“In the tattoo parlors of East Los Angeles there is a double standard in the tattoo choices Chicana/o make on their bodies.” (Santos,2009,p14)
Similar to Chicana/s in the States tattoos are not acceptable by the majority in China. People tends to associate tattoos with gangs, violence, low-socioeconomic culture, criminals etc. In the media, like TV dramas, movies, to feature the mystery, toughness, fierceness of the characters, like gangsters, original inhabitants, they are tattooed with dragons and ferocious animals.
There are stigmas with tattoos. The public tends to consider tattoos as barbaric things instead of a kind of arts. especially for women,if they tattoo some flowers or cute animals, it is fine. However, covering their bodies with large scale or unfeminine tattoos is unacceptable.
So we can see there is a strict line on what images women can and can not get and compared to men, it is less acceptable for women to get tattoos. It makes me wonder why tattoos should be gender-strict like many things in the world. There are gender differences on career options. Teaching and nursing are women’s work while Firefighting and sale are all-male professions. We even think pink is girly and black is a masculine color. In a first grade art lesson, a boy came over to me and asked “Can boys use color pink?”. They were using colorful paper to decorate their paintings. At that time, I realized that at the age of 6, they have already been instilled the idea that some colors for boys and others for girls. I do not think this is right. Why must be pink for girls? Why can not boy like pink? We need to remove the gender color stereotypes and break down the society stereotypes when it comes to gender. Men and women are equal and gender barrier should not exist.