Everyone seems to love Etsy.com, the hip online destination for selling (and buying) handmade crafts. For individual artists, it enables them to expand beyond the local craft fair and network with other, like-minded sellers. For buyers, it’s an easy way to purchase beautiful, one-of-a-kind pieces. And for Etsy investors, who get a cut of every transaction, it’s a user-generated (read: low investment, potentially high revenue) business that still projects a green, anti-corporate image. There’s just one fly in the decoupage: There are virtually no male sellers on Etsy. If the site is such a great way for anyone to market handmade goods online, then why is it such a female ghetto?
After all, the site was founded by three men in Brooklyn, a haven for macho DIY-dom, and was never conceived as female-only. The home page has a minimal, modern look. The colors are not cutesy pink. “They’re orange and blue,” says Adam Brown, the site’s spokesman. “You can’t get more neutral than that.”
The crafts that sell best are not necessarily off-putting to men. Knitting is a relatively poor seller on Etsy, according to the site’s 2008 in-house survey. The number-one sales item is jewelry. While beading may be a predominantly female pursuit, stone cutting, metallurgy, and welding are not. Plenty of men design jewelry. They just don’t sell it on Etsy. The next two biggest selling categories are “Accessories,” which includes everything from scarves and money clips to belts and cufflinks, and “Art” (painting, mixed media, photography, sculpture). Men work in these mediums, too. Yet the proportion of male sellers on the site remains minuscule—just 4 percent. It’s a smaller percentage than men in nursing.
Read the 3 page rant here LOL I found it amusing...
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