More Women Than Men Have Tattoos (Of Angels and Hearts)

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

For a long time, it seemed like the only people who got tattoos were biker dudes. But that's not the case any more: not only are tats officially mainstream, they're also the domain of women. a new study says that 59 percent of people with tattoos are female.

That's not the only revealing statistic: 40 percent of women get tattooed with a friend along, making it into a bonding experience. Also, 68 percent of women who have ink say that their tattoo is "beautiful," with the most common choices being angels and hearts. (What, were they out of kittens?) That said, women tend to choose one or two small tattoos with personal significance—an anniversary date, a loved one's name—while men get larger ones and tend to "fill up" an area of their body.

And while we're discussing random statistics, for some reason the pollsters asked whether people thought Sarah Palin had a secret tattoo, and for some reason 46 percent said yes. No stats on whether they thought it was an angel or a heart.
· Women More Likely Than Men to Get Tattoos [Jane Dough]