The Case Against Pussy
Excuse me while I get off on one of those girly rants for a moment. I really hate the whole "It's not fair, I'm a girl, eveyone picks on me 'cause I'm a girl, I didn't get this or that because I'm a girl..." That irks the hell out of me. I like to think if anything bad happens it's because I'm an asshole, and if something good happens, it's because I worked hard for it. However....I do notice there is a bit of disparity here in the tattoo industry. For the most part, everyone has gotten over the idea of a female tattoo artist. Everyone has seen Miami Ink and knows who Kat Von D is. I can't say I'd want to hang out with her in real life, but she does fantastic work and she has dispelled the notion to the general masses that tattooing is "man's work". When I first started out ten years ago, people would freak out over the fact that they were about to get tattooed by me, some guys would get right up out of the chair and refuse to let me begin. That never happens now, and more often than not, I hear guys saying things like, "I like to get tattooed by women, they have a good eye for more detail/are more gentle [lie!]/don't have an attitude [LIE!], etcetera. But for the most part, once they get in the chair, no one gives me a hard time.
But, it's what happens before that which gives me pause. When you walk into a shop, you really don't know who's going to be working on you. If there are a pack of people up front at the counter, you don't know who are the artists, piercers, floorwalkers, managers, groupies or what. Eventually someone gets singled out for you based on whatever system is in place, most often a rotation basis. In a smaller shop like this, there is usually only one person hanging out up front. If all of us are up there, it's because there's pizza.
So, today, I was up front all by myself and a couple of bro boys walked in. One asked me several questions about pricing, drawing, placements, customs, blah, blah. I talked with him for several minutes, his friend showed me his work and I gave my commentary on it, it was pretty nice black and gray. After a good ten minutes or so, our shop apprentice, Jason, walked up behind me. Good guy, he's been tattooing for real-for real for a couple of months now. He's limited to what he can do and he still has to do a lot of practice work on his friends, but he's going to be good someday if he minds his P's and Q's. Jason walked up behind me and immediately bro's eyes flickered to him and he continued the discussion as if I had not been there in the first place. He rolled up his sleeve and asked about redoing an old piece he had. I started in on what I thought would work best, and bro cut me off and asked Jason about what he could do to add a background. He talked right over my head. I was standing right in front of him, between him and Jason, with my ten years of experience that didn't mean jack shit because now there was a man here who could take over, thank GOD! Jason, having no idea what to do with such a project, told bro "She can hook that up for you," and quickly busied himself at the computer. Bro leaned around me and continued to talk to Jason about the piece, despite the fact that Jason didn't have a fucking clue what to do with it and had said so.
So, does it really boil down to the fact that talent, problem solving and craftsmanship are stored in the gonads and not the brain? So shall I hang up my machines because I am still lacking the most important piece of equipment I need to do my job? So it's better to be tattooed by a man who's still in the practice stages, than be tattooed by a woman with a decade under her belt and awards to boot? Allow me to make the following case against. Two of the following shit tattoos are done by men at local shops, these are my competitors. I will refrain from using names to protect the innocent.
Would you rather be tattooed by.....
Kat Von D?
Or this guy?
How about a half-sleeve by Kari Barba?
Or a half-sleeve by this guy?
Whose black and gray is better, mine...
....Or this guy's?
I'm not suggesting that women are better than men, of course, that would negate my whole argument that talent is not based on gender. There are so many great guys out there tattooing right now, Harlan Thompson (who's doing my sleeve), Andrea Afferni (Hawt Italian), Joe Capobianco (I've not met him but he seems like a really funny guy), etc. And there are some really shitty female tattooists, I've worked with a few myself, I can attest. And I'm not suggesting that anyone puts on perfect tattoos all the time, there's no such thing as a perfect tattoo. All I'm saying is this: Talent, experience and confidence are everything in this busness. What's in your pants is for sucking and fucking and that's all. Or having babies, if you're really sadistic.