In my experience over the past few years in Dublin, everyone has at least one alternative friend, or friend of a friend. Alternative culture has seemingly had a surge in popularity in the past couple of years – whether you are in the Arts Block or Drury Street, it’s very hard to go about your day without seeing an alternative guy who has fallen victim to the mullet-moustache epidemic or an alternative girl with a sleeve of tattoos. People with countless tattoos and piercings are commonplace now, it’s almost weird to not see them. The taboo around piercings and tattoos has waned and the population is free to adorn themselves with silvers, golds, and inks. 

Alternative culture is based on its separation from mainstream culture, and within it has many subcultures.The subcultures are what makes alternative culture band together – each subculture’s individual beliefs and fashion choices distinguish alternative culture from the mainstream. The ones that are most often heard in Ireland would be punks, goths, skinheads, indie and grunge. These subcultures, although quite different in their individual looks, all have one thing in common: a definite ‘non-mainstream’ look. Punks, for example, wear badges symbolising their political beliefs on their clothes and bags. Goths wear black, flowy clothing, and wear dark makeup. There are subcultures within these subcultures too, such as romantic goths or cyber-punks. But the alternative look is not just a way to present yourself – it is a way of viewing and being a citizen of the world. Many of these subcultures are anarchic, anti-establishment, anti-capitalist, anti-racist and pro women’s rights. This is where tattoos and piercings come into play – they are a way of expressing yourself in a non-mainstream way. Tattoos and piercings are not just a fashion choice for alternative people, they are a symbol of what they stand for and who they are as people. 

Alternative culture had a huge impact on the 1980s and 1990s in Ireland and around the world, with bands like Nirvana and The Cure being very popular. Alternative culture has been relatively popular since, yet I feel that it has had a massive surge in popularity in Ireland in the past few years. But what does this resurgence in alternative culture mean for alternative women? As an alternative woman myself (although my friends just call me an emo), I have noticed a significant change in the way that I was and am treated by men as I became more ‘alt’. Along my personal tattoo journey from one to now eighteen tattoos (along with a similar number of piercings), I have felt at times completely invalidated and degraded by men for looking the way that I do and for liking the things that I like. I have noticed the same for a lot of punk/alternative women who wear band t-shirts, for example. I’m sure many of you can relate to the “Name 5 songs!” guy who randomly appears on nights out when you say you like a band, and who gets extremely upset when you can’t name each song in order from every Metallica album.

These men who want to gatekeep their music taste and the bands they listen to are just one example of a certain group of men that have subconsciously had a vast impact on the way that alternative women are perceived in greater alternative culture. The rise in ‘incel’ men, i.e. involuntarily celibate men, and their misogynistic comments and beliefs have also had an impact on the way that alternative women are perceived. The blame that is placed upon women by incel men for being ‘selective’ in who women choose to be with has added to the idea that women’s interests and choices are for their own personal gain, as if this is a bad thing. Because of these “Name 5 songs!” guys and a surge in the number of incel men that we meet, alternative women’s interests are seen as less valid than men’s interests. Women’s interests and the way they are perceived in greater alternative culture is an extension of the fact that women can’t enjoy anything publicly without being able to prove they are in the top 1% of a fanbase or that they know everything about the subject. One example of that I always think of is One Direction fans versus football/soccer fans. Women (in particular teenage girls) who are fans of any sort of boy band – or even just a band/singer in general – are perceived as ‘crazed’ fans, whereas violent football fans who wreck stadiums and cause serious injuries to each other are just perceived as ‘boisterous’. Although One Direction is not an alternative band, the same idea stands in the alternative music scene for women – we seemingly cannot like alternative bands/tattoos/piercings without having a negative perception placed upon us.

Aside from the constant need to prove that women are allowed to like what they like, there is also the fact that many people (in my experience mostly men) just assume that alternative women enjoy certain things. There is an alarmingly common misconception that all alternative women are into hardcore, kinky sex, some form of BDSM, or that they have ‘daddy issues’. This atrocious assumption aside, it is not uncommon as an alternative woman to be extensively asked about what kind of sex you like to have and how you like to be treated when having sex. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard “I bet you like x, y and z” when men are prying into my sex life. Another question I get asked a lot is “Do you have any that I can’t see?” when talking about my tattoos and piercings. Alternative women’s bodies are constantly sexualised; we are unable to go a small amount of time without being demonised by these prying questions at the hands of alternative and non-alternative men alike.

