[Air-l] buying socks online

[david silver]

Folks,

A very interesting article in the Washington Post today covering an equally interesting new research report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.  The article is entitled "Women Take Lead in Web Shopping: 58% of Holiday Buyers Online Were Female" and can be found here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49305-2002Jan1.html

I'm still unsure about the rules of posting/reposting articles but I think I'll test my luck and cut and paste the first four paragraphs.  If you have *any* interest in the thread that has been going down, please read:

***

Women outshopped men on the Internet during the
holidays for the first time ever, infiltrating a retail realm
once dominated by young, wealthy white males, according
to a national survey released yesterday by a nonprofit
research group.

Of the 29 million Internet users who bought gifts online
between Thanksgiving and Christmas, about 58 percent
were women, up from 50 percent last year, the Pew Internet
& American Life Project found after polling more than
2,000 adults with Internet access.

The research group's findings suggest women have crossed
a major threshold in cyberspace, where the gender mix is
becoming more consistent with the traditional retail world.

"It's a vote of confidence for the online environment," said
Lee Rainie, the group's director. "It means women think of
the Internet in a much more serious way."

***

Now, I'm a fan of the Pew project and have learned alot from their research projects.  But I think Lee Rainie's quote sums up all the problems I had/have with the conflation of commerce and (that word again) community.  Does the quote suggest that women are thinking of the Internet in a more serious way *because* they use it to shop?

Am I the only one who finds this incredibly problematic?  Comments, please.

david silver
http://faculty.washington.edu/dsilver