Does this smartphone make me look stupid? Meet the "ladyphones"

Many phones "made for women" simply insult us with their case color, dismal hardware, and embarrassing accessories. Designers, you can (and should) do better.

<a href='http://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/news/2012/03/does-this-smartphone-make-me-look-stupid-meet-the-ladyphones.ars'>Read the whole story</a>

 

[superslav223]

There is a good reason to sell overpriced pink phones to women: money.

Why not make a buck off the same women who buy $500 handbags?

If pink products didn't sell then they wouldn't exist. You take yourself too seriously if you are actually insulted by them. Maybe I should get upset when I see the same product cost 2x as much just because it has a sports team logo on it. How dare those bastards make money off my gender!

 

[superslav223]

I can tell you from experience selling phones in Dicksmith stores that ladies really didn't care about the color at all. Mostly, it just boiled down to what the store has available and how much it was.

I don't care about your anecdotal Dicksmith story.

Stores for women are packed with pink crap because it sells.

Maybe you have never been to the mall
http://www.victoriassecret.com/pink/

 

[superslav223]

There is no need to market either "for women" or "for men". The only products which need gender-specific marketing are underwear, hygiene products, sex toys (but only the ones which depend on certain shapes), contraceptives and anything else that only WORKS for ONE GENDER. If something COULD be used by the other gender there's no reason to market it differently to different genders. Doing so is insulting and perpetuates the stereotypes.

Oh I see, you're one of those people that wants to hold onto the erroneous 60's belief in blank slate.

Boys and girls show gender specific traits at a very young age and they have been observed in primate colonies as well.

This idea that males and females are only different by anatomy is wishful thinking. It would make for a nicer world but people evolved from animals and gender traits are a part of evolution. Sorry but that's the way it is.

 

[superslav223]

The problem isn't when something comes in black, blue, green, and pink. It's when it comes in black or pink, or just pink, because it implies a fundamental sexist assumption that women "need" their own version of things or they might not buy it. And if that's true, it's because we're conditioning girls to think that way, which is no good.

Is there a sexist assumption if NFL branded phones are sold to men?

Did you know that there are women who buy 15k dollar handbags? Why not milk that crowd? Because it is sexist? Is it sexist to sell 15k sports memorabilia to men? If you don't like pink phones then don't buy them. I don't see any reason to charge sexism here, a lot of the overpriced pink fashion crap is actually designed by women. Are those women sexist? This is so rediculous.

I think the underlying problem people have is gender itself. Politically correct society wants to believe that all stereotypes are entirely fictional when we know this isn't true. Even if you got rid of TV little girls would still play with dollies and boys would kill ants. They've been doing that for thousands of years, well before TV and marketers ever existed. But it's more comforting to believe that humans are blank slates even though this doesn't make any sense from the perspective of evolution.

 

[superslav223]

I can tell you from experience selling phones in Dicksmith stores that ladies really didn't care about the color at all. Mostly, it just boiled down to what the store has available and how much it was.

I don't care about your anecdotal Dicksmith story.

Stores for women are packed with pink crap because it sells.

Maybe you have never been to the mall
http://www.victoriassecret.com/pink/

Victoria's Secret is an excellent example in many ways beyond pink. To a large extent stereotyping works because many women do buy into it.

Greek women also liked to dress sexy for their mates thousands of years ago. Was that the fault of corporate marketers?

I find a lot of stores like Victoria's Secret to be tasteless in their marketing but I wouldn't call it stereotyping. I find many ads targeted at men to be tasteless as well. As they say there is no accounting for taste.

 

[superslav223]

Oh I see, you're one of those people who wants to hold onto erroneous sexist beliefs and pretend that biology justifies your prejudices.

I know there are some studies showing that, on average, boys and girls have slightly different preferences in toys, but what does that have to do with adults' use of technology? What exactly do you mean by "gender specific traits"? Is there some "gender trait" that makes it okay for companies to condescend to women with dumbed-down phones at inflated prices? Because that sounds like good old-fashioned sexism to me and not anything reality-based.

So now I have prejudices because I pointed out that gender traits exist? What if I point out that they exist in chimps? Does that make me prejudice against chimps? Am I a chimpist?

Chinese women bought pink bows thousands of years ago to put in their hair. Was that also a case of condescension?

