A study conducted by Nielsen NetView finds that during the month of August, 56.1% of vistors to music sites were women. Although many of those women didn't buy music online -- only 15.6% of respondents over 18 said they purchased music on the Web within the past six months (and, notably, only 16% purchased music offline in that same period) -- they represent the majority of users of AOL Music and Yahoo! Music. And age wasn't a determinant for usage:

Women 35-60 make up about 1/3 of visitors to music sites; with women ages 35-49 making up the largest group. More than 14.5 million women within that demo visited online music sites in August or 19.2% of all male or female visitors to music sites during the month.

I have to imagine that the undertaking of this study, and the coverage of its findings, means there's a widely held, misguided belief that women are not fully aware of the Web and its many uses. And that they're iffy on music. Which strikes me as outdated thinking. Anyway, I guess this proves, once and for all, that women like music and the Internet.

Now maybe we can do a study to determine whether women use their iPods to play music, or if they mostly prefer to use them as paperweights. [Hypebot]