Re:Chickclickers? (Score 5)

- "Political correctness aside, men and women are not alike, at least not online. They may have equal skills, but they choose to do very different things."

- "Chickclickers . . . are perhaps the single most important social phenomenon online. And online, they make different choices than men."

The whole point of Jon's article seems to be that women behave differently online than men, yet he never really gives any evidence to support this. He says, "Anyone who doubts that men and women often make distinct technology choices online ought to visit Chickclick and the many "sister sites" that are linked to the top of its homepage." But ChickClickers is one site! How can any intelligent person assume you can tell how a whole demographic behaves based on a site most of that demographic have never visited?

The truth is, ChickClickers and similar sites are targeted at a select group of the females online. It's no different than any other special interest -- NFL.com for football fans, Shashdot for open-sourcers. It can't be assumed that these ChickClicker sites represent the entire scope of what women are interested in, and how they behave online.

That being said, I'm a female. My purpose in using the Net is not to reach out to other females "to talk and meet." I don't chat; I don't network. And I don't visit ChickClicker or any other "girl site." Really, my browsing habits aren't that much different than my husband's. We both regularly read Slashdot. We both use the web as a source of news, information, and knowledge.

And to me, that's the point of the Internet. I like sites where my gender is irrelevant -- where I can read intelligent articles & then be a part of the debate of ideas without it being important that I'm female. In real life, there may be people who look at me or my ideas differently because I'm a girl, but in theory, the web should be a place where appearance, race, gender, etc., don't matter.

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grrl22