Artifact 2: Personal Reflection Essay
Artifact 2: Personal Reflection Essay
OBJECTIVES:
- Evaluate personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty.
- Investigate how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging.
- Analyze values and belief systems of physical appearance across cultures, sub-cultures and generations.
ORIGINAL POST:
The timing for this post is interesting because my Family and Human Services class is focused on cultural diversity and we are exploring and discussing many of the same questions and issues around personal values. There has been lots of overlap in my writing and thinking for both classes but none more significant than the fact that my personal beliefs and values tie back directly to my family, how I was raised, and the examples my parents set for me. My family practices what my parents always called “cultural Judaism.” We were given an understanding of the laws of the Jewish faith but greater emphasis was placed on the history of our people and the richness of our traditions. In this context, appreciating where I came from, the importance of family and placing high value on the freedom of expression (among other things) were emphasized through my childhood. In thinking about it more deeply now, it’s clear to me that these values have always impacted my choices regarding style, dress, and adornment.
From the time I was a little girl, my parents gave my older brother and me a great deal of freedom when it came to our physical appearance. My brother was allowed to get his ear pierced in elementary school and I was allowed to put distinctive streaks in my hair at a young age. I was able to get my belly button pierced while in high school and at an age that required my parents’ permission. Our choices and our parents’ support were often to the dismay of other parents in our community but my parents were more interested in allowing us to express ourselves than they were in conforming. However, even my easygoing parents had limits on what they would agree to and that fell squarely into the realm of tattoos. It’s not that they are against tattoos (in fact, my mother has one) but they wanted me to wait to get one until the decision was mine alone and not a choice that required their consent. My mother always noted that hair grows back and earrings and other piercings can be easily removed, but a tattoo is permanent so the decision to get one should be undertaken with care.
I thought about and planned my first tattoo for a long time but in the end I knew I would choose something that took me back to my family. You can see my first tattoo here and it’s in honor of my mother:
The words, “I love you the most” comes from a game we played throughout my childhood and a reminder that no matter where I am or what I am doing, I am loved. My second tattoo is in honor of my father and you can see it here:
This comes from our favorite book and getting it tattooed on my back was my way of making permanent how I felt when we read the story together. In reading Chapter 1 of C.R. Sanders Customizing the Body I learned that there is much historical evidence that my desire to honor my family and our relationship is not an unusual choice when it comes to tattoos. While the details are not necessarily tied to my family’s history and traditions, I do like the idea of tattoos being imbedded in a historical narrative.
My third tattoo is for the last member of my immediate family, my older brother. I got this tattoo because aside from being my brother he is also one of my best friends. I wanted to have a memorable tattoo for each family member. This is the word brother in Hebrew to honor my Jewish culture and my brothers’ birthday.
Even thought I grew up in a home that valued and supported self-expression, it was not a free for all. I can specifically remember times when one of my parents would sent me back to my room to change into a “more appropriate” outfit for school. I am sure the shorts were too short or the shirt too tight and therefore unacceptable. I look back on those moments and know now that my parents’ were helping me understand the value of self-respect. Like most teenagers, I used clothing and fashion choices to push the envelope as I struggled to establish my independence. Since those days, I appreciate that I can express myself and still have self-respect and be respectful of the environments I find myself in. Towards the end of my time in high school and at home before college, I came to really appreciate this guidance. I can recall reacting quite negatively to the fashion choices of a number of my female classmates and wondering how they could be comfortable in such revealing and overtly sexual outfits.
My peer community has shifted in the past two years. I’ve moved on from high school and find myself in a much wider circle, in another state, in a college town. Tattoos and piercings are more the “norm” and I think my peer community values free expression. As I reflect on my upbringing and the values and beliefs that have guided and continue to guide me, I realize that it’s fantastic to be exposed to and get to know many different types of people. And, their fashion choices and adornments help tell you something about them but definitely not the whole story.
REFLECTION:
Although this artifact was my most recent post, I found myself thinking about it more deeply given the personal nature of the material. C.R. Sanders’ offers an interesting history and evolution of the art of tattoos and tattooing in the reading, “ Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing,” Throughout history, and as far back as the late Stone Age, tattooing was used as a decorative art to bestow social status and social identity. (9-10) Given the objectives of this study unit, I found myself curious about what more recent writings and reflections might offer since Sanders’ book was published nearly fifteen years ago. A brief look yielded many more articles than I could possibly read but one in particular stood out.
My own decision to get tattoos was personal and connected to my desire to express feelings about family relationships. I wanted them to be beautiful but I didn’t think about them as giving me status of one kind or another. However, I came across a very moving story about a woman who in the aftermath of breast cancer and a double mastectomy, had breast reconstruction surgery. But, as she explains in the clip below, plastic surgeons have only so many tools to recreate the human body. This woman wanted her reconstructed breasts to look more like real breasts and to achieve that she visited a tattoo artist whose specialty is nipple recreation. Watching this clip and hearing her story gave me a whole new appreciation for understanding how physical appearance affects our society’s definitions of beauty and belonging.
I love how the tattoo artist talks about his own journey to his work in support of his sister, also a breast cancer survivor. His work has such purpose and clearly his particular talent is a gift to this woman who says, “I just want to look and feel normal again.”
FUTURE:
Through this unit I’ve had chance to focus on my personal decisions for fashion and body adornment but also to have my eyes opened to how and why others make their choices. Tattoos are quite common these days but culturally they still carry some of the stigma, as noted by Sanders, “… as a definedly deviant practice in the public mind.” (18) There are many members of my extended family who are unaware of my tattoos because I have gone out of my way to conceal them. I am confident that my grand parents would express disappointment in my choice to get tattoos yet, I am thinking about how I might approach the subject with them.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: