scotsboyuk
Joined: Jun 02, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: UK
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Are mobile phones predominantly a masculine interest? It seems to me that it is mostly men who are interested in mobile phones beyond the usual level of interest expressed by the average mobile user. Why is this? To take the question into a wider context, why is it that technology in general seems to interest men to a far greater extent than it does women?
Of course I am not saying that technology doesn't interest women, we only have to look to our own dear Esato to see that, but facts are facts and the majority of the membership of Esato is by males. This strikes me as rather odd, why shouldn't women has as much interest in mobile phones or technology in general as men do?
Of course there are cultural stereotypes of women being useless with technology, but in reality we all know that this is a broad generalisation without substantiating evidence, certainly females are not at any physical or mental advantage in dealing with technology, yet there seems to be a decided lack of interest amongst women at large in this subject.
When we consider the market penetration rates of mobile phone sin Europe and Japan, and to a lesser extent North America, we see that for these rates to be so high women must also be buying and using mobiles en-masse. In my opinion this only serves to prove a point that I have already touched upon, the little interest shown by many women in technology is because of cultural stereotyping. Millions of women drive cars and yet car magazines are regularly adorned with beautiful women just as technology magazines are (in the UK at any rate), not exactly aiming themselves at the female market.
To put it bluntly, women are not expected to be interested in technology, they aren't expected to be able to work a computer beyond using it for word processing, they aren't expected to show an interest in mobile phones beyond whether it looks good or not and many other stereotypes. These generalisations are obviously false; it's just a shame that more women don't show an interest in such things.
"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC |
Posted: 2004-06-23 14:40
