I’ve been seeing this “Why women rule the internet” link a bunch, and it seems they think “rule == buy more crap.”

Sure, it’s nice to be recognized as a market force, but as someone who wants to encourage more women creators rather than just women consumers, and who hates being treated only like consumer when she’s a creator… it’s very frustrating.

I’m not up to a long post on this, so here’s some commentary from a few of my friends on the subject:

If only we’d MAKE more stuff!

It’s weird, because nobody ever thought that peasants ruled in the middle ages despite their numbers!

Yeah, I’m not really thrilled at being told I rule in the cutting-edge areas of shoe shopping, diapers and coupons. And I say this as someone who buys a lot of shoes and diapers.

Oh great, so the next iteration of Facebook will be sparkly and pink and less functional, and they’ll rent out Hello Kitty as the mascot because that’s what all women want, all the time?

To be fair, the article isn’t all categorizing us as consumers — it definitely implies that women are driving some innovations and new ways of using the web — but there’s definite overtones of “look at this exciting new market segment!” that make me cringe. What did you think?