A little further rant on that study Sheigh wrote about...

IDC and WITI have just released results of a survey of 1000 women and found that, surprise, women are buying technology products as gifts in high numbers this holiday season, both for others and for themselves. What I find newsworthy about this is that it IS still newsworthy. I've been reading about studies with similar results for at least ten years, about the time that the idea for a publication for women about technology started brewing in my head. It seems like many of the "initiatives" to address this issue in the retail world are mostly patronizing and involve changing decor or color of a store. Doesn't seem to make much difference on the practical level, affecting the actual shopping experience. I'm a CompUSA nightmare customer because if someone starts to tell me something stupid ("Yeah you need the laptop with more memory or you won't be able to print documents"), I'll call them on it and tell them they're idiots or the worst salesperson ever. I've been offered many a job by CompUSA store managers who overhear me admonishing the so-called techie giving someone really stupid advice. I'm a lovely shopping companion, I know.

I don't mean to make so much of this all the time, there are certainly larger problems in this world, but women have been oppressed (I'm approaching Spielberg with the movie treatment) when it comes to tech shopping and even super-smart and tech-savvy women I know will keep their mouths shut when someone says something utterly moronic to them in an electronics store. Trust me on this: if you think you know more than the salesperson telling you that a 60 GB iPod has better sound quality than the 30 GB model, you DO, so let them know.

Oh yes- most popular items on the wishlist/shopping list of the surveyed women, in order: digital cameras, iPods, iPod accessories, laptop computers, High-def tvs, gaming consoles, camera phones, desktop computer, smartphones, and portable gaming machines.

Related:
Technology's gender balancing act.