Reading Response Post #3

I am currently taking a feminist class and I could not help but find the gendering of photography a particularly interesting topic in this chapter. While photography can be considered a democratic medium, it is interesting to consider the way it is marketed towards specific people and encouraged to be used in a particular way.  Amateur or professional photographers were usually masculine because supposedly they could better cope with the scientific complexities of the medium. Meanwhile, personal photographers were usually women capturing their domestic environments, the place where the woman was supposed to belong. Advertising specifically targeted the domestic female and connected with the gender roles perpetuated at the time. This is especially true after WW2 when women were encouraged to return to their domestic roles after playing such an active role in the work force on the home front. I strongly agree with the quote by Marianna Hirsch on page 157 where she emphasizes how photographs show what we want our lives to be rather than an honest depiction of what our lives are really like.

From here, it is interesting to consider how the photograph allows us to build histories of people who historically have been neglected i.e. women, the working class. The differences in the way the working class photograph themselves vs. the way an outsider photographs the working class emphasize the misleading nature of the photograph. This is summed up beautifully on the last sentence of page 165. Our most treasured photographs are important to us because they portray how we want to be seen. A photograph allows the user to feel the nostalgia of remembering the better times and mask any negative memories.

Q. How can personal photographs important in constructing a social history?