What Women Want: The Global Market Turns Female Friendly
Despite continued pay inequities, in 2005 young women under 30 earned more than men for the first time in U.S. history, signaling greater influence in the consumer market. Underhill, founder of Envirosell, Inc., marketer to major retailers, draws on market research and personal observations to detail the ways that women are influencing design, marketing, and service in industries from car manufacturing to architecture to banking. What do women want? Cleanliness, control, safety, and consideration. Women are behind the growth in the health-food industry, new urbanist communities that offer the geographic closeness of cities and the safety of suburbia, and contemporary kitchens with open plans and appliances geared toward convenience. Underhill notes that trends continue to favor the influence of women with the reduction of the manufacturing sector that needs muscle, greater control over women’s reproductive lives, and an education system that suits girls more than boys. Underhill offers good insights, though his tone seems a bit off sometimes, and female readers are likely to wonder how the same material might have yielded different insights from a woman writer. --Vanessa Bush