The Femme Gaze: Rewriting Tattoo History from the Inside Out

For much of tattoo history, the art form was defined through the male gaze. Women and femmes appeared in the imagery but rarely behind the machine. Their stories were about being looked at, not looking back.

Sailor Jerry’s flash sheets featured women as fantasy. They adorned sailors’ bodies, the hula dancer, the nurse, the pin-up with impossible curves and come-hither eyes, as reminders of desire, adventure, or what might be conquered. Women became decoration for someone else’s story, frozen in postures of availability and charm.

The women who actually got tattooed occupied quite a different narrative, one marked by risk. A tattooed woman in the early twentieth century was often viewed as deviant or dangerous, her body folded into ideas of rebellion or sexuality that weren’t her own or viewed as a sideshow attraction. The women who wanted to be tattoo artists faced shops that refused apprenticeships and peers who doubted their seriousness or ability. Tattooing, for decades, was considered men’s work, art, and territory.

But, time marches on and that landscape has changed undeniably.

As more women, femmes, and queer tattooers entered the field, the gaze began to shift. Bodies became sites of reclamation rather than ownership and places where power, softness, and identity could overlap. This didn’t happen in opposition to tradition, but within it. Artists like Maud Wagner in the early 1900s or Cindy Ray in the 60s and 70s carved out space by mastering the same techniques that defined the art form and craft of tattooing, and they expanded what those techniques could express. What emerged wasn’t a rejection of tattooing’s roots but a widening of its reach.

The femme gaze in tattooing plays with tradition, borrows from it, finds new ways inside it, but doesn’t erase it. Bold line work, limited palettes, and iconic imagery still endure because they work and because they age well. They’re time tested and reliable. What’s shifted are the stories those tattoos tell. For example, a traditional panther might still symbolize ferocity, but now it can speak to queer protectiveness or survivor strength.

The femme gaze in tattoo culture gestures toward reclamation, but not every act of adornment needs to be read as political. Sometimes it’s simply personal.

“What happens when people choose how they’re seen?”

For women, femmes, and queer folks, visibility has never been neutral and tattoos make that tension visible, they draw eyes. To choose to change oneself while enduring scrutiny, curiosity, and sometimes, misunderstanding is to shape your narrative, even if only slightly.

At Cherry Bomb, we notice how empathy alters the atmosphere of a session. The artist’s knowledge still matters, but it’s shared, not imposed. When you’re tattooed by someone who sees you as a collaborator rather than a project, something subtle changes in the exchange. The process feels more like connection rather than direction and the result is precision meeting empathy. Questions become part of the practice. How can the process feel as safe as the final image looks?

There isn’t a single answer. Tattooing, like identity, lives in flux.

What’s happening now feels less like a revolution and more like an expansion. We have more artists tattooing now than ever and with that brings in more experience, perspective, and vision.

As far as I’m concerned, the lines remain bold, the colors vibrant, but the meanings are multiplying.