What is a "female-specific mobile handset"? [Telecom]

Colors and styles more attractive to women, e.g. pink.

A handset bedecked with rhinestones? using pink rather than black or silver plastic? You recognize "female-specific" shoes, or slacks, or wallets, or hats, or blouses, or handkerchiefs, no? What's so strange about "female-specific" cellular handsets? :-)

Cheers, -- tlvp

-- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP

I'm scratching my head wondering why this is necessarily an issue. I'm willing to bet in the US more men than women own hammers and drills while more women own sewing machines and knitting needles.

Do women need, or even want, mobile phones in these countries?

What percentage of the overall population owns mobiles? If only a small fraction own them, the women being 23% less likely isn't the real story.

Sounds like a classic case of trying to apply western political correctness where it really doesn't apply. I'd be more concerned about getting good health care for these women. Forget mobile phones.

John

You can buy hand tools specifically made for women. Smaller handles, lighter weights, and pink grips (so the men in their lives won't borrow them). I suppose the same could be done for cell phones - buttons that work with long nails, female favorite colors, an on screen mirror function with a forward facing camera, easily triggered piercing alarm in case of attack, e.t.c.

-Gary

Given that they don't have access to landline phones in those countries, yes.

The phone may be an important part of the health-care delivery system, particularly for the rural poor who may not be able to travel to a clinic.

-GAWollman

I would think so. Search for "telephone ladies" and you will find lots of stories about poor women in south Asia who make a business of selling mobile phone service by the call, and what a big difference it can make to small farmers, e.g.:

Mohammed Abul Kashem runs a fish farm of 10 man-made ponds. He uses the phone service to order food and other supplies from the capital.

"If the phone wasn't here then I'd have to travel to Dhaka," he says. "It's a very long and unpleasant journey. "Now I can use the phone I am saving time and it makes my business more competitive."

R's, John

Based on Motorola's past RAZR offerings, the phone needs to be pink, ridiculous as that sounds. But seriously, there may be issues in third world countries regarding womens' vs. mens' literacy, religious or cultural matters affecting the sexes, or other issues that may require different emphases in a handset designed for women in a particular country.

I hope just coloring a phone pink is not the answer, I am a woman who hates the color pink. I would think making phones smaller so that they fit better in a woman's hand would be nice, for me some Blackberrys feel very cumbersome because they are so wide. The other issue I have is finding headsets that fit my tiny little ears properly (the Jabra 125 fits well though).

-April Coffman

Apparently marketers think that women would like an item colored pink. They even make guns with a pink color:

So? Just because something is female-specific doesn't mean it's expected to be attractive to ALL women. Just more attractive to women in general.

By analogy, dresses are female-specific clothing, but there are many women who prefer not to wear dresses.

I expect some of these things are in their mind, too.

It could also be marketing differences. There are cigarette brands that are more popular among blacks, yet I assume there's not much difference in the way blacks and whites smoke cigarettes.

Well, bringing this back to telecom there's this:

Hello Kitty Lineman's Handset Telephone

I was sitting in the largest mall in Oklahoma City a day or two ago and of the three women who passed talking on the phone two had pink phones, the other one white. One also had a matching pink shoulder bag. Of the men who came by using a phone, all had black or silver phones. Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com