The History of Modern Women and Body Art Essay

“The Decorated Body” is an essay written by France Borel - an anthropologist who studies tattooing, piercing, plastic surgery, and other alterations. “The Decorated Body” was featured in the Parabola in 1994.

Traditionally, tattoos were meant for sailors, soldiers, bikers and gangs. Along with several changes in the industrialized and technological society of the twenty-first century, the standard for getting body modifications have altered as well. Everyday, people are willing to get permanently marked as an individual choice rather than the customarily perception of belonging to a certain group. Tattoo and piercing shops are not seen as “the backstreet” of the commercial civilization today, it is somewhat an expected sight in all public places. Josie Appleton in “The Body

Gradually the acceptance of tattoos seeped into the Western society, which led to the tattoo fad in England and USA in the late 1800s (Caplan, 2000). Despite the historical stigma, the fashionable society started adorning tattoos as a social expression. What started as a fad for the working classes, soon spread to the upper classes. Interestingly, the trend did not unify people of different classes. The upper class discriminated the tattooed lower class and saw their tattoos as a sign of deviance.

The Body Project: An Intimate History of Girls by Joan Jacobs Brumberg chronicles the change in attitudes towards the female body throughout American history. From the Victorian Era’s focus on internal beauty standards to the 1920’s flapper beauty ideal, Brumberg explores the shifting focus which may or may not have helped girls in the long run.

What may be considered body deviance to some may be considered art or beauty to others. Body deviance can be either an “enlightening” experience or a failure. By having tattoos or participating in the “Carnival of the Grotesque” an individual may finally feel a part of something, or may have to deal with the consequences of being judged based on the decisions they have made by participating in body

Tattoos have likely been at the top of the list as the most discussed topic amongst the different social classes. There is a divide between societies understanding of tattoos, those who oppose them identify tattoos as being a form of “taboo” and is associated with a type of body modification that is seen as distasteful in nature. Others believe tattoos are a form of one’s own self-expression. Although tattoos are subjective to each person, we should not completely rule them out altogether because they are perceived and sometimes deemed inappropriate, that is a form of stereotyping.

This report looks to demonstrate my capability in the area's of understanding personal and social issues in society. The research project deals directly with these capabilities as it begs the thoughts about women in society. It asks what women think about their own body but also, how society sees it. I will demonstrate in all eras how women influenced by media and the relevant ‘pin-up girl’ of the time tried to find their own identity closely linked to these role models. Such linkage being mainly through fashion that enhanced the targeted body shapes

When talking about gender history, it is most commonly meant in terms of women’s history; this is not necessarily true, but it is the default in most people’s mind when gender history in brought about. Gender history has always been deemed the center stage for women, where their actions aren’t an afterthought and are brought into the limelight. Alexandra Shepard states that: “This essay reviews recent developments in the history of early modern masculinity, particularly in order to reflect on the ways in which it has drawn upon, competed with, and might complement the history of early modern women.”

Upon entering college, I was fascinated with art and I wanted to learn more about the history of different artists, and how certain movements in art came into fruition. In my four years at Boston University, I have focused mainly on Western pre-Modern art, and I have especially enjoyed studying Medieval and Classical art. To me, these two movements act as the backbone to representing art both stylistically and realistically. My focus in these two movements in art history has led me to analyze how women were

I acknowledge that the male gaze is present in our modern society and it is what influences our fashion industry to produce imagery that contains visually desirable female bodies. However, what I wish to put forth is that the female body portrayed in my work is used as a beautiful vessel that contains psychological human depth and emotions revealing a multi-faceted human being. By distorting my work I challenged the critiques and conversations during my senior year which encouraged me to break through from beauty and fashion aesthetic in order to get closer to a more conceptual, psychological realm. By breaking through, I put forth what I am most interested in, the psychology of the visceral. Beauty is just a tool to draw the viewer into my

While in the Women and the Body course, I was able to dissect the images, constraints, and beliefs associated with the woman’s body. The debate over body image originated from patriarchal constraints, deeming that women have to fit into an ideal of womanhood. A woman’s body image is suppose to be a direct link to the man she is with. She should have childbearing hips, a stature that is associated in being motherly, and breasts to breast feed the children. With that it grew into using man made objects to reinforce the patriarchal power about body

"Sex sells" is concomitantly one of the most common and disturbing expressions in the contemporary society. The music industry is a place where sex has actually sold millions of records and where many artists were forced to employ more 'sexual' attitudes in order to really be appreciated by their fans. The sad truth is that it is very difficult for an artist to be appreciated if he or she does not use values that are generally appreciated by music consumers. Many artists have proved this argument to be wrong, but their number is much smaller in comparison to the ones who used sex as a main tool to sell their records.

The later 20th century saw the manifestation of the Post-Modernism, in which the use of appropriation and re-contextualisation was developed to test previous conventional depictions of gender in the visual arts. Artists Yasumasa Morimura, Julie Rrap, Anne Zahalka and Cindy Sherman have each employed the use of appropriation to question the historical ideologies of gender, particularly in relation to women, and their role in art and society. They all borrowed past paintings and promoted them with new context to portray and explore different meanings towards gender, being mediated.

Body modifications, with the focus of tattoos, have existed in our society for centuries and the way in which it is perceived has changed somewhat over the years, yet certain dishonors still remain our modern day. Like most body modifications, tattoos are an often misunderstood form of body modification. Despite the stigmas, tattoos have become a unique object of desire to endless diverse groups of people. But are the popular assumptions of tattoos out of sync with the true meaning behind them? Further explanation and exploration of the history will reveal the social and cultural practices of tattooing and the causal connection between the mind and the tattooed body, in addition to providing answers as to why tattoos stimulate uneasiness

Tattoo artist were mainly middle-aged men, who worked at the hole in the wall tattoo parlors. Body art also became known to be seen at circuses, and “freak shows” sometimes being next to people with disabilities or natural born wonders (DeMallo). Until the golden age of tattooing, which took place in the twentieth century, when parlors were actually next to things like barber shops, and retail stores. Margo DeMallo describe body art at the end of the sixties as “fragmented into different forms that corresponded to different social groups: servicemen, gang members, convicts, bikers, and working class men and woman” (DeMallo).