As an alternative woman, it is exhausting to have to constantly fight for my right to enjoy certain things while simultaneously denying accusations and assumptions that you are into others. It is worth asking why many men think it is OK to ask these questions at all, and to alternative women in particular. The only conclusion that I can draw is that often women with significant tattoos are perceived as ‘dirty’ and sexually promiscuous, whereas girls who don’t have tattoos or aren’t alternative are ‘clean’ and ‘pure’. I think that this may have stemmed from a misconception that I have heard since I was young – that a person with tattoos can’t donate blood or plasma. I don’t think that it was this phenomenon alone that caused men to perceive alternative women as ‘dirty’ or promiscuous, but given blood transfusion history with the AIDs epidemic, it is an intriguing link to make. On another note, some names given to tattoos have certain connotations in themselves– a lower back tattoo is known as a ‘tramp stamp’, specifically when it is on a woman’s lower back. The lower back is often deemed an erotic part of the body, and thus tattoos here have become associated with sexuality. The demonisation and inherent sexualisation of women in the media has not helped this either – media has had a huge impact on the way that alternative women with tattoos are perceived. They have promoted this promiscuous and sexualised version of the alternative, tattooed woman, and now real-life women must reap the consequences. So, what does it mean when an alternative woman has a tattoo on her arm, her chest, her leg? Do these sexual connotations persevere?

It is interesting to think of tattoos being observed as ‘dirty’ considering that they have become so popular in the last few years. There is a changing scene among younger generations to push for tattoos to become normalised in the workplace despite hesitation from older generations. Tattoos are a form of self-expression, a way to physically show who you are and what you stand for – they tell your story. While the traditional West has had a complicated view of what tattoos mean, in some cultures tattoos are seen as a symbol of purity; the cultural taboo of getting inked is not a universal reality, rather a very Western, very limited perspective. Despite these differences in opinions, I have seen women demonised for their choice to put tattoos on their bodies as a form of self-expression. I have been poked and prodded and asked “What does this one mean” by men and women alike, and after giving a brief description or saying “it’s personal” if I don’t want to share, I am heavily judged for putting what I want onto my own body. I have had several friends tell me similar stories to this – enough stories to make me draw the conclusion that it’s a pretty common event for alternative women.

Modern alternative cultures aside, it is important to remember and recognise Ireland’s complicated relationship with women and self-expression in the past. This derived from the lessening of the iron grip of the Catholic Church over the country in the past few decades. To jump from the last Magdalene Laundry shutting down in 1996 to a rise in alternative self-expression in less than fifty years is a big step for Ireland, but it still has a long way to go. The Catholic traditional views that were (literally) beaten into generations of children are still ever-present, and have been passed into modern Irish alternative culture. I have to give Catholic guilt an honorary mention here (woo-hoo!) because, for alternative Irish women, this is an added layer placed upon us when expressing ourselves. Catholic guilt is something I feel every day as an alternative woman – it is an inescapable part of who I am. To be further tortured by men about what I like and how I look is just too much, honestly.

Another question that is raised by how men treat alternative women is how women are supposed to express – or even have – their own individual identity. Are alternative women’s identities and forms of self-expression valid in a wider societal context? Is there any space where women can safely like what they like, wear what they like and express themselves properly? There is constant societal-induced pressure for women to prove themselves to be valid in the eyes of men in many contexts, but for alternative women it is particularly difficult because of the obstacle of their inherently sexualised beings. Under the patriarchy, women struggle to express themselves, but when you add the perceived sexualisation of alternative people it begs the question: why are men still responsible for constructing a woman’s identity and how she is perceived?

Although engaging with alternative culture might be seen as an expression of identity, alternative women, as I have seen first-hand, have not been able to express themselves properly at all. Our sexuality, our identity, our likes and dislikes have all been defined by the “Name 5 songs!!” guys around us, by the men who romanticise the idea of alternative women and by the men who sexualise us for just existing. There is no break for alternative women, unless there is some form of change in the alternative community and wider society. To allow women to explore their sexuality (if they want!) and to express themselves with piercings and tattoos (if they want!), we must deconstruct the idea that this is something negative, something ‘dirty’, and replace it with the idea that women’s self-expression is empowering, it is punk and it is cool – cooler, perhaps, than being able to name every Metallica song in order.