Treasures - the stories women tell about the things they keep

So the research i have conducted on the family album whether it is in books , articles , journals or photographers i cant help but notice they are all created by women , this was in no way intentional for my blog it just seems that this is a keener topic of interest to females . Is this because traditionally women spend more time in the domestic environment ? is it because of our maternal and stereo typically more caring nature than males?  Do our crazy women hormones make us more emotional therefore sentimental ?!? I just don't know and i am finding it extremely hard to find any evidence that suggests women are more prone to keeping memorabilia and memory boxes than men . I can only go off my own experience through the people in my life that out of the 20+ women i have asked only 1 said she DIDN'T have a form of memory box and out of the 15+ men i know only 2 said they HAD a memory box . 

 Here is another example i have found to back up my theory that this particular subject matter is of more interest to females is another article i found online. Treasures: The stories WOMEN tell about the things they keep . Reading the piece takes me back to my earlier research of the items we collect can help " define and describe" us .Its all a process of identity ,memory and holding onto the past. 

TREASURES: THE STORIES WOMEN TELL ABOUT THE THINGS THEY KEEP

Kathleen V. Cairns and Eliane LeslauSilver man

Calgary: University of Calgary Press,2004

REVIEWED BY STEPHANIE DlCKlSON

"The items which women surround themselves with-either kept tucked away in a shoebox under the bed or radiantly sitting atop her writing desk-are full of stories about the women who own them. They might be held onto for a number of reasons-sentiment, practicality, or aesthetic pleasure. But do not mistake them for mere knickknacks or tchotchkes. These items not only hold profound meaning for the women who possess them, but can help define and describe them by what events led them to this artifact and how it's transformed them. Through candid interviews with over one hundred women with varying backgrounds and interests, we are invited into the front rooms and backyards ofwomen across the country to hear the stories of how they and their items were united. These stories are vital, not only from a historical perspective but because they remind women of their need to have meaning in their life, whether it is evoked by a grandmother's dress or dog tags from a beloved pet, sheet music from Czechoslovakia or a collection of fridge magnets trips abroad. It brings them back to memories ofchildhood, family and friendship, or encapsulates a time, event or memory. As described by the authors: [The possessions] create awomen's history which, while it might not appear in textbooks or museums, informs how women live their lives; how they earn their living; how they think; how they relate to their foremothers, their daughters, their friends and lovers. Women save possessions from their own lives and the lives of others to create both a personal and a collective narrative. As one of our participants, Paddy, put it, 'This is who I am, and this is where I come from, and these are my people.' The keepsakes comprise a story she tells herself and sometimes tells others. These stories create meaning for individual women, sustain the private culture of women, and encourage women to enter the public realm."