Painted Ladies.

In preparation for my practical work. I'll be putting some information from this article, to assist me in answering my question. This information will all revolve around the painted lady attraction of the old American sideshows, commonly known as freak shows. It is my belief that this is where the negative feelings towards heavily tattooed women originated.



Irene Woodward (1862-1915)
Irene was tattooed by Martin Hildebrandt after being inspired by a tattooed man named Captain Constentenus in Denver. At the age of 20 she was hired by dime museum owner George B Bunnell, where her debut show was published in the New York time due to the hype that surrounded it. From 1883-1898 she performed in circuses including 'The Greatest Show on Earth'.





Nora Hildebrandt (1857-1893)


Nora was a painted lady from London and it's probable that she emigrated to the US to become a servant. She was inked by Martin Hildebrandt with whom she had a common-law marriage and decided to take his name, she worked for Forepaugh shows during the 1880s.





Artoria Gibbons (1893-1985)


Gibbons was inked by her husband who chose to cover her in religious symbols, she was working as a tattooed lady by the 1920s. In the 1970s she became the finale of the Hall&Christ sideshow in which she was branded a 'Man-made monstrosity'.


Annie Howard [Picture unavailable] (Dates Unknown)


Annie became 'famous' in 1882 when she was arrested on a ferry for punching a man who insulted her tattooed arms. She was hired by Bunnell (see above) after this and toured the dime museums. Her whereabouts after the tour of the dime museums are unknown.

Analysis of a collection of 'Skin Deep' magazine covers.

Skin Deep is a the UK's largest selling tattoo magazine, it was created in 1994. According to the data on it's website only 38% of it's readers are female. This, apparently, makes it okay for them to represent women in the way they do.

This is the January 2010 edition, it creates an idea of how women with tattoos are represented in this magazine. These women are often barely clothed or in extremely revealing clothes, this may be to target their male readers but to an extent it also alienates their female audience. This is common in tattoo magazines where women with tattoos are seen as sex objects rather than the works of art men with tattoos are made out to be. The stereotypically female tattoos on this woman are one of the focal points of the cover, they feature jewels and a 50's style drawing. Most of the covers used by this magazine have a 1950's 'feel' as the rockabilly style, in which women typically wear 1950's fashion such as doing their hair in a victory curl (Pictured here) and imitating style icons such as Bettie Page (Again pictured here) 

An article entitled 'Only Women Bleed' was featured in the September 2011 issue. The article was to highlight the difficulty of being a woman with tattoos, however, it began with them talking about a beauty contest although it is the first for tattooed women. Throughout the article women's tattoos were repeatedly called kawaii (A Japanese adjective meaning pretty or cute) which in my opinion is derogatory as this makes women's tattoos appear to have no meaning or thought behind them and as though they were done on a whim instead of planned for many years.

In conclusion, through my analysis of the Skin Deep magazine covers I have developed a basic idea of how women are represented in the media, as sex objects rather than taken seriously, and how they are sterotyped as mindless drones who are attracted to cute things rather than anything with an actual meaning behind it.