Tattoo and Body Modifications Discrimination in the Workplace Free Essay Example, 3750 words

This practice has several origins within several cultures, and can still be found amongst indigenous hunter-gatherer populations today. However, many believe that the origin of tattoos comes from either Polynesian tribes or Ancient Japanese culture, and many tattoos found in popular culture today draw their roots from these traditions. Since the 1960s and 1970s, tattoos themselves have been a popular form of body modification in the West, with some defining tattoos as an art form and others defining them as graffiti . Despite this, there is evidence that body modifications are growing in popularity amongst Westerners, with almost a quarter of Americans having a tattoo and one in seven having some form of piercing (Bekhor, Bekhor Gandrabur, 1995). Like tattoos, piercing is an ancient ritual that has roots in various different tribal groups (Kramer, 2006), and is now part of popular culture in the West. Piercings are more common in women than men (Trautner Kwan, 2010), which may a ffect the way that they are viewed as part of workplace dress codes. Much of the difference between the ways that piercings are viewed (compared with visible tattoos) is that they are usually smaller and more discreet, and cannot contain bad or malicious language (Sklar DeLong, 2012). We will write a custom essay sample on Tattoo and Body Modifications Discrimination in the Workplace or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page Many of the stereotypes against those with tattoos may have been a result of this early link with punk sub-culture.