Men and women are a lot more alike that sometimes one might imagine. There are any number of oddball product differentiations between male / female, man / woman, boy / girl that are pandering to prejudices as to what they want (e.g., the toddler building blocks we were looking at today that had Boy and Girl editions — the former in primary colors, the latter in pastels).
Of course, there are cases where male and females of the human race are different (and viva la difference!). The problem is, too many things that are marketed "for women" are marketed for women as a special case. Like the normal, unmarked, ungender-labeled item is, well, for men (one assumes, even though men aren't explicitly mentioned), but, oh, yeah, there's a special version "for women" or "for girls." Which sometimes isn't any different except in color and decor.
Either one is presented with the conclusion that women are some special subclass of people, who are generally assumed to be men, or else there are generic versions for both men and women, but there are also versions that are women-only (because heaven forbid that men or boys have something that's lavender or pink or smells like flowers or something).
Our culture is so screwed up, sometimes. #ddtb
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Women vs. People : Ms Magazine Blog
It's time for a round-up of all the reader submissions illustrating the annoying habit of having products and products-for-women. The phenomenon illustrates the way we continue to think of men as …