OPINION: Don't Stereotype Women With Tatoos

By Broadside Staff Writer Sabra Hayes

Placing a tattoo on the small of a woman’s back carries a large amount of sexual innuendo. A tattoo in this area is discriminately referred to as a “tramp stamp.” It seems this tattoo area is especially popular among women born from the late ’70s to the late ’80s.

As Jeremy Gray said in Wedding Crashers, “See that tattoo on the lower back? It might as well be a bull’s eye.” This widely accepted cultural ignorance is manipulating how women feel about their tattoos. It’s time to remove the stigma of the tramp stamp and let women be free to tattoo their bodies where they choose to without the fear of preconceived notions of their sexuality.

According to a study in the Archives of Dermatology, about 25 percent of people ages 18 to 30 have tattoos. The study followed people having their tattoos removed and the study concluded that many women were having their tattoos removed due to the stigma that had been attached to their personalities because of them. Roughly 93 percent of the women said that having to hide the tattoos on occasion was a factor in the removal compared with 20 percent of men. About 40 percent of women endured negative comments at work, in public or in school compared with only five percent of men.

The results of this study say it all. The discrimination placed on women with tattoos is harming the lives of countless females. Equality needs to be achieved in regards to this art form. The whole idea of prejudices due to the location of a tattoo is absolutely ridiculous.

The lower back area is a popular area for tattoos because the wide area offers a canvas for tattoo artists. Women can get a large tattoo that stretches horizontally across this area of the body, plus the tattoos don’t tend to lose their shape when the body goes through certain weight changes. Being an ideal location to place a tattoo, people looking at a woman’s lower back and assume that women are sexually promiscuous instead of using common sense.

There is no way to judge if women who wear lower back tattoos are more promiscuous than those without it—just as there is no way to tell if women with long hair are more promiscuous than those with short hair and some women with blue eyes are more likely to do drugs than women with brown eyes. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any connection between lower back tattoos and sexuality. I believe that it’s fair to say that women who get tattoos on the sensual lower curvature of their back are expressing sensuality and sexual confidence and are not advertising themselves as targets.

Women have long been oppressed whenever they have attempted to assert themselves sexually. Showing a little lower back, with or without ink, is no different than showing skin on other sensual areas of the body. However, women are still confined by preconceived notions set forth about modesty when regarding their lower back tattoos. The time has come for these notions of sexual ambiguity to be tossed aside for the sake of equality.

Being restrained and cautious with self-expression in case someone you don't even know doesn’t like your tattoo is an unacceptable situation that women are put in. Whatever reason a person chooses to get a tattoo for, they should not feel bad about such a decision merely on their gender and placement. It is the nature of lower-rising clothing like low-ride and hip-hugger jeans that make these tattoos more and more noticeable, and therefore since they can be seen and are regarded in a derogatory way, girls are getting reputations that are not rightfully earned because of a stigma of a lower back tattoo. People fight for equality based on action and not appearances, let us end this battle against lower back tattoos on women by ending the usage of the phrase “tramp stamp” for the sake of this ideal.