Marketers peddle overpriced crap to both sexes. If you don't like it then don't buy it. But since there are enough women to make a market for 15k dollar handbags I'm not suprised that companies are trying to sell the same demographic 4k dollar phones. Oh boo hoo, there are wealthy women buying overpriced pink crap. Maybe you should start a charity to help wealthy women of Western countries.

 

[superslav223]

Oh, it's superslav. No offense but there's a reason I remember your name.

Well it's a common name in Easten Europe.

Little boys play with dollies and girls play with ants, except when they are told from before they're even old enough to talk that's Not Right And Proper. My little brother was crazy about my baby dolls.

What is your point? I never claimed that boys never want to play with dolls. But I do think we need a government intervention program to stop these female chimps from perpetuating stereotypes:
http://news.discovery.com/animals/femal ... 01220.html

Must be marketers trying to sell them stick dolls.

In the end, the truly natural differences between boys and girls are much smaller than people think.

That is a nice feel good statement but doesn't really help us learn about the world.

 

[superslav223]

I personally think the female brain selects for pink and things like that due to our history as primates. While the men hunted women needed to discern from shades of pink and perhaps separate the good berries from the bad. This means working with a lot of reds and pinks.

You do realize that pink being a feminine color is about a hundred years old and BOYS used to wear pink, yes?

The whole "pink berries" thing is one of the stupidiest pieces of made-up biology tripe to get circulated. Please don't fall for it and other Just So Evolution "theories" that are just off-the-cuff hypotheses used to justify cultural curiosities.

I don't see why you are being so dismissive. Yes boys in the U.S. at one time wore pink but you can also find common preferences among females of many societies that include flowers and lighter colors. Have you ever looked at the Minnesota twins study? It's scary as to how many seemingly trivial preferences were actually shared among separated twins.

 

[superslav223]

Chimps have culture just like humans do. When a baby chimp is born, the family checks the gender and treats it differently based on the result. It varies between different chimp groups as to what the exact distinctions are.

What do you say about boys who feel female at a young age and want to do female things? Is that the result of genetics or conditioning? If a 2 year old rejects social conditioning and wants to play with dolls, is that genetics ..... or what exactly at work?

You see this is the whole problem facing the blank slate / poltically correct outlook. They seem to accept that males can be born with strong female tendancies but not females. It's an irrational position resulting from an erronuous assumption which is that general boy and girl behaviors have been created by society.

I on the other hand can accept that most girls will prefer dolls over killing ants and if a girl wants to kill ants and not wear pink then I can accept that as well. That's the truly tolerant position, not wishfully thinking that girls are blank slates (unless of course they reject conditioning and act like boys).

 

[superslav223]

The politically correct position is to conform to whatever is popular in society, as will gain the most political capital. In other words, since our society predisposes boys to play with trucks, it is most politically correct to support the idea that this is the natural state, never mind the fact that trucks would have zero genetic encoding as they are less than 100 years old.

I think you made some insightful comments but I have a hard time believing that Roman boy preference for toy chariots had zero genetic basis. Were they hard wired for chariots specifically? No but boys likely have a preference for anything that represents power or force over a toy that is used to mimic child rearing.

I have to wonder how many politically correct types have actually spent time around children. They naturally make a joke of political correctness and blank slate. I know a kid who was raised around books and not sports or TV and yet he still chose to make paper balls and kick them instead of reading. Where did that desire come from? Thin air? Why did he do it for hours? There is far more to boys and girls than how they are raised. This will be accepted in the future when humans genes are fully mapped out. Until then we will have to deal with the church of political correctness and their desperate attempts to enforce belief in blank slate. If you want to believe in blank slate then don't have any children.

 

[superslav223]

I think you made some insightful comments but I have a hard time believing that Roman boy preference for toy chariots had zero genetic basis.

"Pink berries." The WWII German Panzer uniform was black with pink piping. Is that because prehistoric man living in the Teutonic forests smeared himself with pink berries to hide his scent from his prey?

I didn't comment on pink berries specifically, I just don't think one should be dismissive of the possibility of color preference having a genetic component. So maybe you should have read the thread more carefully instead of getting emotional.

Oh and I would love an explanation from the "guardians of science" (as the politically correct crowd sees themselves even though they reject critical thinking) on why these male monkeys prefer to play with trucks over dolls:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... -toys.html

And this is the color preference study he was referring to:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 71,00.html

It's an interesting theory, and one put forth by female researchers. I'm sure they were brainwashed by marketers or something.