When I got my first visible tattoo, a small, non-offensive piece on the inside of my forearm, I wasn’t expecting any backlash. Tattoos seemed commonplace (the norm, even) and, besides, mine was small and inoffensive.
It didn’t take long, though, before a customer at the grocery store where I worked (after repeatedly giving me nasty looks) felt comfortable enough to say, “You’re too pretty to be ruining your body like that!” I was absolutely blown away; is there really such stigma still attached to tattoos?
According to the PEW research centre, tattoos are a billion-dollar industry, with around 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 26 and 40 being tattooed. Assuming that numbers in Canada are comparable, it’s safe to say tattoos aren’t rare or even unusual anymore.
So, I was curious: was my negative interaction a rare experience, or was it to be expected? I talked to four students, a teacher, and a tattoo artist about whether there is still a stigma related to tattoos, where the stigma still exists, and how it relates to postsecondary students.
Where’s the fuss?
I already had evidence that people could be judgmental towards ink, and a Google search of “anti-tattoo” brought up more ink hate than I was ready for, but was this the norm? To find out, I asked two tattooed students about their experiences having tats.
Business student Danielle Nuttgens has had a wholly positive experience with getting tattoos. “I have one tattoo behind my ear, and one on my wrist,” she shares. “I’ve only had nice comments; someone told me that they were more likely to get a tattoo, because they’d never seen one they liked.”
This, at least, was nice to hear, but what about someone with more substantial tattoos?
“I have my full sleeve, I have two on my chest, and two on my back,” shares Electronics and Computer Sciences student Matthew Hawes. “I noticed I have been treated differently when my tattoos are visible versus when they’re not visible. You get looks from people, stuff like that.”
People speaking out are a different story, though, he says. “Nobody has said anything verbally. It’s more just an attitude.”
No matter what somebody might say to you in the street, it becomes a different story when you take it to the workplace. One of the most common arguments against tattoos is that you might not be employable.
It’s legal in Canada to force an employee to cover up tattoos, as long as the employer can prove they aren’t violating the Canadian Human Rights Act and employees are told the restrictions when they are hired.
A recent example involves Ottawa hospitals that were put in the spotlight in 2010 for their policy on tattoos and piercings, which ended up being shot down in court. Their loss hasn’t stopped many other employers from continuing their “no ink” policies.
Sometimes, though, like in the case of Hawes, who is in the Navy, “it’s kind of the norm in my work,” he says. “But I do like to keep them able to be covered up, just in case I do see that stigma.”
Nuttgens has never had to cover her tattoos up for work, but says she would be uncomfortable if she was asked to do so. “I wouldn’t really want to work in a place that’s that judgmental,” she says.
Although there are workplaces where tattoos are acceptable, it’s definitely still something to think about when contemplating getting a tattoo. In a 2011 Careerbuilder study, 31 percent of business managers said a visible tattoo would make them less likely to promote an employee.
But are there any other situations where tattoos should be kept under wraps? Hawes says he’s never been asked to cover them up, and Nuttgens was only asked once.
“I was asked to cover it up for a dance show once,” she says, “which I thought was kind of rude.” So you might have to be careful if you’re looking for a career on the stage.
Taking it to the limit
Tattoos are no longer uncommon, but uncommon tattoos are still making headlines. Rick Genest, more commonly known as Zombie Boy, has made a name and career for himself due to the skeleton tattoos that cover the majority of his body.
And he’s not the only one: Lesya Toumaniantz got her 15 minutes of fame by getting a tat of her boyfriend’s name across her face the day they met in person after communicating online for some time.
There’s something about such extreme tattoos that changes the way people look at them. “There are still some rejected images or art styles, places that people don’t generally want to see tattoos,” says non-tattooed Business student Devon Bowden, “like if it’s a big Mike Tyson style face piece, maybe not.”
The face is the most extreme place one can get a tattoo, since it’s almost impossible to hide. For many, even those covered in ink, a face tattoo is too risky.
“Tattoos shouldn’t be anywhere on your face,” says Hawes. “People want to see you, not a gigantic whatever you have on your face.”
Unsurprisingly, anything super-offensive is still a no-go.
“If it’s a big swastika on your hand or something degrading, something that’s going to bring discredit upon you anyway, that’s where I think you draw the line,” says Hawes. Anything offensive increases the risk for rejection from potential employers, as well as increasing judgment you might not otherwise get. If you wouldn’t want to show if to your grandma, you might want to reconsider that tattoo design.
Parental controls
There is still one segment of the population that has a clear opinion on tattoos: moms and dads.
I know my mother’s reaction to my first tattoo was something similar to that of receiving a truly awful gift from your great-aunt Lisa, so I wasn’t surprised to hear others had similar experiences.
“I hid it from my dad for as long as I could and one day I was having dinner at his house when my little stepbrother was, like, ‘What’s that?’ and pointed at my tattoo,” says Nuttgens “I got a big speech… ‘It stays with you forever, you should have thought about it more,’ stuff like that.”
And she’s not the only one. Hawes says he hid it from his parents for close to a year.
“I hid it until my mom saw it through my shirt, so I got busted,” he says. “I was, like, ‘Don’t tell dad, don’t tell dad.’”
But when hid dad did find out “he didn’t say much, he didn’t talk to me for a week,” says Hawes.
