> There's nothing wrong with thinking women and men are wired differently.
And nobody is disagreeing with you. It is sexist to say "women are more influenced by marketing" when they are not. If men and women are influenced the same, then making a statement about the difference between them is being sexist.
So, if someone can actually provide some data that shows whether or not women are more influenced than men, instead of everyone continuing to provide anecdotes (as you have), then we can either stop saying false things, or we can accept that different genders work differently.
I didn't make it clear in my comment - but yeah I don't think women are more susceptible to marketing than men. It's just that women value different things. The original poster values functional items such as cars, computers and cool gadgets. So he thinks that it must be marketing that tricks women into buying non-functional items.
The thing is... if you value how you are perceived by others, then fashion is an extremely important investment. It does serve a purpose to women (and some socially-conscious men).
There is some interesting data that shows women are buying more... just Google "percentage of purchasing decisions made by women." It's over 70% - so it wouldn't be surprising if most marketing is targeted towards women.
And nobody is disagreeing with you. It is sexist to say "women are more influenced by marketing" when they are not. If men and women are influenced the same, then making a statement about the difference between them is being sexist.
So, if someone can actually provide some data that shows whether or not women are more influenced than men, instead of everyone continuing to provide anecdotes (as you have), then we can either stop saying false things, or we can accept that different genders work differently.