Written by Emily Cranston
November 9, 2020
Let’s say you are at the store shopping for a few things. You are out of shampoo and conditioner, you need to pick up a few toys for your 5-year-old cousin, your favorite t-shirt needs to be replaced, and your grandparent needs you to pick up some adult diapers for them. You pick out all the items you want and when you get to the checkout the price displayed is $115 – $15 more than you had budgeted for. Now you’ll have to find that money elsewhere or put some of your items back. However, the person in front of you purchased all of the same things, and their total was only $100. How could that be possible?
In this hypothetical scenario, the only difference between the products that you are purchasing and the products that the person in front of you are purchasing is the gender-marketing on the products. In fact, if you picked out the male-marketed bath products, chose boy-targeted toys for your cousin, shopped in the men’s clothing section, and chose male-branded adult diapers you would have had the exact same total as the person in front of you.
This situation is representative of the concept of the “pink tax” found on female marketed products across a multitude of stores. The pink tax describes the higher price on women-marketed products when compared to male-marketed products. In fact, a study was done in New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs that found girl-marketed toys were 11% higher in cost, women’s shirts 15% higher in cost, shampoo products 48% higher, and even women’s adult diapers were more expensive than those targeted to men. This range of overpriced products span not only a variety of products but show that this discriminatory gender-based pricing exists throughout the entire lifespan of product buying for women.
Another study looked at the pink tax across 3,191 personal care items in Canada, and discovered that on average, women are paying 43% more than men. Across all categories of personal care items studied there was a higher price for women-marketed products for hair care, razors, shaving cream and lotion, soaps and bodywash, and deodorant and antiperspirant. The biggest difference was seen in the deodorant and antiperspirant category at an average of $6.85 for women and $10.42 for men. Furthermore, this study attempted to compute the estimated amount of extra expenditure a person buying women-targeted products might spend in a year and at an extra $215 a year, it is not a negligible difference especially when considering what that equates to over an entire lifespan. Furthermore, this seems to be an underestimate of other approximations for the amount more per year a woman may spend. Other articles have cited up to $1300.
One might assume that women-marketed products have special ingredients or purposes that make the difference in price reasonable. However, there are countless examples of how this is often not the case and that the primary difference between the two is often colors or designs on the packaging. Some examples include a pack of razor cartridges with the only difference being color and anti-fungal cream with the exact same ingredients except one is designed for athlete’s foot and the other for yeast infections. With this clear price gouging illustrated in many products coupled with the lack of apparent societal changes likely to alter this fact in the near future, it is evermore clear that the onus of debunking these “special” women’s products rests solely on the everyday consumer. Today’s society teaches that women have unique needs which can only be met with specially tailored female designed products. In reality, just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you need to pick the pink floral box to treat your special women’s skin. The truth is that this is only what the companies selling you these products want you to think.
Unfortunately, the be-all and end-all solution is not to just buy male or unisex products. Why should someone be penalized for wanting the pink razor over the black one? Why should someone’s choices be limited to the arctic breeze and pine scents if they want a fair price? It is a ridiculous concept that any scent or color is inherently linked to a gender but the world we live in perpetrates this concept and many companies are more than willing to make a profit off it. The greater restructuring of societal values pertaining to gender cannot be solved overnight and if a comprehensive solution were to be found, the buy-in of many governments and controlling bodies would have to be heavily involved. However, a good place to start at the individual-level is to simply raise awareness of this issue amongst your peers. Although it may take some extra research and time, there are companies out there who do provide equal pricing, and it is worth a second-thought to support businesses that are not continuing to contribute to gender-based discrimination.
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