Stupidity

Stupidity

by Carlo Longino




What? Women Can Use Mobile Phones? By Themselves?

from the me-tarzan-you-jane dept

Those pesky women -- first, they start using the Internet, and now, evidently they're using mobile phones, too. Digital Lifestyles points out one of the most vapid surveys we've seen in a long time, with Vodafone Germany determining that "women are informed mobile phone users who know what they want." Um, just like the rest of us, then? The survey seeks to answer such important questions as "Does [a woman's phone] have to be pink?" and "Do female users know what UMTS stands for?" It's hard to imagine a serious attempt at segmentation is behind this, since it's so patronizing: evidently a third of women "trust in their own judgement and don't ask for advice" when buying a phone. Yay women! Vodafone didn't think you had it in you! And the other two-thirds "ask their husband, boyfriend, or a sales assistant" -- apparently single women and lesbians are out of luck. Some of the stuff just speaks for itself: "One surprising finding is that the presumed 'typical female' criterion of colour was only accorded a priority ranking of eleven out of a total of sixteen criteria." Right, because everything has to be pink. There's an implication throughout the press release that it's surprising that women use what it calls "technical features" like cameras and Bluetooth, and in case you really wanted to know, it says womens' favorite place for making calls is "on a comfortable sofa." As Digital Lifestyles points out, there's no comparative data showing the male response to these questions, but there's a good chance that the answers would be pretty similar. Evidently Vodafone, or the company it hired to do the survey, forgot women are people too.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

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  1. Jul 16th, 2005 @ 8:34am

    umm....

    by brianna hoffner

    did you even read the original article?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Jul 16th, 2005 @ 5:08pm

    in the words of Woody Allen

    by nonuser

    "Excuse me, but I think I'm expected back in Planet Earth right now."

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Jul 17th, 2005 @ 9:03am

    Re: umm....

    by Ivan Sick

    Sorry Brianna, I'm confused what you mean. Please clarify.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Jul 17th, 2005 @ 3:20pm

    It's the Convenience Stores

    by dorpus

    A government committee on taxation charged that housewives with "too much time on their hands" are harming the economy by buying styrofoam-wrapped food from convenience stores and not cooking dinner. The committee, comprised of 26 economists and college professors, only 3 of them women, recommended that the tax code reward families with more children.

    http://www.chunichi.co.jp/00/kei/20050716/mng_____kei_____003.shtml

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Jul 18th, 2005 @ 6:17am

    Re: It's the Convenience Stores

    by Ron

    Once again Dorpus, how does this relate?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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