Oral about tatoos

Be tattooed, not so easy : discrimination

To begin, I have a question for you : are there tattooed people in the class? And have you ever felt judged for that?

So the tattoo is an ancien art, that was before a way to mark its membership of a clan, a social group, (like the marines, but nowadays, anybody can be tattooed.

Today in France, 14% of people are tattooed (compared to 10% in 2010). Women are more and more tattooed (16% compared to 9% in 2010), there are more women having tattoos than men. We can see that there is actually more and more people tattooed or who want to be tattooed.

Unfortunately, despite the development of tattooing, people tattooed are still often discriminated, judged by other people, they are sometimes seen as marginals, drug addicts, "deviants".

So, tattooed people are victims of many stereotypes, and this discrimination is even more important in the employment sector. Indeed, tattoos, piercings as for example, are rather frowned upon by recruiters, especially in business services (hotel trade, air hostess) where people have to make a good impression, or in high-liability business, where tattooed people would look less professional, less trustworthy.

The law protects employees from discrimination related to physical appearance, but some professions prohibit imposing or difficult to hide designs.

Being tattooed means finally choosing one of these two attitudes:

- Choose to hide his tattoos so as not to attract attention and thus deprive others of the possibility of making any judgment whatsoever

- Or accept to be regularly measured and to have to constantly prove and justify.

So, even though tattoos are now very common and no longer concern a minority, they are still a source of judgment and can represent difficulties for people who wear them, especially in the workplace.

It may be difficult to always complain about these people, because in a sense getting a tattoo is a choice, and they were aware of the judgments that would be generated; thus, in response to their complaint of discrimination, tattooed people often receive in response a standard phrase such as "you have a little sought anyway".

One can therefore ask the question: is it necessary to hide all his tattoos just to avoid hurting the view, the opinion of other people?

...