In a day and age when you can buy lipstick-shaped flash drives, bejeweled cell phones and pink Game Boys, it's pretty clear that women have entered the electronics realm — and they're sprucing it up.

So why didn't I notice?

Was I dazzled by all the glitz? Was I too used to downplaying my gadget addiction from back in the day when my Palm was about as fashionable as a pocket protector?

Or could it be that the marketing for electronics is so condescending to women that it's hard to recognize that females are allowed to be tech-savvy and style conscious?

These days, women buy more consumer electronics than men, so perhaps advertisers should stop insulting them by insinuating that a cell phone is more important as a fashion accessory than a communications device.

I didn't really start thinking about the feminization of electronics until a guy asked me why I was trying to write a column about relationships when I'm more knowledgeable about electronics.

He didn't point out the obvious — that I had just asked him to buy me a mobile media player that was cute, compact and PINK!

That's when I realized that if a product comes in cotton- candy colors, I can't be the only woman who wants one.

It's not even the most trendy brand, so I can't be the only woman who buys based on specs.

I'm guessing that it's still not OK to let myself publicly drool over the fact that this particular model plays AVI files in addition to the stuff you can buy online or transfer from TiVo.

I was willing to sacrifice my ability to shop for video at the iTunes store for this capability, but maybe only because I have an iPod Nano to hold all my online music purchases.

If I wasn't a woman, though, I still wouldn't have been impressed. I may be swayed later, but right now I don't expect to spend a lot of time watching tiny-screen video.

But little eyes don't seem bothered by miniature screens, and I have two pairs of little eyes in my care.

I first saw the appeal in having a little video player of my own while flying from Los Angeles with two children and a portable DVD player with a dead battery.

A few aisles back, a couple of kids were huddled over a player that was three times smaller than ours, but still playing! As I tried to restrain my 3-year-old from slamming her tray table up and down, their mother napped.

I began fantasizing about the possibilities. If I had a player I could carry in my purse, I could pull it out to entertain bored kids in grocery-store lines, department-store dressing rooms or (gasp!) my office.

I picked a practical one. It syncs with Outlook, so I can have my calendar and contact list with me at all times. It can also back up my kid photos.

There's more! It can record interviews and cheer me up at news conferences as it stands out in sassy pinkness amid a sea of plain metallic recorders. Its pretty pinkness will also deter my son from stealing it.

With all that going for it, the cuteness was just a bonus.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com. Read her daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.