By Charlie LeBeau, Board Member of UKAPP

The terms “women,” “woman,” and “female” in this article are used to represent all binary and non-binary women, regardless of size, shape, race, and religion.

Personally, I can count on one hand the female role models I had growing up. I don’t just mean in relation to my career, I mean in general. I had my mother, Debbie Harry of Blondie, and Princess Leia as my sole inspirations; although each are wonderful in their own right, my mother was really the only one who could provide me any reasonable advice. So when it came to choosing a career path, I knew I didn’t want to be a mother. I also couldn’t be the General of the Resistance (I’m still holding out hope for that one). So instead I chose to become a rock star. Clearly, that worked out exactly as planned.

It was during this era of my life, that I discovered more and more about body piercing. As I immersed myself into the music scene, I came to realize an abundance of crossover with the piercing industry. At this point, I already had begun to get pierced and had shown an interest in modification, but it was only by throwing myself into another interest that it became a passion. I hunted out my local studio and hassled them for months, until they agreed to take me on as an apprentice.

I bring this all up not for my own trip down memory lane, but because I became aware as I started my apprenticeship, how few female role models there were in my life. My mentor was male, my college lecturers were mostly male, I was one of three women on my music course, and almost none of the music I listened to was sung or played by women. This, I realised, was a problem.

The piercing industry owes its debts to many incredible piercers, male and female, and it would be brash to suggest that it was ever actively anti-women, but the building blocks of piercing as a business and industry were male dominated. This is not necessarily a negative observation, merely that this is still a young world for my generation and it helped me come to terms with the fact that we are still finding our feet within the industry.  We are still waiting to become role models for the next generation of Debbie Harry and Elayne Angel wannabes.

I’ve been lucky in many of my personal experiences. I’ve not had many issues with harassment, negative work environments, or workplace bullying due to my gender. I know this is far from the case for the vast majority of women who continually worry between going to work or not being able to pay the bills. Or alternatively being threatened with career ending slander shouldthey dare tell anyone about what is really going on. If you think it’s unnecessary for women to want their own personal space, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Recent movement within western society has lead to many industries “outing” their former heroes—something a lot of women would all agree is a long time coming—and the piercing industry isn’t an exception. With this newfound recognition of the female voice comes a responsibility from all genders, to leave that space to be filled by someone who is needed there. We can actively give women freedom to have discussions in forums without feeling the need to censor and rephrase their question. We can allow women the opportunity to lead more seminars without the fear of someone threatening to end our careers because we didn’t want to speak alongside them. We can allow more women to become Generals.

The women now leading the forefront of our industry have years of knowledge and experience, not only fighting for a hard earned spot in an incredibly selective occupation, but also doing so with little inspiration from our own to spur them on. I am fortunate to have an amazing support network now, filled with women who I look up to for their business acumen, their strength, their style, and their hard work to promote a new generation looking for role models of their own.