Needlessly Sexist? Fujitsu Unveils Laptop 'Designed By Women, For Women'
In Fujitsu’s latest line-up of Windows 8 laptops, an obscurity stuck out like a sore thumb. For one featured within the line-up was called 'Floral Kiss', which the company itself now describes as being built under the direction of its female employees. Tailored to the female audience, forget 'Inspired by nature, built for humans', this really is a case of designed by women, for women.
And while we don't profess to have a firm knowledge of the culture the laptop is predominately marketing itself to, the whole marketing spiel does give the impression of being needlessly sexist, as if the alpha males in the board room saw a decline in sales from those of the XX-persuasion and decided the only logical decision was to drop its product designers for a sole product in place of some middle-aged women. Genius.
At the core, it's your standard i5 Notebook with 500Gb hard drive, which ought to please some. Though with pre-installed applications like a diary and a 'Daily Horoscope Checker' (no, really), and featured colours that sound like they've been taken straight from the Dulux paint catalogue – the prime examples being 'Feminine Pink' and 'Luxury Brown' – it's an experiment that we have to admit doesn't seem to have entirely worked.
It is understandable that you’d want to market your products to cover the spectrum of buyers, but this feels like it’s more focussed on a single group of women that want these things, forgetting that women aren’t just restricted to one hue of the rainbow or for that matter automatically buy into astrology. And it works the other way, by openly focussing on women, they’ve closed the doors to male customers with this one. If only it was coated in glitter...
Harvey McDaniel
