Rather than a general difference in the way that male and females perceive information and data, I believe we are all capable of understanding complex material, but this may well be on a spectrum and vary according to our level of interest in certain issues.

I also believe there is a lot of conditioning so that women tend to believe that cars are techy for them. What I find rather disappointing is that if 35% of the people contacting Honest John (based on his existing writing) are women, why they are then being labelled as requiring a woman to respond to them. If he wasn’t doing the job well enough, they wouldn’t be reading or writing to him.

I don’t think the fact that motoring literature has “always” been written for a predominantly male readership is any argument for segmenting women in this sector. Women today buy and own cars equally to men. Cars don’t require any specialist mechanical or technical knowledge to either buy or own. There are certainly prejudices among those selling and servicing cars about women that need to be changed - but do we need information written in a more girly style for this to happen? I don’t believe that will change anything other than reinforce the stereotypes.

I also don’t find the argument about novels works - there are zillions of novels that appeal to men and women. (And thousands of women like me who hate the “romantic fiction” genre as per the specifically targeted titles).

In fact, the books that are usually the most successful and well written appeal to both genders. And, what about classic romantic novels like Madame Bovary which had a male writer? Or are you saying that women can’t write for a male audience, but men can appeal to women?

I’ve written hundreds of press releases about cars and motoring issues, which have been sent to male journalists and run under their bylines. I’ve never had a male journalist accuse my press information of being too girly for them.

Personally, I think that Ultra Violet is a marketing move intended to help attract more female oriented advertisers. I just think it is a shame that we continue this ghetto-isation of women in motoring.

While I’m not saying that either is superior, we have to admit that motoring literature has always been written with a predominantly male readership in mind and this has remained unchanged over the decades.

To draw some kind of a parallel here, there is a higher tendency to associate romance novels to women than to men (I’m stereotyping here, but indulge me a little ok?). If the same authors were to rewrite the same novels to appeal to men, would they have written it differently? Would they even be confident of writing something that would work for men?

I believe Honest John was just being perfectly honest (pun intended) with his own writing limitations and hence the engaging of Ultra Violet.

(End note: Ultra Violet is the region on the electromagnetic spectrum that we know exists and can feel the effect of but cannot see… Maybe Honest John felt that way too… Responding to women is something just slightly beyond his area of expertise that he cannot fully grasp or comprehend?)

Thank you for your thoughts - I do agree that style of writing can appeal more to one gender than another and that targetting motoring messages to women could reach out to those who find the traditional macho approach rather off-putting.

But, I think it is important to make motoring information accessible to anyone who doesn’t have techy or other prior knowledge - regardless of gender. And similarly, the specialist information shouldn’t be seen as male-only.

My concern is that whenever women and motoring are put together, it seems only in the context of us needing a simplified approach - which compounds the attitudes about women and cars that possibly keep more women from feeling informed.

Why shouldn’t women find out about how to get their older car through its MOT alongside men with the same interest - and ditto, should women be excluded from comparing sportscars and other high end models?

There is room for different approaches, but I don’t think it is helpful to continue the stereotypes about women by segmenting communications. That continues to leave the mainstream motoring media targeted at men - and so nothing changes.

Best wishes

Maria McCarthy
http://www.mariamccarthy.co.uk