And apparently, only for girls. The recent surge in Pinterest popularity has not gone unnoticed. Blogs and other review websites have evaluated the sharing site as a female retreat, or a "woman cave," so to speak. This may stem from the user statistics, which establish the majority of the population as female (just over 60%). However, a 60% female presence also means a 40% male presence. The user breakdown is similar to that of Tumblr, a similar sharing website. So why has Pinterest been labeled as a female domain? And what sort of effect does this presumption have?
Chances are, the content of the shared "pins" is what causes the feminine aura these folks seem to find around Pinterest. Generally, a great majority of popular pins can be categorized into food, exercise, style, and crafts. In our gender-boxed society, these are primarily female interests. It goes unrecognized that: ANYONE can take interest in these topics, or even individual items on a pin-by-pin basis (gasp!) and that there are PLENTY of pins revolving around topics such as science, cars, and architecture. The fact that society and the media is still gendering these topics is absurd-as much as I'd like to think everyone has a basic understanding that humans take interest in a great variety of human things, assumptions like this still happen all the time.
The fact that Pinterest is now directly associated with female interests and hobbies has influenced the success of the website. Though it has been exceptionally well-received by many individuals, as a whole the image is somewhat tainted. As a "female" network, many internet blogs fail to view Pinterest with the level of respect and seriousness that other social networking websites (such as Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook) recieve. This has a distinctly sexist feel, as if websites associated with women (accurately or not) are less valuable than other sites. These stereotypes need to be broken down. In my ideal world, everyone would think for themselves. If you want to use Pinterest, use it! If you want to like style pins, or space pins, like them! Be true to yourself is ultimately the most important message I'd like to send in this blog. If this can be the mantra of individuals, perhaps society will follow suit and understand that attributing gendered stereotypes to everything is ridiculous.
For a more detailed analysis, read this article: http://tigerbeatdown.com/2012/02/29/but-pinterest-is-for-girls-sexism-and-social-media/
And to check out Pinterest for yourself, go here: www.pinterest.com
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