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| Chris Baumann |
Dr. Chris Baumann, an associate professor at Macquarie University in Australia and a visiting professor at Seoul National University (SNU), says that tattoos are still a liability for service employees, somewhat in conflict with an individual's freedom of expression via body art.
"Consumers are very skeptical, if not negative, towards tattooed frontline employees," Baumann told The Korea Times in a recent e-mail interview.
In his study, titled "Taboo tattoos? A study of the gendered effects of body art on consumer attitudes toward visibly tattooed frontline staff," Baumann explored the interactions of people in job contexts, gender and the presence of tattoos.
The research was conducted in collaboration with Andrew R. Timming of the University of St Andrews in Scotland and Paul J. Gollan of the University of Queensland in Australia.
They found consumers have a negative attitude to visible body art on frontline staff, and that a tattoo could therefore be a significant liability for service employees.
"The findings indicate that there is an intersectionality of gender- and tattoo-based discrimination," Baumann said.
He drew his conclusions by examining the attitudes of 131 male and 131 female respondents toward two professions ― surgeons and mechanics ― in terms of tattoos.
According to Baumann, both surgeons and car mechanics are traditionally male-dominated fields, so they are ideal to empirically study discrimination against frontline staff.
"Not only was the tattooed female surgeon rated higher than the tattooed male surgeon, but also the presence of a tattoo on a female mechanic did not even figure into consumer perceptions," the researchers wrote in their paper.
"In other words, the data suggest that whether or not a woman mechanic displays a visible tattoo is irrelevant; consumers, both male and female, simply do not want a woman working on their cars."
That is to say that male and female consumers hold roughly the same gender views on body art in the workplace.
"Our study intentionally moved away from the traditional research with its focus on gender and race, and instead positioned our research on the under-researched area of gender and body art," Baumann added.
Citing Korea's culture grounded in Confucian principles, he pointed out that Korean employers have stricter rules and standards when it comes to visual presentation.
"What is more or less acceptable in the appearance and behavior of frontline staff (including visible tattoos) in many Western markets, would be unthinkable in Korea," Baumann said. "Confucianism provides society with a high level of harmony, respect and good manners, and that is also ever present in services."
Baumann stressed that Confucian culture is less based on individual expression such as displaying tattoos for everyone to see, and that tattoos are largely seen as taboo in the Korean service industry.
Tattoos are seen as an art form in many countries around the world. But in Korea, tattooing is, according to law, a medical practice that can be conducted legally by medical personnel only. However, there has been talk among related ministries of legalizing the country's underground tattoo industry.
Tattoos are becoming more acceptable among some Koreans, especially young adults, for their cosmetic effects and artistic value. But in many cases people who have tattoos are still stigmatized due to historic associations with organized crime.
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