Technology and American culture

¶ … Technologies are defined specifically to appeal to women in America since women use technology more than men.

Technology and American Culture

The purchasing power of female electronics consumers does not apparently influence in the U.K. As it has entailed in the U.S., South Korea and Japan. The women consumer in U.S. has presently constituted a major chunk of the electronics market and are ranking high and spending the same quantity as that of men in most types of consumers electronics. (Female consumers now outspend men on consumer electronics purchases) American women are associated in about 85% of all electronics purchases, and they are progressively inclined towards gadgets, from DVD players to digital cameras, for themselves or their families, according to an industry group studies that was based on telephone interviews with 1,002 U.S. adults in October, 2004 and performed in collaboration with the independent market research firm Rockbridge Associates Inc. (Consumer Electronics Woo women)

The purchasing power of women is enhanced rapidly than that of men making the female of the species to be the prioritized target for technology companies that desire to sell more gadgets. Women are adopting the laptops, cell phones, and personal organizers. (Technology's gender balancing act) According to Pat Jordan, from Contemporary Trends Institute, the female considerations have varied the market. In respect of all the research it is found out that woman do infuse higher on average and are more normally discontented with operation. The Canon Ixus is considered to be one of the initial digital cameras to be targeted at women. Conventionally, guys in labs restructured cameras for guys in labs but the Ixus has revolutionized that. The old conservatism of women as techophobes is gradually vanishing as revealed by Jordan. Men were feeling more convenient with the technology earlier- it was taken to be more a cultural and educational matter. However, while technology becomes more emerging that attitude differs. (Women take over technology)

According to Martin Raymond, Futures Director at trends consultancy Futurelab, there prevails something more elementary. This is least concerned with the structure of the product design and matters more with the differing parts played by the Women in the job market, the domestic environment and society as a whole. There presently more single women than men and more educated degree holder women than men. Women in the age group of 25 to 35 years are passing through a big career course. There exist more women struggling in that space and they are applying the same technological arms. Irrespective of this, or may be even because of this, the mode of men and women use technology is still varied, as per Raymond. Men think that if they have lots of additional features that will entail them more competent. Men are more prone to think that technology will make them good man. Women think that technology will enhance their skills and turn them into good workers. (Women take over technology) study performed by Harris Interactive on behalf of Intel Corp., investigated the differences between men and women and the mode they associate with technology. The survey depicted that a large number of women presently apply technology every day. The Consumer Electronics Association or CEA presently backed the reality by indicating that women engage in extravagant display more on technology in comparison to men. As per the CEA, $55 billion of the $96 billion spent on tech products was expended by women. (Technology's gender balancing act) During 2002, the CEA introduced the Technology is a Girl's Best Friend Program with an inaugural study that found women actually preferred technology over some seemingly more coveted items that found women actually preferred technology over some seemingly more allured items. Women revealed they really prioritized technology over some apparently more coveted items. (Women take over technology)

Women sometime seem to opt for HDTV rather than having a 1-carat diamond ring as pointed out by Karen Chupka, the VP of CEA on events and conferences, inclusive of CES. And about 64% received a digital camera over the half-carat diamond stud earnings. (Heller, 2004) the idea that men love gadgets is an old concept; the fact is that women presently purchase more gadgets than men- in U.S. If not in other nations. This incorporates PCs, DVD players and digital cameras. (Women take over technology) Intel indicates this new tech confident woman 'TIF' for Technology Involved Female. The survey of Harris indicated that TIF span many generations and come from diverse backgrounds. The TIFs reveal women are in their twenties, who learned about technology in school as well as women above 50 years who have learned on their own. (Women Embrace Technology) more remarkable body of research has viewed at the way communication technologies have been gendered both through their social applications and those have sometimes been unintended- and their design. The telephone is more specifically illustrative here, as researchers like Rakow and Moyal have shown the way women have applied the telephone, as a device of community bonding and family 'kin keeping'. (GenderScripts and the Short Life and Death of Audrey) Michele Martin brought out that the cultural and social experiences in devising the telephone system so as to find out the initial linkage between men and women and such type of technology, focusing on the telephone company Bell. This is contrary to the most of the studies that looked upon at the telephone usage of today. It is her faith not divergent to that of Moyal, that women adopt and have adopted the telephone extensively for interacting with their friends and relations; to such an extent that she recommends that if it were not for this then this common domestic technology that we adopt commonly at present would be as common as it is now. (a Critical Review of Research into Differences between Men and Women in the Use of Media for Interpersonal Communication)

