Let's look at some of the prettiest wearables for women, like this Tory Burch fitness tracker. Now, every skinny actress I love is always talking about how she never exercises and eats lots of cheeseburgers and drinks whiskey. Even though that’s exactly what I do all day, we look slightly different. What gives? This made me finally get it: The hard work of being thin and beautiful is supposed to be a secret, elegantly disguised as fashion. Tory Burch
Let's look at some of the prettiest wearables for women, like this Tory Burch fitness tracker. Now, every skinny actress I love is always talking about how she never exercises and eats lots of cheeseburgers and drinks whiskey. Even though that’s exactly what I do all day, we look slightly different. What gives? This made me finally get it: The hard work of being thin and beautiful is supposed to be a secret, elegantly disguised as fashion.
The Bloom Necklace fitness tracker from Misfit is a "celebration of floral patterns in nature." There's something vaguely Celtic about it too, so add those terms to the "stuff ladies like" list. Misfit
The Bloom Necklace fitness tracker from Misfit is a "celebration of floral patterns in nature." There's something vaguely Celtic about it too, so add those terms to the "stuff ladies like" list.
The Cuff only looks like bondage wear. It's actually aimed at protecting women from physical harm; if you are in danger, you can push a button on the cuff and alert your friends that you need them. It also vibrates when you a get a text, of course. Cuff.io
The Cuff only looks like bondage wear. It's actually aimed at protecting women from physical harm; if you are in danger, you can push a button on the cuff and alert your friends that you need them. It also vibrates when you a get a text, of course.
We've got to protect our skin. The Netamo June is all about alerting women to how long we’ve been in the sun so we don't turn into old cancerous raisins. Now while I focus on looking hot, my bracelet can make sure the cellular structure of my epidermis isn’t actually hot. Thanks, science. Netamo
That is a vibrator. Called the Vesper, it's shaped like a nail, the kind you hammer into a wall. Yes, at first, to me, it looked positively medieval: dangerous in its approximation of a weapon and yet somehow also insultingly tiny. And yes it's Christian religious name is unsettling--especially with the whole Christ and nail thing. But what do I know; I’m terrible at Pinterest. Crave
That is a vibrator. Called the Vesper, it's shaped like a nail, the kind you hammer into a wall. Yes, at first, to me, it looked positively medieval: dangerous in its approximation of a weapon and yet somehow also insultingly tiny. And yes it's Christian religious name is unsettling--especially with the whole Christ and nail thing. But what do I know; I’m terrible at Pinterest.
The more I look at it, the more I realize it's like the pen Joan hangs around her neck in "Mad Men," only instead of for writing it's for "external stimulation," so now I can totes see this on my Pinterest page. Why it is shaped for impaling when it's for external use only is a bit of a mystery, but OMG, you can have it engraved. Crave
The more I look at it, the more I realize it's like the pen Joan hangs around her neck in "Mad Men," only instead of for writing it's for "external stimulation," so now I can totes see this on my Pinterest page. Why it is shaped for impaling when it's for external use only is a bit of a mystery, but OMG, you can have it engraved.
Ringly brings cocktail rings to a whole new level by incorporating smartphone alerts so that when you wear this out to dinner parties you can totally ignore your friends and just stay up to date with Twitter. Ringly
Ringly brings cocktail rings to a whole new level by incorporating smartphone alerts so that when you wear this out to dinner parties you can totally ignore your friends and just stay up to date with Twitter.
I used to be terrified of snakes and therefore snakeskin. But wearables like the MICA have taught me that there is no room for fear in fashion. Intel
I used to be terrified of snakes and therefore snakeskin. But wearables like the MICA have taught me that there is no room for fear in fashion.
The Q Bracelet charges a lady's phone AND is made of polished gold, because bling is a thing we love. QBracelet
The Q Bracelet charges a lady's phone AND is made of polished gold, because bling is a thing we love.
I learned this week that I love snakeskin, which is weird because everyone in my family has a debilitating phobia of snakes. I didn’t know this about myself until Mica, a haute couture smart bracelet for women, told me so.
Mica also taught me that I love bracelets. This was surprising, because I’ve long argued that bracelets are annoying. They get in the way of my typing and cooking and scribbling and gesticulating. They make me a useless ornament. My husband used to buy me cheap bracelets for inconsequential holidays, and I eventually told him to knock it off because I needed my wrists free to work. But after looking at Mica and all the other smart bracelets that are so hot this holiday season, I realized I was wrong. Clearly, I owe my husband an apology.
Wearables have finally shown me what women really want.
Now, you might think that because I am me and I always have been, I should know what I like better than a marketing team. How could I learn so much about myself—nay, my entire gender—from a subset of connected fashion accessories? But of course, the truth is, the greatest mystery of all is knowing the secrets of your own heart. It took the brilliant marketers behind wearables for women to peer into my very soul and reveal myself to me.
Emily Dreyfuss
Emily Dreyfuss is WIRED’s News and Opinion Editor. She owns a gender-neutral Fitbit that she wears in her sports bra like a real class act.
It’s not just me, though. It’s all women. I’ve learned we long for shiny things that vibrate. We want pearls. We love self-involved names like Memi, which is of course pronounced Me! Me! We’re suckers for gold and we’re not afraid to make a statement with chunky rings. We will not sacrifice elegance for connectivity; we want both, dammit! And above all, I’ve learned there’s nothing worse than a physically fit woman revealing how hard it is to be fit. That will not do. We want to have it all, and we want it all effortlessly.
It wasn’t until now that I realized we women—who comprise more than half the people on this planet—are a great and powerful monolith. I thought we came in all variations, not least the bracelet-loving and the “bracelet meh-ing,” the “vibrator-necklace-toting” and the “vibrator-necklace-declining.” I thought we spanned all nations, races, ideologies, sexualities, proclivities and sensitivities. I thought we were beautiful in our innumerable differences and eccentricities. I thought we were just like everyone else: gloriously ourselves.
But then I saw all these wearables for women and realized we’re each exactly the same.
I guess I love pink again, just like I did at 3 years old when Disney told me to. I thought I had grown up and rebelled against the pressure to be that kind of girl. But I guess I’m changed. I guess if I ever owned a gun, it’d be that pink lady Ruger.
Of course, the wearables market is only doing what Hollywood, cell phone manufacturers, every razor maker ever, the automotive industry, earplug companies, pen makers, and novelty toilet producers have done before. But the tech industry has a particularly unnecessary penchant for taking something that is fundamentally gender neutral and lacquering it in pink, appealing to society’s basest stereotypes, and making women feel “other” under the auspices of being “personalized for” and catered to. When women walk, and our pedometers track our strides, there is nothing particular about it. We’re vertical miracles of flesh and muscle plodding across space and time, just like every other human. Our gadgets don’t need to be different. A phone is a phone is a phone. A fitness tracker, too.
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