What should we call it? Pink Tax or Marketing Gimmick? Or just plain exploitation? But one thing is obvious that being a female consumer is way costlier!! Even your necessities are perceived as a luxury. If you want to make profits? Just paint it Pink and voila! Now you are ready to charge more money from female customers.
In a nutshell, Pink Tax is just another name of gender pricing. It refers to the extra cost women are paying for a certain service or product, where a male consumer is getting it at half of the price. Now before you ignore it as a trivial issue, today we would dive deeper and would explore every color of the spectrum. So that you know how we are being tricked by the market Moghuls.
How did it start and how is it going?
The pink tax has been around for decades when the U.S. government introduced the sales tax policy between the 1930s and the 1960s. According to Laura Strausfeld, co-founder of PeriodEquity.org- “It was a very different world at a time when [legislators] were figuring out which products to tax and which to exempt”.
One crucial point to remember here is that the pink tax is not an actual tax rather many apparel or clothing and accessories products manufactured for women have higher import tariffs than men’s products.
An article of Bankrate.com published in 2021, reveals some of the contemporary facts on pink tax:
√Pink tax costs women almost $1,351 every year.
√The pink tax starts at birth as even toys that are equivalent except for color/marketing cost more on average for girls.
√Clothes, personal care products, and services are all subject to pink tax.
√Women pay an average of 7% more for identical goods and services than men do.
Data shows the existing discrimination
What not to be confused with?
The “tampon tax,” on the other hand, is that many states impose on feminine hygiene products, a cost that’s largely borne by girls and women for their menstruation products (menstrual cups, sanitary napkins, tampons, panty liners, etc). But this is a separate issue from the pink tax, that many get puzzled about, and although it’s connected, it cannot be used interchangeably. And the pink tax never refers to the expenses of feminine commodities such as lipstick, makeup products that many women use and pay for throughout their lives but that most men do not.
Types of products that come under pink tax!!
The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs assessed 794 different items across 35 product categories, there are multiple items women often spend more for:
Kid’s items: On average, baby girls’ clothing items cost 7% extra. In addition, baby girls’ gadgets like helmets and stuff like scooters and bikes cost 4% more than the baby boy’s versions.
Clothing: For identical items like jeans and formal shirts from the same manufacturers as men’s clothing, women pay 8% more on average.
Personal hygiene or care: This is the industry with the highest markup for women’s products, with products costing an average of 13 ⅝more. This includes items like razors, hair care, deodorant, and body wash.
Home and health care: Products like pain killers, digestive medicine, and others over the VMware are 8% more costly on average for women.
Identical products where women pay more!
How to avoid it!
Here’s how you can easily avoid it. As we know the tradition of choosing pink for girls and blue for boys starts from the time we are born. So, the first thing you can do is-
Introduce your child to gender-neutral toys- let the company’s stop making you a fool by painting a certain thing pink and charge you solely because of that color!
Buy unisex products- products that can be used by both men and women. Like conditioners, shampoo, razor, shower gel, or soap, or just simple deodorants. Buy something that is not targeted for one particular gender only.
pink doesn’t always mean better!
Read product formulations- the best and easiest way to avoid pink tax is by reading the ingredients or formulation label. If they are identical or indifferent then definitely go for the cheaper one, even if they are marketed for another gender!
Buy reusable menstrual options- choose something reusable and recyclable. That’ll be more cost-effective and environment-friendly too.
The world is gradually transforming towards evolving a fairer one, but through this procedure, there will be complications like pink tax, and women need to account for, plan for and strategize their savings to be future-ready!
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Nishat Azad Chua
Intern, content writing department
YSSE
