This article argues that Etsy.com – the ebay-style site for people to buy and sell handmade crafts – has become a women’s ghetto, full of hobbyists making little or no money from the site.
The proportion of male sellers on Etsy is less than 4% – smaller than in nursing.
“I think for many women the site holds out the hope of successfully combining meaningful work with motherhood in a way that more high-powered careers in the law, business, or sciences seldom allow. In other words, what Etsy is really peddling isn’t only handicrafts, but also the feminist promise that you can have a family and create hip arts and crafts from home during flexible, reasonable hours while still having a respectable, fulfilling, and remunerative career. The problem is that on Etsy, as in much of life, the promise is a fantasy. There’s little evidence that most sellers on the site make much money. This, I suspect, explains the absence of men. They are immune to the allure of this fantasy. They have evaluated the site on purely economic terms and found it wanting.”
Josephine Grahl
Sharon O'Dea
scarlettmcqueen
