Narrator: As a female with tattoos,
I started to notice a trend.
When I walked into tattoo shops
there were hardly any women artists.
But if you look around,
more females than males have tattoos.
According to a 2015 study, 31% of females have tattoos,
while only 27% of men do.
If you look at those giving the tattoos, it's mostly males.
Only one in six tattoo artists were women,
according to a 2010 study.
So where are the women tattoo artists?
I went on a search and found Shanzey Afzal,
owner of Ink Minx, a mobile, female-run tattoo shop.
She created her one-woman shop
prioritizing women and non-binary customers.
- Being a female tattoo artist was really tough to learn.
Tattoo shops are very male-dominated.
And nobody wanted to teach me, being a young woman.
I had to go through my apprenticeship,
which I feel was much tougher
than the males' apprenticeship.
I had to be tougher than somebody else would have had to be.
Narrator: Today, Shanzey says her tattoo shop
inside of an old-school trailer is her safe space.
- I made the choice to tattoo women
and non-binary customers
because I saw that they really sought a different service
and that there was a huge market for it.
Women-only services are non-discriminatory
and proven to be effective
in creating participation in industries.
Narrator: Shanzey used a loan to buy her trailer.
But in order to expand her business she needs investors.
She's been applying for new loans
and looking for investors since 2016.
But she hasn't had much luck yet.
And she isn't alone.
In 2016, women-owned businesses accounted for only 18%
of the total number of approved 7(a) small business loans.
- I think if I was a white man
I would have more of a likelihood to land these meetings.
I think white men come off as less of a hazard.
They're more marketable.
Young Pakistani Muslim women are different.
And anything that's different is more of a risk.
Narrator: And if women are able
to get their foot in the door,
they don't see as much money
compared to their male counterparts.
In 2016, Fundera reported
that women received 2.5 times less money on average
for small business loans than men did.
These small loan amounts are not the result
of there being fewer businesses owned by women.
In fact, over the last 20 years,
the number of women-owned businesses has more than doubled.
Even more specifically, businesses owned by women of color
grew four times that rate in 20 years.
- I love being a female business owner.
And I love being a woman of color.
I think the most exciting part of it for me
is inspiring other young women.