The Pink Tax

Mischief

Mischief

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Gender price discrimination is nothing new; U.S. states have been independently studying what has become known as the “pink tax” since the early nineties. In 1995, California became the first state to legally bar gender bias in service pricing following a 1994 study that revealed significant “gender taxes” in laundry and hairstyling services cost $1,351 per year. Studies from government agencies in Florida, Connecticut and South Dakota have found similar results.

A Consumer Reports article published in 2010 advised women to forgo drugstore products marketed towards their gender— since they could be up to twice as expensive as their for-men counterparts and yet essentially contain the same ingredients. While one spokesperson claimed a male-oriented and female-oriented deodorant had “completely different formulations” that validated a price premium, Consumer Reports noted the same exact percentage of the same exact active ingredient in each. Which, frankly, stinks.
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How Gender Pricing Is Costing Women At the Drugstore
 
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Mischief said:
How Gender Pricing Is Costing Women At the Drugstore
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I heard about this a few years ago, so annoying! I remember years ago (1980s) when I was working at IBM, I went to get some work clothes, and the store wanted to charge for alterations. I knew my dad's suits were altered for free there, so I kicked up a fuss, and they altered my suits free.

They told me that they normally charged for women's and not for men's alterations. When I asked why, they said women would pay, men would rather wear the ill-fitting suits than pay to alter. Lol.
 
Ha!

It also costs more to have a woman's shirt laundered than a man's, even if it's the same material and cut.
 
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Once I was shopping with my sister in Costco and looking for a new electric razor. My sister bought me a men's razor which was cheaper than the women's razor, and she said it was made better and worked better, too.
 
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I use a men's razor too. With toiletries I use whatever is cheapest and vegan, it doesn't bother me if it is "meant" to be for a man.

I also think women's clothing is of an inferior quality to men's clothing. I often buy men's clothing whenever I can get away with it like t-shirts and shorts for nightwear or just basic black jumpers as they last longer.
 
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If the same thing costs more for the woman's version than the man's version, one would think that women would just buy the man's version.

Sometimes it is the packaging that accounts for some difference, rather than the product itself. For example, women's shaving cream cans are made with more costly aluminum content than men's shaving cream cans. Why? Because more women are likely to keep their shaving cream cans in the shower, thus making the cans more vulnerable to rust.

I used to keep my shaving cream cans inside a "cozy" to help prevent rust, even though I kept my cans on top of the sink.
 
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