Even the non-tattooed know how their parents would react. “In my situation my parents would not approve,” says Engineering student Bruno Caetano Almeida. “They’re very old-fashioned parents. They say it’s a one-way trip, no going back. They’ve got some issues with it.”
Meanwhile, Bowden says he’d need a reason for his parents to approve. “I’d more or less need meaning behind it,” he says. “My mom has a tattoo that is directly meaning related. So I’d say, in the end, they’d approve.”
What is it that makes parents so wary? It’s simply that they care about you. “My dad wanted to make sure it was something he could be proud of,” says Hawes.
The majority of parents grew up in a time when the stigma of tattoos was much larger than it is now. Most of the time, they just want to make sure you’re being safe, remaining employable, and not doing something you’ll regret.
But not to worry, potential tattoo-getters—parents can be convinced.
“I designed my second and third tattoo,” says Hawes, “and my dad came with me for the third one, so I kind of changed his tune on it.”
Hey, you might even be able to convince them to get a tattoo with you. Think of it as a new form of family bonding.
Insider ink
For an insider’s opinion, I talked to Gwendolyn Williams, who works at Painted Lotus Studios.
Williams has been tattooing for over nine years and has worked in Victoria for five. “It’s one of the very, very few professions where you can actually make money doing art hands-on style,” she says.
So, if there’s a stigma around tattoos, is there a stigma around tattoo artists?
“People sort of stereotype us when they first walk in here. They expect us to be mean or cold,” says Williams, adding that it’s unwarranted. “Our goal as a business is the opposite. We try to be super friendly, customer-service oriented.”
Williams has also felt a stigma around her own tattoos.
“I’ve had the whole, ‘Why would you do that to yourself? You could be such a pretty girl if you didn’t have those,’” she says.
But Williams says Victoria is one of the best places for the tattooed to live.
“[The stigma] is becoming more rare, and I feel like it’s even more rare in Victoria,” she says. “It’s just such a heavily tattooed city, so it’s less of a stigma now.”
There are lots of extreme tattoos out there, but Williams tries to make sure people aren’t doing something they’ll regret.
“We don’t generally tattoo hands, unless someone’s really heavily visibly tattooed,” she says, “and the same with necks.”
They stay away from face tattoos, according to Williams.
“We just don’t tattoo faces. Ever, at all, no matter who you are or how many tattoos you have,” she says, “and we definitely don’t do any racially oriented tattoos.”
Williams says the policy is their way of making sure that people aren’t doing something they’d regret later.
“We just try to make sure people make good choices,” she says. “We’d rather not have that on our conscience than have your money.”
Besides the extreme exceptions, Williams doesn’t think the taboo around tattooing is still around.
“I personally don’t think tattoos are taboo, and I think that in this city especially, we’re a heavily tattooed city, it would be harder to find anyone in this city who doesn’t have a tattoo anymore,” she says. “There’s probably still the old senior citizen wandering around here that hates it. But I really think it’s become more accepted, even in the workplace.”
Should you cover up at Camosun?
To get a different opinion on the matter, I talked to non-tattooed Economics and Finance professor Francis Michaud. Michaud think there’s still a tattoo taboo in our culture, at least in some career paths.
“I think it depends on which field you are in. If you’re in art or something, people don’t care as much… but when you go into the business world, there are people who judge you negatively because you have a tattoo and they can see it.”
So should tattoos matter when it comes to students? “I don’t think it should matter, but it’s a complicated question,” says Michaud. “There’s always the debate of, are students able to make the distinction between, ‘Oh, I’m just in class right now, so it’s okay,’ and, ‘I’m going to go into the business world, so maybe I should cover it up.’ I think that’s the difference. But students are bright enough to know there’s a difference between going to Francis’ class and going to get a job interview.”
Michaud also understands that there are many ifs, ands, or buts to the tattoo debate. “When you have a big tattoo, it’s different than just having a little tattoo. If it’s obviously racist, it might make other people uncomfortable. But where does it stop? I don’t know,” he says.
When it comes to Michaud personally, he would try not to make judgments on somebody because of their ink. “I don’t know if I would; I hope I wouldn’t.”
However, Michaud does admit that if he had one himself, he would cover it up here at Camosun.
“I think I would try to hide a tattoo,” he says. “Not because I have a problem with it, but you don’t look as professional; some profs might not enjoy that.”
So, what’s Michaud’s final verdict? “I like them, I think they’re nice. I would never have one, but I think it’s always a bit of common sense. I think that’s the problem with these things; we make a lot of rules because some people go overboard with the common sense,” he says.
Which just goes to show, if you talk to your prof about anything, you’re bound to get some pretty good life advice.
Final thoughts
So is the stigma around tattoos still there or not? Bruno Caetano Almeida doesn’t think so.
“I think that people are more used to it, you know. It’s a big thing right now, a fashion thing,” he says, “I think people enjoy tattoos in general.”
“Even in the media it’s becoming very mainstream, very accepted,” says Hawes, “but there’s still the old people.”
Nuttgens agrees that, generally, people are pretty accepting.
“I think generally people are accepting,” she says, “but there’s still a lot of, like, old-fashioned people who just don’t like it, and some people who think there’s a stigma with it.”
Like most things from the past, the tattoo taboo is fading. It remains in extreme tattoos, as smaller tattoos grow more popular every day. A tattoo most likely won’t make you unemployable, but it might cause issues at work if you can’t cover it up.
And, of course, be careful with mom and dad.