As a maybe-future historian, I regularly find myself in the predicament of having a promising thought but lacking historical sources. And without sources: no thesis, no term paper, no essay… it was frustrating. It got more frustrating if I thought about the following:
- Depending on your research question everything can be a source.
- Historical science has too few sources for the time before the printing press than for the time after.
I still tried everything: audio, film, print, three-dimensional objects, and written accounts. Hopefully, I decided to use diaries, since I vaguely remembered that they were rarely used as sources. I didn’t get far because I quickly discovered that there weren’t many diaries from the time. Neither in archives nor in known databases… which seemed weird to me. I could not for the life of me imagine that people had suddenly stopped writing about the (inner) world, and so I began a completely different kind of research…
Pointlessly gendered
Thinking back, I remembered one of my old professors telling me that, „writing diaries was considered one of the social assignments of men. Women were supposed to write letters to friends and family, telling them their feelings and thoughts.“ Until today I never doubted her observations, first because I still lack the knowledge and second I figured that her observations were right. Even taking into account the selection bias (which sources were considered „valuable“ enough to be archived, translated, edited and published), I could well imagine that sexism led people to believe that men, with their „rational“ way of thinking, were better suited to describe the daily events that happened in their country.
Now the question arose, when did this change? Has it really changed? Or was my memory for marketing and framing just playing tricks on me? After some more research all I can say, it is complicated.
First of all, there is a difference between „keeping a journal“ and „keeping a diary“. Journals and journaling are supposedly the new „writing your best friend a letter“ to tell her all about your feelings. It is much more often associated with „introspection“ and reflecting on yourself through the written word. With diaries, the focus is actually on daily events.
Of course, overlap can be possible, but that still didn’t explain the variation in my circle of friends. It may only be anecdotal evidence, but I only know one cis man who keeps a diary and actually records more or less daily events in it. In contrast, I know many more cis women who have or had diaries and use them for introspection. None of them knew the term „journal“ and when told them that there is apparently a difference they were surprised.
Two spontaneous reasons come to mind:
- the language barrier, in German the word „journal“ is more likely to be associated with a television format that reports on daily events
- socialization, intersectional feminism and gender discourse or not, in many parts of the population cis girls are still raised to take care of a family later. They tend to learn to feel emotions and to take social relations into account when searching for a solution for a problem.
What surprised me, on the other hand, was that the minimalism trend has ensured that diaries no longer have the typical teenage diary look from 90s sitcoms. Unfortunately, that’s only true as long as you search for „diaries“ and not „diaries kids.“ It’s almost funny that the typical blue and pink division still prevails here and every time I think „Aren’t their kids whose favorite color is purple, green or orange?!“
Funnily enough, both „journal“ and „journal for kids“ give completely different search results than „diary“ and „diary for kids“. While the adult section is full of templates for CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) in PDF format, the „journal for kids“ section is full of „Self-empowering for Girls“… yes you read right, there is no empowering for boys. I had to specifically search for „self-empowering journals for boys“ to get at least one book that supposedly had the agenda of teaching boys „kindness, confidence, gratitude, breathing and living in the present“ sounds great. every kid should learn such things… if you gender it that why the fuck are people demeaning boys and men that they unlearn their toxicity when girls get the official empowering books and boys just one? If you don’t get them the opportunity and they won’t learn. which brings me to the next point… when I searched for “diary kid” I came across:
„The Diary of a wimpy kid“ and my first thought was like, right Greg. I read that in high school at least one boy wrote a diary (still not a journal but better than nothing) and then I remembered the premise, why he didn’t just write but draw comics. And I think at least the framing didn’t age well. the synopsis goes like that
First of all, let me get something straight: This is a JOURNAL, not a diary. I know what it says on the cover, but when Mom went out to buy this thing, I SPECIFICALLY told her to get one that didn’t say ‘diary’ on it. Great. All I need is for some jerk to catch me carrying this book around and get the wrong idea. The other thing I want to clear up right away is that this was MOM’s idea, not mine. But if she thinks I’m going to write down my ‘feelings’ in here or whatever, she’s crazy. So just don’t expect me to be all ‘Dear Diary’ this and ‘Dear Diary’ that.
I think everything about the synopsis is wrong? Gregory thinks that diaries are for girls. so he isn’t aware of the fact that diaries were once actually for men. Instead, he refers to a journal, which is actually the framing of a book, in which you are processing your feelings. it gets even worse when you are reading the German translation because instead for journal they are using the word memoir which is something incredibly different from the word “journal”.
Either way, I don’t care what it is called as long as children get the chance to learn to get confidence, communication, consent, and no matter what that is okay to love skirts, dressed, jeans, boots, noise cancelling headphones or ladybugs. that they can dance ballet or do fighting sports. Because that’s the way to go…
But despite the pointless gendering… what about me?
Like Greg, I never considered myself a diary person, but still got one from whom? I don’t anymore. It was probably one of those distant-relative gifts. People who felt obligated to send you something for your birthday, but didn’t feel obligated enough to ask the child what they really wanted.
Not like Greg I started my diary career with “Dear Diary”, which felt weird immediately. Apparently, I was one of those kids that thought, that it was perfectly normal to speak and treat their plushies like they were living beings, but found it absolutely indisputable to address a book with “Dear Diary”. I remember that I stopped right afterwards… a year later I found it again and started glueing tickets, stickers, dried leaves, or postcards into the book with phrases like „Today we went to the puppet theatre. It was great!“ or „M. gave me a gift today at school. It sparkles!!!”
Little by little I had a respectable collection and today I know what kept me (not) busy as an 8–9-year-old.
Funnily enough, until today I always thought that my diary era was over. Far from it, it only began there. Less than a year later, my parents were ordered to keep a food diary for me for medical reasons. Ten years later, I was allowed to do it again for myself. In between, the (night)-dream diary alternated with the gratitude diary.
According to parenting guides, it was supposed to help if the child wrote down his fears and worries in a notebook before going to bed… it rarely helped and I lost far too many nights to brooding. Nevertheless, everyone was amazed when one day I sat in front of my first therapist and was given the task of writing three positive things in a book every day. The weather didn’t count, nor did taking the same things as the day before.
Today, I’m wobbling between a sunny disposition and an emotional black hole. The orbit is stabilized by sport, which I now record in a sports diary, simply because I’m curious whether I’m really improving or whether it just seems that way to me.
This is also not my first blog, but my second. I wrote the first one in my best (post)-puberty years and yes it still exists out there and no really nobody wants to read it. Guess, I am a diary and a journal person and then also with a certain public share… which brings me to my next train of thought.
Time changes, and so does media
What was still verbal chatter in the Middle Ages, women increasingly wrote letters to each other, men had their diaries and as long as no one stole the book or the mail, there was at least a chance of privacy. Later came the radio and even later the television. People (and their thoughts) suddenly got a much wider reach, which still has advantages and disadvantages today. (Private) radio and television shows proliferated and with the invention of the internet, global communication increased considerably. Social media, in particular, topped it all off, because suddenly people were no longer even dependent on a broadcasting station, but could film their cat sleeping in their living room.
Which is why I think I got an answer to my initial question…. The youth of today no longer need a diary, they have the internet. You don’t just write to yourself; you tell hundreds if not thousands of people your feelings or your experiences of the day. Sometimes they even film themselves brushing their teeth… can that be sold as an experimental short film? Maybe, depends on the cut, the motion design and the soundtrack? At least most of the algorithms aren’t gendered… and well, that was a lot of thoughts about something that I would have never thought of thinking about.