span I feel like a lot more female tattooers are making a name for themselves or are respected more, they’re looked up to more. I work with all
men, there are 7 tattooers in the shop I work in, all men, but when we talk
about tattooers we will reference male and female tattooers. There are just
as amazing female tattooers than there are male or at least we’re getting
close. That just wasn’t the case 10 years ago. There were a couple of females that were bigger names but really it was just saturated with men. I do
like that, I do like that they’re on Instagram and social media helps that to
where female tattooers are more acceptable. There’s this whole new style of
tattooing that I’m also a part of this new wave of these female tattooers that
are doing traditional inspired imagery but it’s really feminine and you did not
see anything like that anymore than like 5 years ago. I feel like I’m a part of
that in a big way. That new style, I think, is really cool and very specific to
females. There’s not many male tattooers really just exclusively doing really
feminine stuff so, I think that’s really cool. Occasionally, if I do go to a tattoo
convention I feel like I would have an easier time maybe networking or feeling more comfortable if I were male. I do feel that way. I think that’s probably
going to be the struggle with a female in a male dominated industry. Yeah,
but I think that it’s better. I really think social media has done a lot for female
tattooers but I’m appreciative of that. But yeah, there’s a lot of great ones
out there nowadays that I look up to. There’s still a struggle for sure, there’s
still disrespect and objectifying of women, and all of that. Even when I was
on the show during filming of Ink Master, we were all staying with each other
for a couple of months and you get to know all the people that you’re working with and just being around mostly male tattooers and living with them, I
really got a taste of how unfortunately sexist, and homophobic, and like macho in this really bad way that a lot of male tattooers are and it’s gross. I’m
glad I work at the shop that I do because the guys that I work with are really
young so they’re pretty progressive. They’re not like gross, sexist dudes.
Matt that owns the shop, he’s great. He’s kind of a hippie so he like loves
everybody. There’s just a lot of rampant sexism, objectifying women, and all
of that shit still going on in the industry. It’s pretty present, it’s pretty obvious,
too, but it’s getting better. In 2005, my first year working in the tattoo shop,
I worked with a female tattooer and often times she would have appointments and the guy would come in and see her setting up for the tattoo and
be like, “oh, are you doing my tattoo or are you getting set up for the guy
that’s about to tattoo me?” and that was happening like 10 years ago where
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