Week 13 - Research updates

I've made a mistake and I've broken my own rules about writing. Last weekend, I went on a huge writing spree and attacked every project I could get my hands on. I managed to knock out a good 60% of my paper and I was happy at my place in the world. This was my mistake. I know better, especially with only 60% done, than to be happy at my place in the world while I'm in the writing process. Because inevitably, at some point, I will step out of the author's shoes and into the readers' shoes. When that happens I'll find every whole and flaw that exists in the paper and will leave myself fighting to quell the desire to press delete and start from scratch. I learned the hard way long ago that just because a paper isn't going where you thought it would, doesn't mean you need to run for "delete." Sometimes it's even good to take a side road.

I might even go as far as to say that is what's happening in my project right now. I've taken the time to talk in a circle around my point, and now I think (think being the key) I may be getting a handle on what exactly that point is. It started out that my point was simple: People with tattoos are judged as being bad people and that's not fair. In the course of my research, my point has spiraled out of control into many directions. It was a historical aspect, then it was a gender only aspect, but whichever angle it was, it was simply exploratory. No argument. No point. That's not the case anymore.

My point instead is this: All things being equal in terms of education and experience, a person who is not visibly tattooed will get the job before a person who is. Many companies, in fact are opting to implement policies regarding the visibility of their employees ink. They feel this is no different than asking an employee not to wear shorts in the office, but to "dress appropriately & professionally." But how do you define what is professional when the question is on some one's skin? How is this not just another form of the discrimination that lead to entire races being oppressed? The law will not allow employers to discriminate against religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, or race/ethnicity anymore, but tattooed people aren't considered in those laws. They should be.

I realize that there are people who have chosen to ink obscenities on their skin and perhaps someone might cringe at the idea of employers being forced to hire such a person. But that's a minority of tattooed people. The few do not represent the whole and to assume such would be as absurd as stereotyping all Hispanics as gang members or all Caucasians as supremacists. If someone who has tattooed obscenities also has a criminal record, of course that person wouldn't be hired, but that's another paper. My concern for this research project is the 24 year old grad student who feels like she can't wear short sleeves to the office in the summer because the butterfly tattoo with her little sister's name might peek out and cost her the job she's worked so hard to land. Or the 30 something guy who took a chance and followed his artistic dreams through his 20s but is job searching in the business sector now. Only he keeps getting turned away because his back piece is almost visible through a business shirt. These examples are hypothetical, but they're not unrealistic. Many of my sources have interviewed people who tell stories just like this and I think it's ridiculous. Tattoos are a form of self-expression. Sometimes art is the only form we have to express what we feel about someone or something and if the feeling is that strong, why not carry it on you're body? The only differences between a tattoo and a really long conversation is that the art isn't limited by language that can't engulf the emotion and if it's visible enough other people are forced to see it whether they want to or not.

I know the last part seems like the whole point of why people with tattoos should have to cover up, but I have to point to the long conversation again. People I don't know or like launch into long, detailed conversations with me all the time about their grandma's medical history and their boyfriend's lack of bathroom etiquette. I can't get away from them without being considered rude and they can't lose their jobs for forcing me to listen. But if one of my office mates catches a flash of my wrist tattoo, I have to wonder where my next paycheck will come from?  In the 21st century where every man has a cause how is that fair?

Week 12 - Research Project Update

One would think that after spending the better part of two years in the English department, writing nearly every day, it would b difficult to forget the process. Less the process and more how I get during the process actually. Somehow that's what I managed to do though. I'd forgotten how I live inside my papers and let them absolutely consume me. I'd forgotten why sometimes, just before a project was due, I'd be up pacing the floors, unable to focus on or talk about anything except the project I was consumed by. I remember now.

None of the writing assignments for any of my other classes compare to this one. None of them have as much of my attention as this one. I have found myself living inside this project to the point that tattoos are now being discussed with nearly everyone I run into. I was at the library with a friend last week, working on a project for a different class and within 10 minutes of being there I found myself debating this paper with him. He mentioned that he is "anti-tattoo" and that was all it took. I immediately launched into an interrogation about why he felt that way. Of course, knowing I'm inked, he backpedalled and said he's not really "anti-tattoo" just that he's never had the desire to be inked himself. We followed that up with a discussion of who gets hired first the tattooed or the non-tattooed person. Like many non-tattooed people he easily articulated that if the hiring is left to him and all education is equal, the non-tattooed person gets the job. Also like many non-tattooed people, he could not articulate the logic behind that answer beyond "they just do."

"They just do" isn't a good enough reason when someone with tattoos has to explain to their family why they lost out on a job opportunity. It's not good enough when this is the difference between food this week or no; between Christmas or no. As long as the images depicted in the tattoos are not offensive (eg, anti- anything or gang affiliated) and the person passes all the normal background screenings that a non-tattooed person would be subject to, why shouldn't they get the job? How is that not discrimination and where do we draw the line? Or isn't there one? Is this the equivalent of the pretty girl with flawless makeup getting the job over the one who is exhausted and it shows? What about the guy who is clearly gay but no one will ask? Go back 60 years to when the no one wanted to hire the black guy, or another 20 or 30 years before that when no one wanted to hire the woman. Where is the line?

There are so many interviews in some of my sources where people with tattoos talk about encounters they've had with other people. Not all of them are shocking, but one that stuck with me is from a young guy who didn't disclose to his employer the fact that he has a full back piece. One of his coworkers caught a glimpse of it by accident in a public gym and then began dropping comments in front of their boss that eluded to the idea that this man was inked. Despite his efforts to always wear dark shirts to that the piece is covered, the young man describes feeling trapped and blackmailed and as if he is stuck groveling to this other guy who is actually in an inferior position that his so that he won't expose his art.

Seriously? In 21st century America we have well-qualified business professionals playing elementary tattle tale games with other people's careers over a tattoo that isn't even visible? It's not as though this guy walks around the office shirtless.

I saw another piece on the Internet a day or so ago where a woman was stating that her Miami construction company required her to wear long sleeves to cover her tattoos in the summer to go out and mingle with the construction workers on site, many of whom were also tattooed. This girl is sporting sunflower tattoos and she's being forced to cover them in Miami in the summer on a construction site. That hardly seems fair or practical. I wonder if she were to succumb to heat exhaustion or heat stroke, and if she tried to sue the company for making her dress inappropriately, who would win? Their tattoo policy or her health?

As it stands I don't have a very defined thesis statement, but I'm writing my way toward one I think. I'm definitely managing to narrow my scope down to how having a tattoo, especially a visible tattoo effects a woman. So far I've knocked out 6 of my 10-12 page requirement and I haven't used half of my sources yet so I know the other 4-6 will be no problem. If anything I may end up needing to scale back. I also managed to finally write the last citation for my annotated bibliography. I've had the source forever and I've had it read and summarized, I just hadn't gotten to add it to the file. Now it's there too. 

If I know anything about me as a writer, and I'd like to think by now I do, it's that the hardest part of this paper is going to be the thesis statement and tweaking the intro. Those have always been my weaknesses. Oh, and focusing long enough to write, of course.