Covers of Radio News depicted humorous situations of women deploring their men's obsession with the new science.
According to research by Michael Brown and Corley Dennison in 1998, women disliked homemade radio receivers' clutter; electrical parts were left exposed after assembly, multiple wet-cell batteries leaked corrosive battery acid, and a cable spaghetti of wires connected everything.
[7] A way of fitting radio into a home's existing decor was disguising receivers as furniture, a topic discussed in the press as early as 1923.
[7] As women increasingly influenced radio purchases, and the devices moved from the man's den to the living room, a 1927 article in Radio Broadcast stated that a "receiver, to be fully appreciated by the female half of the domestic republic, must be encased in housings which are esthetically as well as technically satisfactory".
[8] Circa 1930 elaborate cabinets became less common as newer, smaller table radios became commodities, rendering the issue of gender moot.