Your phone doesn't make you girly

Posted by Bokchoy on September 9, 2012 11:35 pm 12

Whenever certain devices are released/announced/whatever, there are inevitably comments like, "This looks too effeminate," or "It looks like a Fisher-Price toy." If you're one of those people, this post is dedicated to you. As a girl, I have to ask: why?

Apparently some guys are too embarrassed to buy this. Especially in white.

The stereotypes

"Feminine" devices:

• are small or light
• colourful (Fisher-Price!)
  
• have decoration
• have smooth, curvy lines

"Masculine" devices:

• are large
• plain and undecorated
• heavy
• mostly devoid of colour (may have highlights in an appropriately "manly" colour)

Fisher-Price comparisons

Would you compare your brightly dressed girlfriend or wife to a Fisher-Price toy? Do you think less of your grandfather, knowing that (depending on where he lived) he was possibly raised in a dress?

Franklin Roosevelt as a child

Joking aside, even white is sometimes considered "feminine" - why? Why is black so manly?

Back to the iPhone

Why are small things automatically feminine, or if colourful, childish? In the iPhone's case, I fail to see anything "feminine" in the cold, mechanical straight lines and geometric corners. It's a precise, machined look without any decoration besides the steel band. I think of it like chrome trim on cars. It can be "masculine" too. But I wouldn't be ashamed to carry an iPhone. Here's a tip for the guys: owning an iPhone won't make females think less of you.

While some people fit the stereotypes I listed above, I see more ladies with "manly" phones than gentlemen with "girly" phones. Are men more sensitive about their masculinity?