my mum would have invited
home for afternoon tea dear [laughs].
I've dated a guy who said I could never take you home to my mum. You
know, this is never going to go anywhere because you have a lot of
tattoos (Interview 6).
• The symbolic link is made between tattoos and sexual availability
regardless of their conscious personal motivations.

13. Tattoo
modelling
• Last 5 years in
Australia
• Change in how
tattooed women
being perceived.
• As a heavily tattooed
woman in her 30s
said:
• tattooed women went
from “tough, one of
the lads, to sexy
feminine”.

14. Observation at modelling events
• “Tattooed Beauties”
• Quite a standardised look:
• Slender with very revealing clothes
• Majority were large breasted (with many competitors with obviously fake breasts).
• Many of them wore hair extensions, fake tans and false eyelashes.
• Focus not on tattoos:
• There is no time to see their tattoos in any detail, they keep moving.
• A separate prize for “best ink on a beauty”.
• “Miss Tattoo”
• Less revealing clothes (e.g. larger swimsuits) in a range of styles (including pin-up).
• Range of bodies on display: some are thin, some are very curvy and some even have
cellulite.
• Pose in front of judges so tattoos can be examined.

15. Pin-up
• “Pin-up” originally referred to a
photo or picture of a person
intended for display on a wall
• is said to have originated with
the trend of military
• Increasing number of women
are getting tattoos of pin-ups.
• Now term used to refer to a certain style of dress and body work
characterised by:
•
•
•
•
curls in the hair (e.g. pin curls and victory rolls)
red lipstick
cat’s eye eyeliner (i.e. with flicks at the outer corner of each eye)
clothes that are reminiscent of women’s styles from the 1940s and 1950s.

16. Why is pin-up so popular with
tattooed women?
• Because pin-ups are:
• classy (Interview 2).
• gorgeous without being trashy (female
competitor in “best pin-up category).
• not like sexy is the least amount of clothes you
can possibly wear, or the skinniest that you can
be (Interview 5)
• Balances out the masculinity of the tattoos.
Miss Pin-Up Australia
competitor (Custom Tattooz
2011, issue 16).

17. Balancing masculinity and femininity
• Large tattoos are inconsistent with established constructions of femininity
(Atkinson 2002:227).
It's [pin-up is] very elegant and I think having tattoos, having something
about you that's elegant and feminine was one of the big drawcards for me
… it just makes me feel like a lady (Interview 2).
• Body work that conforms to established notions of femininity is employed
to de-masculinise their appearance.
When I don't have my hair done and makeup done and nails done, I reckon
they [the tattoos] make me feel kind of manly, like a bit butch (Interview 1).

18. Empowerment
• At an individual level:
• As a woman I feel, I suppose, empowered that I've got them (Interview 5).
• I think it's the empowerment as well, of being able to say I'm a girl, I can get a
tattoo if I want … it's my choice and my body (Interview 2).
• At a societal level:
• Tattooed women have been found to be viewed as more powerful and less
passive than non-tattooed women (Hawkes, Senn and Thorn 2004:602).
• Tattoo can imbue women with power that other body work practices
can not provide.

19. A shifting power balance?
1995
2013

20. Conclusion
• Practice of tattoo has become in some ways de-gendered
• One important difference between tattooed men’s bodies and tattooed women’s
bodies has remained: the extent to which they are sexualised
• “When a woman’s body is a sex object, a tattooed woman’s body is a lascivious sex object”
(Braunberger 2000:1-2) .
• Subvert the ever-present “male gaze” by forcing men (and women) to look at
their bodies in a manner that exerts their control (DeMello 2000:173).
• The gaze denotes at the same time:
• power (it enables us to exert control over the situation, to occupy the position of master)
• impotence (as bearers of a gaze, we are reduced to the role of passive witnesses to the
adversary’s action)(Žižek 1991:72).
• Complex interaction of power relationships in which dominant norms, values and
meanings both limit and provide sites for resistance.
• Women actively negotiate gender boundaries and the power relations attached
to them.
• Tattoos invest women’s bodies with qualities such as power and activity.
• Thus the study of tattoo has the potential to provide insights into how we can
encourage less oppressive relationships between women and their bodies.

21. References cited
Atkinson, M. 2003. Tattooed: The Sociogenesis of a Body Art. University of Toronto Press: Toronto.
Atkinson, M. 2002. Pretty in Ink: Conformity, Resistance, and Negotiation in Women’s Tattooing, Sex Roles 47(5-6):219-235.
Braunberger, C. 2000. Revolting Bodies: The Monster Beauty of Tattooed Women. National Women’s Studies Association
Journal 12(2):1-23.
Cohen, T. 1994 The Tattoo. Outback Print: Mosman.
DeMello, M. 2000 Bodies of Inscription: A cultural history of the modern tattoo community. Duke University Press: Durham.
Gueguen, N. 2013 Effects of a Tattoo on Men’s Behavior and Attitudes Towards Women: An Experimental Field Study. Arch
Sex Behav, e-publication ahead of print.
Heywood, W., Patrick, K., Smith, A., Simpson, J., Pitts, M, Richters, J. & Shelley, J. 2012 Who Gets Tattoos? Demographic and
Behavioral Correlates of Ever Being Tattooed in a Representative Sample of Men and Women, Annals of Epidemiology 22:5156.
Jeffreys, S. 2000 ‘Body Art’ and Social Status: Cutting, Tattooing and Piercing from a Feminist Perspective. Feminism &
Psychology 10(4):409–429.
Sanders, C. 1989. Customizing the Body: The Art and Culture of Tattooing. Temple University Press: Philadelphia.
Schildkrout, E. 2004 Inscribing the body, Annual Review of Anthropology 33:319-344.
Swami, V. and Furnham, A. 2007. Unattractive, promiscuous and heavy drinkers: Perceptions of women with tattoos, Body
Image 4: 343-352.
Žižek, S. 1991. Looking awry: An introduction to Jacque Lacan through popular culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.