Women, pink, fluffy and a not very bright?

From pens to tablets, constantlyyday items continue to receive the gender treatment

It would depend women fate big buttons in order to operate anything as technologically challenging as a tablet.

That, at least, mark offms to have been what was travel rapidly through the minds of the Dubai based Eurostar company (no relation) when they impeled the E-pad Femme.

According to Mani Nair, Vice-President of the company, it is “the perfect gadget for a woman who might find difficulties in terms of downloading these applications”.

The tablet, by nature in pink, comes with pre-downloaded apps that offer cooking and diet tips.

It is not the start technology item to have been marketed for women. In 2009 Dell was criticised for its launch of   virgin website ‘Della’. Designed to advertise Dell’s new netbooks to women, it offered tips for calorie counting and cooking videos .

Everyday items have always receive the gender treatment. From pens (Bic for Her) to earplugs, to bottled water to power tools – the list is endless.  This pinterest page,  shows a show of items which have been unnecessarily designed specially ‘for women’.

Is there ever any justification to create a separate, gendered, version of an routine tool?

The only pattern that came to mind was a pedal:  women’s bicycles don’t have the upper bar, do it far easier to cycle with a skirt or dress. That said, this grade (whether a bike has a bar or not) is some clothes rather than gender.

Interestingly, Boris Bikes are all without the bar. Are they an example of the ‘female’ version of an item becoming the nonremittal alternative?

If so, it’s a break from the masculine ‘norm’.

Therein lies the objective problem with these e-pads and pens for her: the idea that, in order to operate the tools of chance(a) life, women need a specially adapted version of the item. sociological Images has explored this concept in their post, ‘Male as the neutral default’.

This trend reflects a fundamental issue Simone de Beauvoir raised half(prenominal) a century ago.  In The ‘Second Sex’, she states that woman, “is be and differentiated in reference to man and not he in reference to her”.

On a more immediate level, this spare gendering of items also reinforces dangerous stereotypes: that women are pink, fluffy, light and, as it would seem the e-pad is telling us, not very bright.

Businesses will argue that that this is solely marketing, that women want these items and that companies are only satisfying to demand.

How do we act?

Humour is one option – a casual glance at the reviews on amazon for Bic for Herwill reveal a plethora of humourous entries where people have thanked Bic for finally enabling women to use pens. whizz reviewer noted that, until then, “my dainty little hands couldn’t handle [my husband's] massive man biros”.

Another option is to vote with our wallets – when businesses see women aren’t biting, they may stop creating these products.

Judging from the sales of the e-pad – a trifling 7000 sold so far – that’s at least one item we won’t have to misgiving about for much longer.

 

Materials taken from Womens Views on News