Yeah, we own that.

So besides the State of the Union, two on-going wars, Haiti post-earthquake recovery, and our country’s economy going down the shitter, Apple released a new electronic trinket.  They call it … (and unless you live under a rock you already know this….) the iPad.

That’s right.

The unfortunate misnomer ranks up there with Crystal Pepsi, this political ad, and this racist nickname for a holiday party.

Granted, it was an excuse to laugh about being on the rag all day.  Trending topics included iTampon and a variety of other riffs, as well as major twitter smackdown on “lady-time” jokes.

As @irishgirl Meghan Wilker puts it,

… is the name iPad going to prevent me from buying this product? No. But it does tell me that it’s unlikely that any women were involved in the naming of this product. (My other favorite example of a product name I’m pretty sure no women weighed in on: the Ford Probe.)

She also calmly lays out one glaring pitfall of this marketing misfire. When it comes to consumer electronics,

we’re already buying and using them at nearly the same rate as our male counterparts.

The data backs her up in a big way.  Six years ago, blogs were already reporting that women consumers represented more than half of all electronic gadget and device owners.  In 2007, the Consumer Electronics Association reported the following facts:

• women are the primary consumers when it comes to wireless gadgets and gizmos.
• women outspend men in electronics purchases US$55 billion to US$41 billion.
• women influence 90 percent of consumer electronics purchases.

Other facts of the she-conomy can be found here – and folks, we’re talking about trillions of consumer dollars. And not only are we major consumers of these products, when married, wives are increasingly making more of the total income in the household.

Sober market analysis aside, doesn’t anyone at Apple watch TV?  MadTV (not a paragon of social commentary) did a spoof about this very topic.  Out of touch much, dudes?

And to this guy, I say, actually we DO own the word pad.

And we also own:

• plug
• yeast
• cramps
• bosom
• bloat
• flow

also

• bitch (noun and verb)
• emotional (did you know estrogen is a more explosive hormone than testosterone? didja?)

and

• mother
• sister
• lover
• friend

You boys can share the last two with us.

And for the record, my boyfriend matches me toe-to-toe on the menstruation jokes. He is one of the only men I’ve ever known that will fearlessly make tampon jokes, and laugh.  So there are a few of you out there.

[Via http://notmygal.com]