Pinterest isn't feminine: An essay on ladymags and aspirational clipping(persephonemagazine.com)
persephonemagazine.com
Pinterest isn't feminine: An essay on ladymags and aspirational clipping
http://persephonemagazine.com/2012/02/my-pins-my-self-getting-pinned-and-liking-it/
6 comments
The entire essay is about how pinterest is a modern scrapbook for women, and has one line flatly and bizarrely stating that it is not feminine. How not?
That line is in response to the question, 'Is Pinterest fundamentally feminine in some way?' The answer of no in that context is that Pinterest is a derivative behavior associated with 'women's magazines' which is also not fundamentally feminine.
I think it means that Pinterest is a modern scrapbook for women who make scrapbooks, not all women. Not representative of an entire gender, but of a subset.
i think that it's making an implicit distinction (which might not exist) between social and biological cause. the argument is that it's rooted in a social activity, which might be (implicitly, is) constructed / learnt, rather than innate.
(and it's a better article than i expected - credit for being honest enough to detail the "defined by consumption" aspect in fairly neutral terms (or maybe it's just the male in me that finds that a little crass? don't you know that all value comes from winning the game?))
(and it's a better article than i expected - credit for being honest enough to detail the "defined by consumption" aspect in fairly neutral terms (or maybe it's just the male in me that finds that a little crass? don't you know that all value comes from winning the game?))
> don't you know that all value comes from winning the game?
All value comes from bowing out of the game...at which point you win.
All value comes from bowing out of the game...at which point you win.
I find the materialism of it very off putting.
the appeal of pinterest is the ability to see multiple things at a time instead of scrolling through one image at a time like tumblr. It also adjusts to the size of the image so things don't get cropped out. (If tumblr added a feature to make the dashboard a mosaic like layout it'd be amazing!)
She mentions searching for gifts on Pinterest, how does that work? I can't find the feature.
There isn't a 'gift search' feature... just search. Some of the stuff might be gifts I'm guessing.
Nice writeup! Glad someone's taking the casual talk about Pinterest and writing something interesting about it.
Ehh... It can be argued that Pinterest really is a female thing but the idea behind it most certainly isn't. Those two ideas seem contradictory but I think what makes it so appealing to women is the sharing part of it. Women love to share their needs and desires, especially material ones, publicly or so it seems.
Men definitely do similar things but they just don't share it. Just today I met with a founder and we were discussing ideas for his startup when he pulled out am iPad and showed me a scent sized collection of screen shots and images of features, designs, pricing plans for services, and other things he'd been collecting that he was mulling over using and wanted. There were also a number of folders in his collection that I did not see but am positive were full of clippings of other material things and ideas he wanted.
It's a lot like having an idea book for design or a box of junk except the junk isn't junk to you, only to everyone else. We all do it but I think the super social nature of women as far as these things go is makes it so appealing to women.
Or I'm a totally insensitive sexist who needs to shut up now. Either way I'm really not married to the idea it's just my take.
Men definitely do similar things but they just don't share it. Just today I met with a founder and we were discussing ideas for his startup when he pulled out am iPad and showed me a scent sized collection of screen shots and images of features, designs, pricing plans for services, and other things he'd been collecting that he was mulling over using and wanted. There were also a number of folders in his collection that I did not see but am positive were full of clippings of other material things and ideas he wanted.
It's a lot like having an idea book for design or a box of junk except the junk isn't junk to you, only to everyone else. We all do it but I think the super social nature of women as far as these things go is makes it so appealing to women.
Or I'm a totally insensitive sexist who needs to shut up now. Either way I'm really not married to the idea it's just my take.
> totally insensitive sexist who needs to shut up now
Don't worry about this. Really. It's a very valid psychological observation that there's overall differences between men and women.
It's only sexist if you ignore that these differences can result from a large combination of socialization, upbringing, and culture (in addition to some genetics). It would only be sexist if you were being partial or biased in your analysis in a way that favored a gender.
Don't worry about this. Really. It's a very valid psychological observation that there's overall differences between men and women.
It's only sexist if you ignore that these differences can result from a large combination of socialization, upbringing, and culture (in addition to some genetics). It would only be sexist if you were being partial or biased in your analysis in a way that favored a gender.
First, it's a some American women thing. The fact that this is common with women in this culture tells you something about this culture more than something about women. Similarly, something in this culture tells men that it is acceptable to talk about feelings while drunk, but not sober, until those conversations have happened enough times to have cemented an emotional intimacy between a group (2+) of friends.
I can point you to masculine evangelical USian culture where it is considered a mark of friendship to share spiritual struggles and aspirations, carefully negotiated within the intimacy of the group. (In some ways, it's a very healthy masculine culture, and I miss that part.) In this culture, it wouldn't seem out of place for a man to keep a clipping board of spiritual aspirations. (I think I've seen it, in fact, IIRC.)
I can point you to masculine evangelical USian culture where it is considered a mark of friendship to share spiritual struggles and aspirations, carefully negotiated within the intimacy of the group. (In some ways, it's a very healthy masculine culture, and I miss that part.) In this culture, it wouldn't seem out of place for a man to keep a clipping board of spiritual aspirations. (I think I've seen it, in fact, IIRC.)
Men don't share? You check out this site Reddit.com where a few guys get together to share pictures of stuff they like.
Would it be so bad if Pinterest were feminine? Why? It seems perfectly reasonable that women would have a big social network that appeals distinctly to them.