Can I be a Scrapbooker and a Feminist?

Each Wednesday, I write a post from my dissertation.

Last week, I questioned wither scrapbooking is a woman’s-only space? Do men feel welcomed in the hobby?

Not only do critics like me notice the absence of men in the hobby, but women scrapbookers do as well. The fact that scrapbookers are overwhelmingly women leads women scrapbookers to devalue and question their own participation in the hobby, especially for those scrapbookers considering themselves to be feminists. In this way (devaluing scrapbooking because women do it), gender inequality is maintained. One respondent discusses scrapbooking as something she struggles with as a feminist and has discussed this struggle with a friend she was trying to get interested in scrapbooking. Her friend initially wanted nothing to do with scrapbooking because the friend thought it “put a woman back in her traditional position.” Her friend, however, quickly became hooked on scrapbooking but still “thinks it’s a little weird from a feminist perspective.” She emphasizes that scrapbooking is feminist because it gives women the ability to tell their story.

It is women’s memory dominating scrapbooks. As the keeper of other family records (e.g., addresses, birthdays, anniversaries), scrapbookers are recording the memory of the family. Kuhn (2002:14) asks, “whose memory is to prevail in the family archive?” Well, the scrapbooker’s memory of course. It is easy to dismiss something as being contradictory to feminism because by and large women participate in it and men do not but it would be naïve to simply dismiss something as non-feminist just because more women than men do it as is seen with scrapbooking.

Journaling in a scrapbook is comparable to writing a caption to a photograph. Previous researchers point out that the person who writes the caption has quite a bit of power over the interpretations of the photograph (Chaplin 2005; Sontag 2003). Whoever constructs the family’s scrapbooks has control over how the family is presented and what family stories are preserved. Scrapbookers are often the family’s historians and as family historians, as noted by LaRossa (1995), they can dictate the stories told about their family. The scrapbooker in the family has the power over the family’s memories. This power can involve censoring or misrepresenting memories. In other words, scrapbookers have the power to control “others’ access to information” (Zerubavel 2006:39), including memories.

In addition to giving women the power to tell the family’s story, the scrapbook industry has catapulted many women into successful careers as store owners, manufacturers or designers of scrapbooking product, bloggers, and idea book authors. It is unknown however, what the gender split is throughout the industry in terms of who actually runs many of these companies. (If anyone has this type of information please contact me, please.) A woman may be the face of the company, but that does not make her the most powerful person in the company.

Regardless, women doing things men traditionally do (i.e., sports or work) are seen as potentially challenging patriarchy. In fact, a woman’s mere presence in some areas within sport or work (i.e., those areas that have been almost completely absent of women) is seen as disrupting patriarchy. What about women doing things women traditionally do (such as scrapbooking)? Is it possible to disrupt and challenge patriarchy while doing traditional womanhood? Unlike feeding work, scrapbooking is not only for the family—it is for the scrapbooker, too and sometimes is not for the family at all.

What do you think? Is scrapbooking a feminist activity? By feminist, I am speaking in the most general sense: someone who believes in and supports equal rights for men and women. Comment below or join the conversation on facebook or twitter.

References

Chaplin, Elizabeth. 2005. “The Photograph in Theory.” Sociological Research Online 10(1). Retrieved January 1, 2006.

Kuhn, Annette. 2002. Famiy Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination. New York: Verso.

LaRossa, Ralph. 1995. “Stories and Relationships.” 12(4):553-8.

Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador.

Zerubavel, Eviatar. 2006. The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life. New York: Oxford University Press.

Related Posts
The Family Album is Like a Resume for a Man
Scrapbooking Gender
Men and Women Scrapbooking
The Scrapbook Industry Depends on Women Doing Gender
Is Scrapbooking a Women’s-Only Space?

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Stephanie