Scrapbooking Gender

One way that sociologists understand gender is that gender is something one does. In other words, we do things to indicate our gender (e.g., clothing selection or our interests)–a bit of an oversimplification, but I think you get the idea. (Hopefully.) Scrapbooking is one thing people do that communicates gender.

It might be easier to focus on how scrapbookers indicate gender of those they scrapbook. Every few weeks, someone in the blogosphere writes a post about scrapbooking men or boys:

• June Blog Hop: It’s a Guy Thing
• Real Men Have Pink Scrapbook Pages: Ideas for Scrapbooking Boys with Pink
• Summer CHA 2011: Boy Themed Products

There are even entire books on the subject:

• Ella’s Essential Guide to Scrapbooking Boys
• Ella’s Essential Guide to Scrapbooking Girls

I think it is safe to say that the industry promotes traditional gender norms.

Perhaps this is changing? The Digi Show had a recent episode about scrapbooking gender. While listening to the episode, I was almost ready to unsubscribe until I heard their perspective: that the focus should be your perspective rather than trying to create “masculine” layouts for boys or “feminine” layouts for girls. Kudos to The Digi Show.

In my study, I found that the media messages in the scrapbook industry surrounding gender are not lost on scrapbookers. For example, one respondent recalls reading a scrapbooking magazine article about how one should scrapbook little boy’s pages differently than little girl’s pages. In particular the magazine says that for boy’s pages it is okay to use ribbon, but “resist tying a bow.” A man scrapbooker thinks this is ridiculous especially once one considers the fact that every little boy has bows on his shoes (i.e., shoelaces tied in a bow).

Gender plays a role not only in who scrapbooks but also how scrapbook pages get made depending on the genderedness of the subject on the page. Scrapbookers do things like use gender appropriate colors on scrapbook pages about girls (i.e., pink) and boys (i.e., blue). Captioned stickers are often gendered and may say things like “chick’s rule” or “100% man.”

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be discussing how scrapbooking is a site where gender is done. I hope you’ll stay tuned to see where I go with this.

In the meantime, how do you think gender and scrapbooking intersect? Comment below or join the conversation on facebook or twitter.

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Stephanie