Gender & Product Development

I recently came across the above video and it got me to thinking about a few things. In case the video is ever taken down, it is an ad for a fake product called ‘Manpons’ by ‘Manpax’ and it basically highlights how a product would be marketed towards men.

Something that is a natural bodily function for women is often used against women. Wether it’s due to jokes, or men feeling the need to dictate for their women colleagues what is socially acceptable and what is permissable. Periods are not exactly the highlight of anyone’s conversation. I’m sure they are not pleasant to experience, but there’s definitely a lower undertone that makes it understandable if anyone feels embarrassed to admit if they are going through it.

In the video above, it’s almost thrown off as if this is a man’s virtue to manhood. It reinforces the male dominant image that not only sells to men, but appeals to them as if to say men are dominant and to be a man is an honor. A beard, controlling body odor, and in the video above, a period, are all typically paraded as a man’s right to passage.

In commercials geared towards women, the commercials speaks to highlighting a woman’s appearance, and keeping themselves prettied up and focusing on being as ‘put together’ as one can be.

I find this interesting because when it comes to product development, companies are spending a lot of money in crafting similar products that do the same thing, function the same way, and the only difference is the packaging and sometimes a color.

I’ve read multiple articles that have a few thoughts on product development, but I generally see a common suggestion of, keep things simple, don’t confuse the end user, make their product selection choice easy.

When it comes to many re-branded / colored / variants of products that are created for women, it seems like this creates a lot of waste and makes people consider second guessing buying a product because of the ‘gender’ associated with it.

These additional SKU’s cause a number of increased complexities in the name of what exactly?

The purpose and rationale behind gendered products is one of the things that I don’t quite understand. From many perspectives that I can think of, it just doesn’t make any sense.

I’m curious when the waste will be cut out, prices becoming more equal (the source mentioned above talks about how generally products for female users are typically more expensive than their male equivalent), and companies highlighting how their product has a specific user in mind and the last thought is that person’s genitals.

I own a hoodie that was being sold in the women’s department of JCPenney. It is a different size than I normally wear, but I like the styling (It is a Mario Bros. hoodie). Most people probably wouldn’t guess that it was sold towards women, but it’s comfy, I like how it looks, and I don’t care where I found it.

The best analog I have seen regarding gendered products:

Hopefully those in charge of products will get the idea and put the money currently wasted towards making better products and not merely make a product gendered.