Marked Women

Deborah Rudacille
2008
Circus freak. Drug addict. Biker chick. Whore. Tattooed women have heard it all-or seen those judgments reflected in the stares of people on the street, in restaurants, in offices-anywhere that bold ink on women is viewed as a badge of infamy. "You're such a pretty girl," a salon client once told Vanessa Vale. "But I can't stand to look at you with all those tattoos." When Michele Stuart-Johnson came home with her first tattoo twenty years ago, her mother gasped. "You look like a ruffian," she
more » ... aid. Jade Gorman says her husband hates her tattoos. Shamia Johnson's spouse thinks multiple tattoos on womenincluding hers-"are unladylike.
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