Prejudice of bad girls getting tattoos in China

For young feminists in the country of billions of people, tattoos have become a way for them to show their bravery and assert their sovereignty over their bodies.

In China, tattoos have long been associated with stereotypes of thugs and bad girls. But today, that is changing. Some tattoo artists help women express themselves through ink strokes.

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When he started tattooing in 2018, Lingmeng, a Millennial (born 1981-1996) from the city of Chongqing, found the culture male-dominated.

Determined to change that, a year later, she opened a tattoo parlor in the city of Chengdu after leaving her job in advertising, according to The China Project.

Lingmeng's first gender-themed project kicked off in April 2020. She collects stories from women about their growth and experiences. They are envisioned as tattoos that participants can freely paint.

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The stories are told through the tattoo design ideas that Lingmeng received. Photo: Lingmeng.

The project received more than 100 entries. Chinese women share thoughts on empowerment, close relationships, female identity, reproductive issues and gender-based violence. Within a year, more than 30 participants had tattoos based on their ideas.

For Lingmeng, the stories are not only an inspiration for her tattoo designs, but also another way to promote women's voices and raise gender awareness in China.

Lingmeng's artwork was displayed at a series of art shows in Chengdu last year. Her tattoo parlor also presents its own small exhibition.

“We wanted to provide a space where women could feel comfortable, safe, relaxed and undisturbed during the tattooing process. At the same time, we also want to break stereotypes about tattoo parlors,” she said.

Eliminate stigma

Traditionally in China, tattooing is considered controversial. Filial piety in Confucianism holds that "children's skin belongs to their parents" and tattoos are despised by older generations.

Women with tattoos are often gendered or stigmatized as bad girls. There is a growing crackdown on tattoo culture, including requiring taxi drivers with tattoos in Gansu province to remove ink from their bodies and banning tattoos in football.

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On the other hand, tattoos are increasingly popular among the younger generation, who embrace them as a new art form and remove the stigma. In particular, women are using tattoos as a way to voice their opinions.

Xiao Meili, a famous Chinese feminist activist, asked Lingmeng to design a tattoo for her in May 2021, after experiencing cyber attacks.

Xiao describes the tattoo as a ray of light: "I hope I live in an era where I don't go against the rules out of fear or besiege. There are so many things you can give up, give in or compromise, but you should never be part of the darkness. I wanted to use this tattoo to remind myself to always look towards the light.”

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The tattoo that Lingmeng made for Xiao Meili, Pan Jing and Li Zhuoying. Photo: Lingmeng.

Pan Jing, 28, who works at a technology company in Beijing, gets a uterus tattoo on the inside of her arm as her mother prepares to have it removed because of an ovarian cyst.

“First of all, even if I don't want to have children, I think the uterus is a particularly important organ for women. Second, for me, my mother's womb is the first little house in my life. I hope to leave her memories on my own body, to always remember that I grew up there," she said.

Pan added that her boyfriend was with her when she got the tattoo, but he didn't seem to understand why she did so.

“I think men still don't fully understand women's emotional needs. The men around me, including my boyfriend, always think that women with weird tattoos are bad, but my girlfriends rarely speak out."

Li Zhuoying (25 years old), a recent graduate in Shanghai, chose to get a human-machine hybrid tattoo to represent her feminist identity. While writing her college thesis, she read Donna Haraway's Simians, Cyborgs and Women and was inspired by feminist interpretations.

“If women want the world to be completely gender-equal, it has to be a place where they no longer have the burden of having children. The way forward for women is to become mechanized creatures. This became the inspiration for my tattoo,” she said.

Raise awareness

Other tattoos designed by Lingmeng as part of the first project include a flower-shaped clitoris, which is described as "an organ that allows women to control their own sexual pleasure and liberate themselves from self-consciousness. traditional notions that their role in sex is only to serve men.”

Meanwhile, the pink elephant is a "metaphor that the more women fear gender-based violence, the more courageously they must face it", referring specifically to the case of the Nth chatroom that caused a stir in Korea.

Lingmeng continues to explore ways to break stereotypes in the field of tattooing. She hopes to normalize tattooing among women and attributes the stigma and bias around tattoos stemming from male dominance of the industry.

One solution is to place tattoos in more public places, such as in photos, illustrations and exhibitions, to raise awareness.

“I hope to make tattooing more normal. So it's imperative to speak up and make it more visible to the public," she said.

In May, Lingmeng temporarily closed the tattoo shop because of his health. Returning to Chongqing, she joined a painting program with a group of art school students. Although the majority of art students are female, Lingmeng feels they show little gender awareness. Among people with tattoos, most ink stains are very small and hidden.

This fall, Lingmeng plans to start a new project, moving the tattoo site to a female client's private bedroom, and then producing a photo collection with the story behind the designs.

“If the location is changed to a familiar environment for customers, I wonder if there will be some new experiences,” she said.

As more and more women seek to make their experiences heard, tattoos become a way to tell stories. It may be just a small amount of ink, but represents a permanent mark on the body that women control.

“Feminism gives me my own freedom and power. With the space constantly repressing women's voices, someone needs to speak up, innovate and improve," Lingmeng said.