| Women are more likely to shop for food than men. Upper middle class women spend more on premium food products than lower middle class women. (I'm a friend of Patrick's and have had dinner with him enough to guess that he's not food-savvy enough to know that upper-upper class women wouldn't buy "balsamic sauce" because it isn't packaged in a thimble and doesn't cost $150; he just happened to get that one by accident.) Moms often cook for their families. Moms of the PTA are especially engaged with their family life, and are especially likely to take seriously the process of shopping for premium food products. This is called customer targeting. It's about as sexist as it is ageist to target advertising for American Girl Dolls to 8 year girls. I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about this. Sometimes, by being knee-jerk and superficial in your reaction to gender issues, even in the "right" direction, one can actually come close to betraying a lack of understanding about what the real issues are. (I say this as someone who has spent an embarrassing amount of money on vial-sized jars of balsamic.) |