Pinterest and Performative Femininity

Ever since Sherry mentioned that Dr. Domizi (sp?) has used Pinterest as part of her women's studies classes. I joined Pinterest to look for wedding ideas and as I browsed, I was amazed at how many images and ideas served to reinforce traditional notions of femininity (I'm working on a new board devoted to it now). Because it is so visual, it's easy to give a cursory assessment and then examine the ideas more deeply. It's also a social bookmarking site that many people are already using, so it has the added benefit of already being part of some students' lives and routine. I could see it being useful in women's and gender studies, but also in fashion merchandising, marketing, photography, elementary ed, pop culture, sociology - all sorts of things.

A downside is that since it's not in chronological order, it would be tough to arrange suggested links in sequence with the semester, but I suppose that could be mitigated by labeling different boards with the week or month when you want the students to explore it.

Another downside might be that pinterest encourages wandering. But at the same time, the whole internet is a wonderland and it's usually kind of tough to stay on task - for example, for this post, I spent a good 15 minutes looking for the perfect example of negative gender stereotypes before giving up and going back to writing this missive.