Dell’s ham-fisted attempt to reach out to women appears to have gone, well, tits up.

A couple of days ago the company launched a site called (if you’re eating your dinner, you may want to look away from the screen now) Della. This mine of patronising twaddle included a section called “Tech Tips” in which Dell delivered advice on what the fair womenfolk might choose to use their netbook for, including pearls of wisdom such as:

3. Eat better: Find recipes online, store and organize them, and watch cooking videos.
4. Get organized: ‘Remember the Milk’ is a free, tweakable online task manager that’s easy to use.

It seems a number of women took exception to Dell’s 1950s-tinted view of their lifestyle and (after they’d finished the hoovering and ironing their husbands’ shirts) fired off angry emails to Dell HQ, reminding the PC maker that modern life doesn’t actually reflect an episode of Happy Days.

Clearly bruised by the criticism, Dell has made a number of judicious edits to its Tech Tips page, which now encourages women to consider much more neutral activities such as reading eBooks and adding storage with memory cards.

Indeed, an “editor’s note” at the top of the page reads: “Some of you have read this article over the last several days and will notice a few modifications. You spoke; we listened. Thank you for your ongoing feedback.”

They listened? Bang goes our theory the site editor was a man.  

(Nicole Kobie, from our sister-site (no pun intended) also has an excellent summary of the Della fiasco)