It’s sensible to market things in larger and smaller versions knowing that the smaller version may have a largely female market, but it would be silly to call, for instance, the smaller laptops “laptops for her.” People vary in their needs separate from their sex. I notice something of a trend for designy watches to come in not men’s and women’s versions but large and small faces. Great if you’re a guy with a small wrist.
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There are now women’s top-tube bikes. The theory is that the proportions are better for a woman’s typical leg-to-torso ratio.
Someone was arguing to me the other day that “almost entirely men” buy video game consoles. In his own set of data, he had a significant percentage of married men ages 25-35 as console purchasers.
So let me see … he’s saying that only the men buy the consoles even when they’re married to women, because only men buy consoles, and we circle around infinitely. I pointed out that a $400-$500 purchase is at the very least something a couple will generally agree on together. I generally have had very few problems buying for myself in game stores, but some women of my acquaintance have told me they just send their spouse in for them because they either get ignored or they get hassled in there.
Incidentally, the only tool Mr. Bells has ever bought in our 11 years together is a pipe wrench so large I almost can’t lift it. The power drill is allllll mine.
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There seems to be an emerging consensus that the concept behind GoldieBlox was better than the execution.
I receive regular deliveries of pink tape from a local research lab. They buy cases of tape in an assortment of colors, but eventually the tape drawer’s stuffed full of nothing but pink because nobody ever chooses it, so I relieve them of this burden of extremely high quality tape so they can fit another case in the drawer. Nearly all the lab techs are male…
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You miss the point. This stuff often sells, but reflects poorly on the manufacturer.
For example, Dell makes one computer line. They take the same computer, release it only in fuchsia, purple, and screaming neon pink and market it as “computers for girls”.
Dell can just sell it as a “computer” and include the color schemes in their main line, not a “computer for girls”. I understand why they attempt to market to several demographics at once, but “computers… but for GIRLS” is an abhorrent abstraction. If you don’t care, that’s on you. If you don’t understand what is being discussed here, don’t retreat into the laissez-faire kneejerkery and actually attempt to think creatively about why this male as default techno-savvy assumption affects STEM atoption, etc.
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And Jerry Cornelius…
A similar point can be observed whenever accommodations are discussed. Usually it turns out that any kind of design that tries to accommodate the real or perceived special needs of a particular group (except in extreme cases) ends up benefiting the “average” user. I taught ESL in public schools for a couple of years, and the mainstream classroom teachers always cribbed our classroom and PD materials. If you can make something with the same power lighter, smaller and more ergonomic, I will bet any user will thank you (even if not out loud, pride and all that…)
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Oh my god yes. How did I miss this comment before? I spent years with a big fat blister on the side of my hand from righty scissors which for some reason was all my school had.
Oh the flip side, though, when I was in a costume design class later on, I was the only person whose scissors didn’t go missing at some point during the year. All my right-handed classmates would pick up my left-handed scissors, fumble around for a minute, and say “what the hell is wrong with these scissors?”
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