Tattooing an old tradition

Subject: Tattooing an old tradition.

I'm watching the World Indoor Championships held in Birmingham. My issue tonight is the use of tattoos amongst the female runners and women in general.
Why do these women find it necessary to do what I would say is 'disfigure' themselves by permanently adorning their bodies with all kinds of motifs, like the savages of the past.
Are we becoming more and more socially retrograde in our desire to follow a fashion. Is the fashion of tattooing our bodies not something rather barbaric and perhaps belonging to the 'lower classes. The seaman returning from many months in foreign ports had, as an emblem of his trade, an anchor emblazoned on his forearm. The need to encourage your girlfriend in believing your commitment to her by having her name tattooed somewhere but always running the risk of being embarrassed if you replaced her later down the line.
It used to be the domain of men, particularly traveling men but never women.
Today, as in much of our modern society, the girls say "anything you can do we can do  also" and the number of women, who for some reason seek to display such artificiality is increasing exponentially.
One of the women settling down onto the blocks had, amongst other things an image of a hand gun on her inner arm, something a gangster from the Favelas would have been proud of.
It's always supposed that civilisation is an upward trajectory but I wonder as the modern woman seem condemned to mimic a very old tradition.