Moyal's analysis depicts of researching the history of Bell, and the association between gender and the telephone when such technology was new. She remarks the way the inclined consumers of telephone were in fact businessmen, yet it is obliged to the extensive use by women as a mode of socialization that emphasize such medium as a germ collector were much sooner banished. Her studies pointed out the way the telephone became feminized: it has since its inception, been associated with women as a result of the fact that women were apparently better telegraph operators as they have attainted the virtuous qualities that men did not have. (a Critical Review of Research into Differences between Men and Women in the Use of Media for Interpersonal Communication) Hence the feminization of the telephone became evident when women were first hired as operators and then afterwards when a feasible culture of the telephone formulated for socialization. The telephone technology and structure has since been varied significantly so as to appeal to the female customers, indicating its status as an indispensable domestic artifact, through stylistic trends, inclusive of colors to restructure the technological modernization. (GenderScripts and the Short Life and Death of Audrey)

American researchers Dordick and LaRose arbitrarily modeled American men and women all over the nation so as to analyze the telephone utilization. The part of their research associated with involving out the location of the household telephone, and this increased their findings. They find out that women were inclined to spend double the amount of time on the phone than that of men, and more frequently made social calls, and the room in which the telephone was usually placed was the kitchen signifying the rapport of this medium as feminized technological communication device. This assisted in depicting that technology tempted more to women and companies were attempting to make their technological products more feminized. (a Critical Review of Research into Differences between Men and Women in the Use of Media for Interpersonal Communication)

Since presently, women make or persuade up to 85% of the entire consumer purchases therefore considered as the appropriate time for initiation of marketing to them. (Goodgold, 2003) While the shopping was altered from a practical activity of women into a type of spending leisure like going to a matinee, taking meal in a restaurant or attending the beauty parlor, the Departmental Stores championed new-adoptive techniques of demonstration using show windows, glass cabinetry, and mirrors everywhere, they extended a range of services to allure women, from restrooms to restaurants, package delivery to credit. (American Women and the Making of Modern Consumer Culture) Marketing to women presently is not a matter of merely window showing to confirm to political correctness. It is an essential element to be effective in the present day marketplace, according to Delia Passi Smalter, the founder of Medelia Communications, an Irvington, and New York, company that formulates programs particularly to market the product to women. (Goodgold, 2003)

An increasing number of companies are initiating to aim at their wares directed towards female buyers, or at the very least peddle them in a more gender-neutral fashion. (Consumer Electronics Woo women) an anthropologist at Intel, Genevieve Bell feels that it is the crucial time technology companies considered more specifically about those who are not suitable for the young, male, middle class conservatism. It is increasing purchasing power and inclination of women those are varying the way gadgets are being restructured and also marketed. Women according to her are like the 'canary birds of the technological mineshaft'. (Women take over technology) if it does not act for them it will be possibly unsuccessful in the mass market. She reveals that it is this notion that the type of population of people applying technology is wider than before. (Women take over technology) Consumer electronics in 2001 and 2002 has been aimed in a soft way, according to Katherine Rizzuto, VP and publisher of Marie Claire magazine and panelist for 'Shopping Consumer Electronics-Understanding the Female Perspective'. However, entry into the year 2004, aims at it in a strong way. She states that her own consumer research presents that women desire information about CE products and do not find where they expect to find it. (Heller, 2004)

Barbie computer and the Macintosh iMAC computer have been specifically gendered. The Audrey ™ appliances are visualized as a specific illustration where the technology has been devised as a specific female consumer item. The Audrey ™ was devised, as per the advertising copy of 3 Com, as the digital home assistant with elegance. Similar to the various designs that the television set has adopted throughout the years to join into the varying domestic decor, the aesthetics of Audrey ™ were meticulously considered in respect of its alignment amongst other home appliances and its deployment within various rooms in a house like- kitchen, bedroom, and family room. The promotional material characterized Audrey ™ as a new domestic appliance for married women to maintain up with their busy family schedules. Of course, 3 Com hired anthropologists to study the lifestyle behavior of families and brought our not surprisingly, that families are busy and both their homes and their schedules are disorganized. (GenderScripts and the Short Life and Death of Audrey)

