Negotiating feminine positionings as a tattooed woman

Objectives/purpose: I am interested in the ways that tattooed women negotiate femininities, and how they both conform and resist to normative constructions of femininities within a UK context. Design: I used an intersectionally-informed qualitative design to explore these issues, through the use of semi-structured interviews. Background: The pressure on women to conform to prevailing societal norms encompassing the idealised body is largely circumscribed via media influence, continuous body maintenance and visible body attributes. Femininity and being feminine are imbued with expectations on how to dress, act and behave. However, what can be said is that tattoos are not often associated with typical constructions of femininity. Femininity is not a ‘one size fits all’ concept –there are many ways of embodying femininities. Methods: Participants were selected using stratified sampling, to ensure that the right participants (i.e. tattooed women) were used to obtain the relevant information –in total, 14 women were interviewed. I used discourse analysis to analyse the obtained data, seeing what has been produced within the interviews. Results: A key discourse that was produced centred on the variability in feminine positionings, and tensions arose between productions of femininity and the tattooed feminine body. Conclusions: Femininities and their representations are complex, with multiple personal and societal positioning’s being considered in relation to being a tattooed woman. This is part of a larger PhD thesis that focuses on the regulation of the tattooed feminine body and explores conformity versus resistance to normative constructions. The complexities of intersectional positioning need further acknowledgement and exploration.