Ladies Tools Online (Ashley Doyle, blog 2)

Ladies Tools Online @ www.ladiestoolsonline.com

I invite you to spend a moment to consider the following: tools. I'm sure it conjures images of screwdrivers, power drills, hammers, nails, and other devices. But look closer at your mental picture: who is wielding these tools? A handsome, rugged construction worker? Your favorite shirtless male? Your boyfriend or husband? Yourself, if you're a man? What about yourself, as a woman? Now look again, at the tools themselves. Do you see Craftsman, with their red color scheme? DeWalt, with their yellow everywhere? These are fairly gender-neutral colors, if you think about it, for a product that typically is not gender neutral, but heavily weighed in favor of men.
Now I offer you the following product: tools designed (and color scheme approved!) for the ladies. Visit the website for Ladies Tools, and the page itself is pepto-bismol pink. All text is some shade of pink, or white on a pink background. On the surface, this appears to be a condescending jab at women, to say we need our own pretty-pink tool sets. That somehow, we should set our personal tools apart from the general every-day tools that MEN use.
However, I browsed the website for a while, reading the blog, looking at the tool selection, and I discovered that this site does not pander to women. It in fact seems to attempt to educate its visitors, in a non-judgemental, strictly to-the-point manner. I was surprised by this, after the blatant attempt at girly-ing up the product itself.
Take, for example, the "featured product." It is a 39 piece tool kit called the Big Momma Tool Box. It is listed at $39.99. The box itself is glaringly pink, and the tools are in a pink-and-black motif. On the product page, it seems again to make a jab at what is considered traditional attitudes for women: "A place for everything, and everything in its place. With this toolbox, you'll have the perfect home for all your tools." Now, I don't know about you, but the last tool box belonging to a man that I looked into was a scattered mess. Everything was in there, but you had to look for it. Also, it appears that, on purchasing this product, at least, a portion of the profits goes to support Breast Cancer Awareness. This is not a STRICTLy female disease, but the vast majority of breast cancer patients are women. How many tool companies do you know who donate to, say, prostate cancer causes?
On the whole, I think women-centric tools are a ridiculous idea. There is nothing stopping a woman from walking to the tool section at any store and picking up whatever she needs for whatever her project is. On the other hand, this website almost seems to poke fun at gender expectations while attempting to do some good in the world as well. At the end of this assessment, I surprised myself by approving of this product, or rather, of this website and its founders. I had chosen this product in an attempt to find something needlessly marketed to either gender. In the end, I find a product which I believe, while having some issues toeing the line between serious gender bias and poking fun at the same gender bias, is overall a well-done product, and one that is worth buying to support.