WHAT IS PINK TAX

Hi, Welcome back! 

I made a poll on Instagram and let my followers decide the topic of my next post. The winner was "Pink Tax", a topic I am excited to discuss. 

For those of you who don't know, "Pink Tax" refers to the tendency for products marketed toward women to be more expensive than those marketed toward men. Although this is a well-known phenomenon, manufacturers tend to justify this price increase by stating female products have more expensive packaging, formula, and fragrance in comparison to male alternatives. Although this must be considered, it is also proven that women pay considerably more a year on the same household products.

In New York, a government study titled "The Cost of Being a Female Consumer" analysed 800 products from nearly 100 brands. These products were gender specific, meaning they are the same product but tailored to men and women separately.  This study found that, on average, personal care products targeted at women were 13% more expensive than similar men's products. Woman's accessories and clothing were up to 8% more expensive. Another American study titled "How Gender-Based Pricing Hurts Women's Buying Power" also found that the dry cleaning of women's shirts was upwards of 90% more expensive than men's shirts, even though there is often less fabric. 

A UK study titled "Pink Tax Today: How Much Extra do Women and Girls Pay for Everyday Essentials", found that women's deodorant was on average 8.9% more expensive than the male alternative. Now, I don't know about you, but for someone who is clearly far too small-minded and easily lead to buy a product for function rather than aesthetics, I couldn't care less what colour my deodorant canister is and often buy the "male version" anyway.

As this "Tax" has been around for decades it is important that we consider the closing pay gap alongside this. Pink tax dates back to 1990's at least and since then the UK pay Gap has decreased from 30% to 8.3%. Meaning for a long time women were getting paid considerably less and still paying more for basic everyday items. 

This issue doesn't stop with adults, I found from the same UK article that children's items are also affected by this. 71% of parents believe that girls are charged more for items that really should be considerably cheaper for any gender, such as school uniforms. (But that's another, completely different issue).

Item	Girls	Boys	% increase
School Shirts	£6.93	£6.55	2.73%
School Trousers	£9.00	£8.76	1.30%
5 Pack of Socks	£5.44	£5.30	5.8%
5 Pack of Underwear	£9.35	£9.23	2.64%

Although these price increases are a matter of pence, they add up and must be addressed. Why are companies making a difference between girls and boys and can it be justified when girls’ clothing items are using less of the same fabric? In this case, No.

Toys are affected by this as well. I found an article on “Netmums” from December that states – Pink toys, books, and games are at least 5% more expensive than any other colour according to an audit of toys conducted by Starling Bank.

While I understand any gender can play with toys of all colours, it is important to consider that pink is systematically targeted at girls and that although manufacturers/retailers do not come out and blatantly say this, they still predominantly encourage it through their advertising and marketing.

In my opinion, “Pink Tax” is just another manifestation of the correlation between gender discrimination and capitalism. It is a way for businesses to exploit the backward pressures of society for their benefit without considering the families and people it is affecting. Pink Tax must be abolished to achieve equality and if this means colour, fragrance and packaging changes then so be it. If there are people who disagree with this they can still purchase "fancy" versions but it definitely should not be assumed that women have to pay more for the same thing.   

Rebecca x