Just when you think society was making progress on women’s issues, the corner store proves you wrong.
In December, an investigation by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that in a study of nearly 800 products – from toys to personal items like shampoo – many were priced differently for men and women. Men’s razors went for $14.99, for example, while the same razors marketed toward women were being sold for $18.49. A pink Radio Flyer children’s scooter in pink was double the price of a red “boys’” version. In total, the investigation found that of the products they looked at, items were priced on average 7% more for women than those for men.
A report this month on products in the UK found something very similar: when it came to the same products marketed differently for men and women, there was a whopping 37% difference in price. Beauty products, toys, everything. It doesn’t even get better as you age: adding insult to injury, women are even charged more for adult diapers.
Beyond the profound unfairness of having to pay more for the same products (while making less money, to boot!) there’s something quite frustrating about the fact that shopping is something that has long been used to paint women as frivolous and financially irresponsible.
A wife coming home with shopping bags and a stressed out looking husband is an image we’re all familiar with, for example. Women are also disproportionately targeted by advertising, told that we need more – especially in the area of beauty – if we’re not to be hideous hags too made-under to leave the house. Then they charge us more for all of it.
Since it seems women have been overpaying for everyday items, perhaps it’s time that drugstores and clothing shops even it out by making some products that men use more often than women more expensive. Spread the inequality around!
I am sure that every woman in America would be grateful, for example, if we were somehow able to make the noxious Axe body spray more expensive – preferably prohibitively so, so that no person ever again is needlessly subjected to the wafting scent of desperation and dirty frat house floors. The same goes for the price of aftershave. In fact, we could make anything that smells like sandalwood or Old Spice cost double the price of floral-scented soaps.
And, since women have historically been responsible for and spent out-of-pocket for birth control, (until recently – thanks, Obama!) maybe condoms should be priced at $10 a piece. That would come with the added bonus of men finally realizing the cost women bear for hormonal birth control (the cost of the pill without insurance is more than three times the lifetime cost of using condoms).
Or perhaps we could jack up the price of boxer shorts to $50 a pair. Though that might have the unintended consequence of men not changing out their underwear as often as they should, so ... never mind.
Fine. Gouging men is a terrible idea. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that pricing products based on gender isn’t just discriminatory, it’s silly. A razor is a razor, a pen is a pen – no matter who is using it. If only manufacturers and stores realized as much.
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