The term “gender contamination” was first introduced by HBS Senior lecturer Jill Avery and refers to how uncomfortable men and women become when a product they use to symbolize their gender also appeals to another gender. Avery first noticed this while working for Gillette, especially how they highlighted a particular product as Gillette for women to increase the separation between the women and man razors. This theory can be applied to numerous other situations such as the divide between diet and non-diet sodas or even yogurts and ice-cream.
After reading this blog post on the Harvard Business review, I thought it was ridiculous that certain products such as a simple soda can be more appealing to one gender than the other, but then I started thinking about my own experiences. When my cousin was born, we only bought clothes of the color pink because she was a girl. When I pick up an energy drink I tend to go for red bull instead of Monster because of its aggressive appearance. If just our gender has an influence on our preferences of goods and services, I wonder what other factors drive our decisions.