Audrey ™ characteristics incorporated a Date book, an Address book, an e-mailer and a Palm synchronizer. Audrey ™ was chalked out to be family friendly and a product comfortable enough for the whole family to utilize. Ad copy proudly "represented that Audrey has the preferences for the modern information... A style for interaction... A gift for getting it done." (GenderScripts and the Short Life and Death of Audrey) One advertisement depicted "a refrigerator wrapped with a bevy of notes and shopping lists, recipes, postcards, kids' paintings -- of course all the accoutrements from a normal, busy family life." (GenderScripts and the Short Life and Death of Audrey) Ad copy indicated that substitute this untidiness for an easy 'family organizer', then life will be regularized, scheduled and less stressed. One could visualize that Audrey ™ was infusing into the home beautiful sensibility of what is known as 'Martha Stwartization' of domestic femininity in between a thrive for uncomplicated gender relations. Audrey ™ was a device devised for the private home application and in this case, indicated to be gendered. Similar to the other domestic technologies, Audrey ™ was fostered as a labor saving tool, a family organizer and communicator and a leisure device. (GenderScripts and the Short Life and Death of Audrey)

The customers of Radio Shacks have diverted from 20% female seven years earlier to about 40% female presently. As a result of this about 7000 store chain started actively deploying female store managers last year and presently one of every seven stores is managed by a woman. The technological evolution is behind the inclination. The computers are presently the normal home appliance and the digital lifestyle - from performing e-mails to picture taking - is no longer the only path of early adopters, who once were principally male. Presently, about one third of women regard themselves early adopters desirous of purchasing progressive consumer technology, as per the CEA analysis. The products themselves are becoming comfortable for use by the customers, as per the Barbara Kotsos, senior marketing manager for the printing supplies division of the Epson. They are not as frightening as they would have been for Mrs. Cleaver 50 years earlier. (Consumer Electronics Woo women)

The tradition of orienting to the lucrative female market reveals its mode into the spate of current 'fashion weeks' in London, Paris and New York. Designer Roland Mouret, functioning with Intel, revealed interchangeable laptop "skins" and large LCD monitors that doubled up as handbags. Nokia in the meantime has just found out the latest of its 'fashion phones'. The model 7260 is influenced by the 'glamour of the roaring 20s' and incorporates a 'clothing and shoe size converter for the true fashionista'. Moreover, one can pick up lipstick memory sticks, mini iPods in pastel hues, and mobiles with mirrors in them, and slim cameras, all inclined to entail pressure at the pouch of the women. (Technology's gender balancing act) Products like iMac, the Canon Digital Ixus camera and new 'Fashion Collection' of Nokia mobiles, are if not feminizing technology, at the minimum making it less exclusively and aggressively male. Such products are smoother and thinner than their previous ones and emerged in colors of bright limes, pinks, pearly-whites and reds. (Women take over technology)

Moreover, Sharp structured its flat-panel TVs a couple of years earlier with women in mind. It is known as the product line AQUOS to denote fluidity and a softer touch. It expanded its TV advertisements much beyond sports and prime time slots to Lifetime, the Food Network and the Learning Channel. A Circuit City ad remarkably attributed one of the sleek TVs in a kitchen during the Last Mother's Day. "While the consumer electronics is being considered we visualized that the female population was being ignored a bit" as admitted by Scaglione, the Vice President of Marketing for Sharp. (Consumer Electronics Woo women) Presently, Sharp claims to cover more than 50% of the LCD flat-panel TV market. Epson, a leading maker of scanner and printers, presently homed in on the female-dominated scrap booking market, so effectively that it has scheduled to launch more products at women during the present year. The products of Sony aiming at women incorporate its LIV lineage, sold specifically at Objected stores, that incorporates CD players for the kitchen and shower radios in colors from stainless steel to lime. The miniature constructs are considered more suitable in a home- attributes demanded by the consumers in general and women in particular, as revealed by Ellen Glassman, a director of design at Sony. (Consumer Electronics Woo women)