Posted on Oct 29, 2018
Why The Tattoo Industry Needs More Women
There’s some truth to the saying that behind every great man is a great woman—and in the tattoo world, women have been fighting for their rightful space for decades. Now there are more female faces th...
There’s some truth to the saying that behind every great man is a great woman—and in the tattoo world, women have been fighting for their rightful space for decades. Now there are more female faces than ever at tattoo parlors worldwide, and times are changing. From Kat von D, star of the now-defunct TV show LA Ink, to inkbox’s resident tattoo queens Elysse Marcus and Melina Mansing, to Toronto’s own Lisa Sinner, the ink world is rife with female talent.
Let’s set the record straight: since the dawn of time, women have been entering male-dominated spaces and making their presence known. Take Maud Wagner, for example; a circus performer born in 1877 and the first known female tattoo artist in the United States. “What a badass,” Sinner says. “I can only imagine how hard it was for her back them.” Famous for breaking the myths and stigmas around tattooed women in America, Wagner single-handedly redefined what it meant to be feminine and paved the way for future female artists to come—not unlike today’s tattoo trailblazers, kicking ass and taking names in an industry still dominated by men.
“I think a lot of women still find this industry intimidating to be honest, so I think there will always be a larger presence of males in the industry,” Sinner, an artist at Toronto’s Adrenaline Tattoos, says. “Female tattoo artists often still face conflict with people focusing more on their appearance than their work. I find it takes a lot for us ladies to earn the respect from our male counterparts. A lot of shops have a pack mentality — it tends to be a boys club.”
But lucky for her, she found her footing in a female-owned and operated shop, at Liquid Amber Tattoo in Vancouver, B.C. “I was lucky to be around a group of badass women right from the start,” she says. “It wasn’t until a few years into my career that I started working in mainly male-dominated shops. There was a huge difference in how I was treated working in that environment … I had to earn their respect and it wasn’t easy.” While being a female artist is no feat for the faint of heart, there’s more to the importance of women in the field than meets the eye — for many women looking to get tatted, it’s a matter of safety. “It often helps the female clientele feel safe by getting tattooed by another woman,” she says. “It’s nice to have a feminine touch on the artwork as well.”
Like many industries, female-identifying folks tend to be hyper-sexualized, Hope Plescia-Buchi told Refinery29. “I find that the way women have been — and continue to be — portrayed in the world of tattooing is almost always as a hyper-sexualized tattooed object to sell magazines, convention tickets, or gain Instagram likes on a tattoo fan page,” the Sang Bleu Tattoo owner said. “Perhaps that’s why more women didn’t take up tattooing in the past — maybe they read these visual cues as direction for how women can fit into the world of tattooing and rejected the industry entirely.” But clearly, this isn’t stopping anyone from making their mark in the field—women are here to stay.
Written by Meaghan Wray