Do you believe Barack Obama will show support towards the GLBT community?

Author: Erica Roberts
Source: Diva Magazine
http://www.divamag.co.uk

Lesbians are now officially part of the pink pound and we're spending up large.

New findings in the UK's largest survey on lesbian lifestyles Article continues DIVA readers earn £6000 more annually than the national average income for women - and we spend most of our discretionary income on leisure, travel, home furnishings, clothes and mobile phone bills. Not only this, but we're aspirational consumers - we know which haute couture fashion labels which we admire, and we sometimes buy expensive cosmetic brands to treat ourselves.

These findings come courtesy of two brand-new surveys - one, the UK's most comprehensive independent survey of lesbian and gay lifestyles, experiences and social attitudes; the other, DIVA's December issue Fashion Survey.
The surveys have debunked many myths about us - that we have no money, that we don't figure as consumers, that we don't partake in the online commercial world, that we travel no further than our local dyke bar, and that we don't own any significant assets.

In fact, nearly one in ten DIVA readers earns £40,000-£75,000, and 13 per cent earn £30,000-£39,000. The average national full-time salary for DIVA readers is £24,783 per annum - well above the national average for women of £18,531.
Across both full and part-time salaries, DIVA readers earn an average of
£21,593 - and the national corresponding average is £15,100.

Lesbians want it all - a family, house, car, travel, leisure, cultural products and experiences, technology, clothes, cosmetics and fitness - and we're prepared to spend on them all

We spend most of our money on leisure and travel, averaging out at more than £500 over a six-month period. Those of us who travel do so frequently. A whopping 84 per cent have averaged 3.5 trips by air, domestically and internationally, for leisure purposes in the last year. This includes 52 per cent who travelled internationally 3.5 times in the last year, preferring to holiday in Spain, France, Ireland, USA and Greece.

Over half of our readers own a house and a new car, and we match exactly the national household average of 62 per cent ownership of a mobile phone.

And it's not just gay men who will be providing injections of cash into the developing Civil Partnership spin-off industry. Seventy per cent of DIVA readers are currently in a relationship, including 46 per cent who live with their partners. Fifty-four per cent of all readers intend to register their partnership from December 2005 onwards, and 71 per cent will take a honeymoon after the ceremony. Projected figures from the survey indicate that the gay honeymoon industry could yield up to £600 million as a new-market opportunity.

One in five of our readers is a parent, with a further 18 per cent saying they intend to have or adopt children within the next five years.

The myth that lesbians are techno-muppets who've never heard of the cyber hyper-store has also been blown out of the water. Seventy-four per cent of us own home computers, compared with the national UK per household average of 69 per cent, and 90 per cent of our readers spend time online each week, averaging out at 8.3 hours per week.
And we're not just site-surfing, either. In the last three months, 79 per cent of our readers had bought something online - considerably more than the UK national average for women of 52 per cent. DIVA readers spent an average of
£394 over this three-month period; and 17 per cent had spent more than £500.

Thirty-eight per cent of readers are regular internet banking users, and a further 17 per cent use it occasionally. We love our credit cards, too, spending an average of £400 per month on our little plastic pals. Our preferred brand is Visa, followed by MasterCard.

As well as this, it seems that we're avid film buffs. Eighty-three per cent of us own a DVD; four out of five of us go to the cinema at least once a month, and one in five of us goes at least once a week. Sixty per cent of readers had responded to DIVA advertisements for film, or had made a purchasing decision as a result of seeing the ad. It seems we like to keep abreast of new developments in the world of film, too - 55 per cent of readers would like to see more film ads in DIVA.

Restaurants and cafes enjoy much lesbian custom. Over half of us dine out at least once a week, and another 38 per cent do so once a month.

At least once a month, more than four in ten respondents go to the theatre, and equal numbers of us go to a gallery or a museum.

Far from leading sedentary lives, we appear to be relatively health conscious.
Just under half of us go to a gym or take some other form of exercise at least once a week, and another 16 per cent do so once a month.

More than half of DIVA's readers spend over £40 each month on clothes, and nearly a third spend between £50 and £100 per month on footwear.

The top sportswear brands favoured by lesbians are Adidas, at 41 per cent, and Nike, at 38 per cent.
Half of us own between three and ten pairs of jeans; and 55 per cent of us own between one and five pairs of trainers. A quarter of our readers owns between one and five pairs of high heels, and only 22 per cent of us don't own a skirt.
Seventy-six per cent of readers spend £10 and more per month on underwear - and Marks & Spencer is the preferred outlet from which to buy, with nearly half of all readers buying their smalls there. Ninety-five per cent of us wear a bra. Forty-seven per cent of readers prefer to wear hipster shorts, 37 per cent wear briefs, only 17 per cent wear boxers, and a valiant one per cent of us goes commando. This survey was conducted in winter, however.
Fifty-four per cent of us spend over £10 a month on accessories, with nearly one in four of us buying these from Topshop. Three out of four readers wear make-up, and half of us tend to buy our slap at Boots. We do, however, occasionally splash out and buy Clinique, Benefit, Chanel and Clarins cosmetics for ourselves - because we're worth it.

Fifty-nine per cent of readers described their personal style as casual, 35 per cent as relaxed, 33 per cent as feminine, 32 per cent as smart - and only
23 per cent as boyish.

And yet the haute couture fashion labels which we aspire to wearing bear a distinctively smart, tailored, androgynous and classical stamp - Calvin Klein, DKNY, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana and Gucci. Not for us the frills and excesses of Christian Lacroix or the conservative feminine tailoring of Chanel, it seems.

The overall picture that these surveys present is that we want it all - a family, house, car, travel, leisure, cultural products and experiences, a well-furnished home, access to information technology, clothes, cosmetics and fitness. And we're prepared to spend on all of these things.

So, why do advertisers continue to ignore the lesbian market? Why don't we see images of ourselves, our families, lifestyles, culture, etc, reflected in commercial media? Why do we simply not exist within the minds of advertising moguls and brand engineers? Sit up and take note, ad exec folk - we have more money than the average heterosexual women you target, we spend it, and we're a very loyal market, especially to lesbian-friendly brands. It's high time you educated yourselves about us, isn't it?

Top five high street clothing outlets at which DIVA readers shop:

1. H&M for clothes
2. Next
3. GAP
4. Marks & Spencer
5. Topshop

If money were no object, we'd shop at:

1. Calvin Klein/ DKNY
2. Armani
3. Dolce & Gabbana
4. Gucci