The iPad: A product from the he-mans women-hater’s club?

by Debbie Stoller

Despite sounding like a space-age feminine hygiene product, Apple’s new iPad launched today with nary a lady in sight. Even though we here at BUST were as excited about the launch of this product as anyone from the cock-and-balls set, Apple seems to have forgotten that women are consumers for the latest tech at all. In the video promoting the new product, a number of Apple developers tells us all about their new thingamajig and why it was constructed. It’s not such a surprise that there isn’t a woman in the bunch; we all know that women are vastly under-represented in tech fields.

There’s the hunky Brit with the silky dyson-salesman voice. What a gun show!

 

The not-so-hulky salesman looking dude who is, in fact, a senior Marketing guy:

there’s the first anony-guy we see using the product: can’t see much of the face or whether there are boobs there or not, but from the  five-o-clock shadow and man hands we can be certain that, yep, this is definitely a dude.

 

Next up:  another guy. this one’s a software developer:

 

then we get dude hands again. What is he using his iPad for? to read Spin, of course! What a cool dude. iPads aren’t for the ladies, but they are for dudes. especially dudes who are cool enough to be into music and read cool dude-music mags like Spin.

Cool dude also sometimes likes to read the NY times. But he’s no sissy. He especially likes it when there’s a sports story on the front page.

Lest we think cool dude is too much of a cold hearted monster, we see that he also gets emails with pictures of babies – perhaps it is his sister’s child or maybe even his own child who he only gets to follow the development of via emails on his iPad because he is just too busy out being a cool dude all the time.

He doesn’t spend much time with this pic, though, and quickly moves on to read his other, more important emails, which include one with a boarding pass (wonder what cool places cool dude is off to?) an an awful lot of emails from ladies. ladies who must be sending them emails via their ladylike laptops!

The subject lines of these emails: “thank you” “Salary increase” “Your boarding pass” “airport pickup.” Even though they aren’t allowed to touch his iPad, all of these ladies sure are working hard to make cool dude’s life run more smoothly. and they are so greatful to him, too. y0u know who cool dude will probably share his iPad with, though? Aaron. Aaron Ackerman, cool dude’s wingman, whose subject line reads “Snow fun!” In fact, after quickly replying to the “thank you” email with quick “you’re more than welcome!” (and this after the poor gal spent the time to send him an actual ecard with flowers and everything! I mean, maybe he spent the night with her the previous night?) he heads straight to Aaron’s email.

Now, let’s zoom in on Aaron’s email. Hell, let’s ROTATE Aaron’s email. Yup, cause Aaron’s the man! Whoo! Look at all that snow fun! Love that guy! Me and my man jeans an my man hands and extremely clean nails. The world is my oyster and technology is created by men like me, to be used by men like me. Look at all these men. Snow fun! Dudes!

 

Since cool dude is off flying around and going on snow tubing trips with his buds, it’s nice to carry around some photos of his wife and kids back home so he can remember what they look like. The iPad can do that too. Saves the trouble of actually having to spend much time with them. Leaves him more time for Snow fun!

But enough with the kids and the old ball and chain. Let’s get back to fun stuff. YOu know what’s one of the most amazing things you can do with the iPad? That’s right: you can watch Star Trek. You can watch it over and over and over again like how your 4 year old, Max (or is it Mark?) loves to watch Elmo. Over and over. So cool. So dudely. God he loves this movie so much. the iPad is made just for people like him. People who love Star Trek this much.

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Also, for dudes who love movies like Land of the Lost and Up.  and Cruel Intentions (hot!). Oh, and don’t worry about cool dude. He’s not a loser geek who is only into sports, snow, and sci-fi films. He also likes Ghandi. Okay? He is NOT a loser. He is enlightened. Gandhi.

 

Enlightened? He’s more than that. He’s a well-read Liberal, with digital books on his digital bookshelf that include “Hot, Flat and Crowded” (he’s environmentally aware) and the life of Ted Kennedy (he can forgive Chappaquidick), something about a Wolf, and I can’t tell what else but it does look like there’s some kind of chick flick book up in there. Whoops! Better hide that fast.

He may actually get around to reading those books. Some day. But there’s something else that the iPad delivers, that can give him pleasure for hour after hour after hour after hour.

Driving games! Yay! Can’t wait to tell Aaron about this one. It rules.

At this point we get introduced to another member of Apple’s manly staff; the SVP of Hardware, a man we’ll call John Goodman.

 

He tells us that one of the best things about the iPad is the touchability. The touch. it’s the most advanced touching device ever invented, or something like that. And men love to touch things.

 

 

All sorts of things. But especially boobs. Apparently, there’s an app for that.

And he might get to touch some real boobs by showing his iPad to a lady friend, as he apparantly is doing here:

Okay, okay. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Debbie, you told us there was not a lady to be found in this promo video, and there one is.True, it’s only half a lady. But it’s still a lady. And he’s letting her look at his iPad. He even lets her touch a button so she can watch her favorite Youtube video of a dog on a surfboard!

Well, i’ll admit, there is a half a lady here. But that only goes to show why ladies should be kept off the iPad: cause they are going to want to do stupid things like watch videos of dogs surfing instead of important things like watching Star Trek or Gandhi.

I’m sure at some point they’ll come out with a similar device for us ladies. Perhaps they can call it the iMinipad. Until then, we’ll have to satisfy ourselves by looking over the shoulders of our men folk to catch a glimpse of this new miracle machine.

 

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