So simple, your mother could do it

Female computer users (particularly middle-aged or elderly ones) are often used as a hypothetical or even actual test of ease of use, on the assumption that if such a person can use a program, anyone can. No phrase expresses the meme of female technical ineptitude more neatly than "So simple, even your [grand]mother could do it." This is a very commonly encountered form of condescension and is a frequent trope of sexist advertising portraying technical products as easy to use by showing a female user.

Examples

• Zrusilla remembers: SuSe Linux back around 2000 ran a banner ad campaign claiming it was so simple to install even one's mother could do it. She wrote them a polite but stiff note explaining that her mother taught her to write DOS batch menus, install hard drives, siphon files with LapLink, recover corrupted data and hack licenses with hex editors. To SuSe's great credit, they apologized profusely and pulled the ad.
• Hacker Jargon File: Aunt Tillie: "The archetypal non-technical user, one's elderly and scatterbrained maiden aunt. Invoked in discussions of usability for people who are not hackers and geeks; one sees references to the “Aunt Tillie test”."
• Linux Installation Guide: So easy, even your grandmother could do it!
• Debconf 2 in Toronto: grandmothers used in example (and another example using female secretaries, in the same post)
  • Good followup post by Benjamin Mako Hill
  • Jonathan Walther claims that the grandmother references discriminate against men

Ubuntu

Using women, especially older relatives, as a test of ease-of-use has become an unfortunate trend in the Ubuntu community, to the point where it is beginning to appear in Ubuntu community magazines and core community wikis:

• The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment (Content Consumer): "One way to measure [Ubuntu] usability is to sit your girlfriend in front of a Linux desktop and see what problems she encounters trying to do some normal desktop tasks."
• UbuntuForGrandma
• Ubuntu: I wonder if we’ve all done the Mother test by Martin Owens: "I remember testing Ubuntu on my dear ol’ mum... OK so I wonder if other Canonical staffers and Ubuntu members have tested Ubuntu on their mothers, I’m sure we’ve all done it right?"
  • Response: I wonder who has done the Father test by Melissa Draper
  • Response: in Melissa's comments by Jono Bacon: "I think the general implication is that it refers to a parent, and while it could be called ‘The Parent Test’, some may want to apply it to their grandparents, brothers, sisters or others. As such, I wouldn’t read too much into the name."
• There is a group on Launchpad, the Canonical project management site, called My mom runs ubuntu!: "My mum runs Ubuntu, your's [sic] too? Did you also install Ubuntu on your mum's pc? Join the team for showing this growing user group!" (Launchpad groups are not necessarily endorsed by either Canonical or Ubuntu)