KEY POINTS:
Hundreds of gadgets have featured in this column this year, but only a fraction of them are designed with women in mind. That's because the target market for gadget makers is affluent male geeks - 18 to 50-year-old tech-savvy early adopters who are quick to rush out and
buy the latest mobile phone, digital camera or video game console.
That's why gadget magazines feature scantily clad women on their front covers and rambling, boring interviews with sports stars inside. Sports, girls and gadgets go well together and have done since the dawning days of consumer electronics.
But there's a change under way, one that's driven by a growing realisation among technology companies that women are becoming gadget lovers, too. A few electronics makers have cottoned on to the fact that if devices are easy to use, pretty to look at and available in pink, women will buy them.
Credit goes to Apple for getting the ball rolling. While it had obvious appeal to both sexes, the iPod Mini and the iPod Nano began the love affair between women and portable music. The cute-looking iMac and Apple's white notebooks gave women an alternative to the hulking, macho-looking PCs designed for a man's heavy touch.
The feminisation of mobile phones is well under way and, frankly, we're all benefiting from that. Phones are more attractive these days, slimmer and easier to use, thanks largely to the fact that girls are likely to spend more time texting their friends and talking on the phone than the average geeky male loner.
Nokia even teamed up with local fashion house Zambesi to create a stylish phone aimed at women. Motorola, Samsung, and Sanyo with its pink Diva also have women in their sights.
And few women roll up to birthday parties or weddings without a digital camera to capture the event for the photo album. When it comes to taking and gathering hundreds of photos, organising them, posting them to Flickr.com and printing them out, women beat men hands down. The rest of us just dump the photos in our "My Photos" folder, rarely to be seen again.
All sorts of slim-line cameras and software packages, designed to make photo editing less geeky and complicated, show women now rule the roost when it comes to digital photography.
Video game maker Nintendo has craftily shifted its game line-up away from teenage boys to appeal to girls. Its compact DS handheld gaming device and the Nintendo Wii gaming console, which goes on sale this week, look decidedly girly. The same goes for Sony's white PSP console. Just check out the advertising for the sleek device - girl-next-door type model slips a white PSP into her handbag, while another lounges around on a couch, listening to music on her PSP while she paints her nails.
We should all celebrate this growing feminine enthusiasm for gadgets. It will certainly take the edge off those discussions when the male in the relationship suggests it's time to shell out for a plasma screen TV or new stereo system. The male gadget sanctum has well and truly been infiltrated by the fairer species and there's no stopping them now.
