Why Aren’t Women Up in Arms Over the Pink Tax?

Shopping is my cardio.

Carrie Bradshaw

I love shopping, but I’m a bargain hunter. I’m sure it’s in my DNA, inherited from the Supreme Being of Bargain Hunters, my late father Joe. If an item isn’t at least 50% I won’t even waste my time looking at it because I’m sure that Joe’s circling around overhead, ever watchful of my purchases at the check-out. And, I surely wouldn’t want to disappoint him.

Joe, in his own very politically incorrect way, always told me that women were all dumb broads when it came to shopping. He’d rant on ad infinitum about how women always paid more for the same item than a man would because they were stupid consumers. In spite of the fact that I would always feign disgust when he’d say that women pay more for the packaging and advertising than the product, I knew he was right. In fact studies have shown that indeed women are seduced by packaging and advertising and as a result we willingly pay more for products than men do.

This gender pricing has become known as the Pink Tax. CBC’s Marketplace, a consumer rights watchdog television show, has also examined gender gouging, revealing that while some U.S. states prohibit so-called gender pricing, no such law exists in Canada. Even so, in 2015 the Department of Consumer Affairs in New York City did a study of gender pricing in New York City. On average, DCA found that women’s products cost 7% more than similar products for men. The largest disparity was found in hair care: shampoo, conditioner and styling products. Women paid 48% more.

In a 2015 New York Times article, Tony Sosnick, told a reporter, “If we could charge $60 for our Glycolic Facial Cleanser, we would do it, but we can’t. We charge half that because the market isn’t at a point yet where men spend what women spend on products.” Gentry Ford, vice-president of marketing for Slate Cosmetics NYC and an account executive for ReiCura, an ad agency in Toronto, says the difference boils down to necessity versus desire. “Men are very much about need,” she says. “So when it comes to the packaging of beauty products, you’ll notice that men’s products are about practical appeal. What exactly is this product going to achieve for you? Women, however, expect a product to give them an experience and will pay extra for it”.

Women could save money by shopping in the men’s aisles and buying essentially an identical product in plain packaging; but, we don’t. Instead we walk like lambs to slaughter, wandering up and down the well lit aisles where beauty in a jar calls to us. And, we answer the call.

Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.

Oscar Wilde

Make someone smile today.

Geri