In recent nifty gadget news, tech industries are releasing more and more products marketed towards women. Unsurprisingly, these new toys are mainly health and fitness trackers designed to be prettier and thus more appealing.
Here’s where that aggravates us: First off, making your new fitness trackers look pretty for women because you think a couple of crystals will win us over is dumb. Utility products should be about utility, not how much you can bling something out. But secondly, isn’t it a little ridiculous to target women specifically with new health and fitness products? The assumption being: Tech gadgets will only sell to women if they are under the fitness category and generally shiny-looking.
It’s a little disappointing to us that consumerism in tech (albeit like consumerism in a lot of other industries) feeds on the assumption that women only engage with new things if they contribute to the diet and exercise industrial complex. Or if they, y’know, look girlie.
Fortunately, another new tech product designed towards women has a very practical use—and look to match. Muse, invented by co-founder of Interaxon Ariel Garter, is a headband created to help people master their inner critic. Says Garter: “One of the big issues that we have as women is wanting to do everything and be perfectionists… There’s this little voice inside our heads that says, ‘Oh, you should have done better.’
With Muse, what you learn to do is shut down that voice: You can take your brain somewhere else and have—sometimes for the first time—dominion over your own brain.” This gadget, which operates “like a heart-rate monitor for your mind,” may prove to be a big help for everyone. Here is a short video for the product:
A product that focuses on non-chemical self care and emotional well being while training our brains to be smarter? We say hell yes to that (if we can afford it, that is). Products like Muse actively contribute to thinking in healthier, more positive ways about our lives, our bodies, and ourselves. We hope to see more products like that—blingy or plainly useful.
Image via CNN
