The announcement that a new tech magazine is being launched catering specifically for women is bad news for people like me who still think paper has a place in this electron biased world, but equally probably welcomed by those who hug trees or keep banging on about how we should be “wired” in this day and age.

Although I am not sure I like the statement by the publisher that it “won't reek of man” which one could say is rather sexist.

But I can’t understand myself why there is a need to explain creative tools such as cameras, camcorders, software and the like any differently to a woman than to a man. Sure in the past there has been attempts to make female oriented gadgets such as phones (who can forget the one that worked out the owner’s menstrual cycle), coloured laptops and even software (I cannot ever see a bloke doing scrapbooking for example). But to say there is a female way of explaining say, aperture settings or shutter speed is beyond this mere male’s comprehension.

Give me a break.

Of more importance are retailers training their staff in not treating women as if they WERE stereotypical blonde bimbo clones. The car industry has finally managed to do it – once they worked out the ‘little woman’ usually had the casting vote. The same applies here with plasma and LCD TVs, surround systems and even the desks that computers will sit on.

I can see how some will think the presence of such a magazine is admitting there could be ditzy females out there without a clue, and see the mag/website as having the moral duty to teach these types that, for example, a cable tie is not a piece of wire worn around the neck. But I can think of close and immediate family males of the species, who cannot wire up a digital settop box, program a speed dial or indeed, even work out how a GPOS works.

I’d like to hear the views on this by the girls in our industry; so c’mon Nicole, Roulla, Helen, JV and Fleur et al. Comments?