Pink Tax
Essay Introduction: We have only discovered ourselves repeating history after so many years. Even in the Twenty First Century, we still face social problems that you’d assume would have improved. When people mention “social issue”, some would automatically think Police Brutality, or some might even think Racism, both of which are still very serious problems that are only growing worse. Women’s rights were the first social issue that came to mind when I thought about it. As a woman, I believe it’s crucial to educate both other women and myself on one current issue that some people might not be aware of, which is Pink Tax. The Pink Tax is a system of discriminatory pricing for goods and services based on gender.
Source #1
Summary: This cite focuses more on women and the discrimination they face, particularly when it comes to purchasing “luxury goods” like tampons and sanitary pads. It offers information on the lifetime costs of tampons for women as well as the typical earnings of women in comparison to men.
Exigence: Boxed articulates the injustice of gender-based pricing. A group of female coworkers presented the Pink Tax to Chieh, CEO of Boxed. Then he discovered that it was being continued by them at Boxed. They then changed their pricing so that all of their clients, regardless of gender, pay the same costs for the same goods. An average American woman will spend $1,773.33 on tampons in her lifetime, according to data in the boxed inserts. We are then shown a list of the 35 states that impose a “tampon tax.”
Purpose: The goal of this blog is to demonstrate to readers how their business viewed this scenario and how they transformed it. They clearly state that they want all of their customers to be treated fairly, and part of that means making sure that men and women pay the same price for the same item.
Audience: Due to Boxed’s decision to take a stand by altering their prices, the audience consists primarily of Boxed consumers. But it also applies to all women so that we are aware of the injustice that is being done to women.
Genre: Boxed, Inc. is an American online and mobile wholesale retailer that doesn’t require membership and allows immediate delivery of large goods through the Boxed app or website. They created a blog that shows their care when it comes to Pink Tax.
Stance: The price disparity between men and women on certain products is known as the “pink tax.” By making their prices comparable on an ounce or per unit basis, Boxed is making a statement. They want to spur gender equality.
Source #2
Summary: Five separate women each contributed to this essay. This was created so that ladies like us would understand the pink tax better and gain new perspectives on it. We see data from the American Department of Labor in this source. Which leads me to think that this piece is based more on fact than opinion. They also target men; it’s not only women. The “Pink Tax,” in their opinion, is more gender-neutral.
Exigence: The purpose of the investigation described in this article was to ascertain whether the pink tax applied to a broad range of personal care products. To assess gendered pricing across various categories, they looked at over 3000 different products. According to their findings, gender-pricing is not often applied to all products or consistently discriminatory against women.
Purpose: This article’s goal is to demonstrate that this injustice still exists. With their wide range of studies, they are able to demonstrate how many various things women purchase without realizing they are paying more for them.
Audience: This is written specifically for women to let them know about the price differences. Additionally, they want women to understand that this is still a problem in our society.
Genre: This is a scholarly article that was revised by Stephanie Gonzalez Gittar, Liz Grauerholz, Erin N. Kidder, Shamekia D. Daye and Megan McLaughlin. It presents information about the recent data on Pink Tax.
Stance: The average price per product, average volume per item, and price per ounce by gender found by the authors in this article reveal that four products have significantly different average prices, eight products have different volume/amounts, but only three have different pricing per ounce by gender, one of which is more expensive for men than for women. Their findings show that gender branding is a critical marketing strategy for personal care product
Source #3
Summary: Maclean introduces a publication by Anne Kingston that discusses how difficult it is to label some goods as “unisex.” She continues by giving examples of parents who teach their children what is appropriate for boys and girls in various situations. Similar to how a boy is identified by the color blue and a girl by the color pink.
Exigence: The proprietor of the Toronto hair salon Fox & Jane, Kristen Rankin, is mentioned by Anne Kingston. She claims that Procter & Gamble’s European division had teamed with Rankin. Rankin campaigns in Europe for an end to the long-standing discriminatory practice of charging women extra for haircuts. Rankin, who identifies as non-binary and is queer, mentions a generational change by saying that today’s youth are “so much more welcoming and gender-fluid.” According to Rankin, gender has been a source of bias and injustice for far too long. “It’s not fair,” she says, “that women pay more for haircuts, especially if their hair is really short.”
Purpose: In order to bring attention to this injustice, this is done. In particular, when women come in for haircuts, Rankin believed it was crucial for people to be aware of what was happening.
Audience: People who were instructed as children that some things were for guys and some things were for girls make up the target audience for this article. This is also aimed at women, who normally spend more money at the hair salon for haircuts.
Genre: The article is a magazine feature, within Maclean. This was written to reflect a larger community issue, and it addresses it from multiple angles. It also includes interviews with residents.
Stance: Rankin believes that noting degendered hair products, might be the next step. We’re heading toward gender neutrality in everything from haircuts to jumpsuits. Yet not without opposition.
Source#4
Summary: The Editorial Board in the New York Times has showed that the pink tax affects countries other than the United States, such as France. It has made people aware of a shopping injustice: sexist price structures. Letting us know that this is an ongoing issue worldwide.
Exigence: A French novelist named Georgette Sand publishes images of products for men and women side by side, showing the markup on things like toothbrushes, razors, bookbags, and occasionally even scents.
Purpose: Our knowledge of the pink tax’s existence outside of the United States is intended to be a benefit. to demonstrate to us the magnitude and significance of gender inequality and the urgency of the issue. The Editorial Board still finds it difficult to believe that all price differences for seemingly identical products can be explained away in that way, despite the fact that Monoprix also makes the claim that men’s razors are cheap because they sell out quickly and because they are less expensive to produce.
Audience: French women are the target audience here. They display a tweet from France’s minister of state for women’s rights asking, “Is pink a luxury color? Then they discovered that French retailers might be using price discrimination. This may also be directed at American women in order to let them know that there is more gender-based price discrimination than they initially believed.
Genre: On November 12, 2014, the New York Times released this newspaper. With the help of this editorial, we were able to learn how France is likewise coming to terms with price discrimination.
Stance: They think France’s prices are unfair because of the country’s history. Although they were informed that Monoprix had stated that the reason why razors were less expensive was because they were less expensive to produce, they think the issue goes far deeper than that and that this statement may not be true for all French stores.
Conclusion: The issue here is that women typically pay more than men. Women can buy the same looking pants but because it is part of the female section, it costs more. I recently came across this Instagram page, @accessible.politics, that showed some examples of The Pink Tax. I discovered that even the slightest things, like putting a woman on a product’s box, were more expensive than the same item with a man on it. Even something as simple as color. A pink toothbrush might run you $2, while a blue one might set you back $1. I want to know more about why this is even a thing in this society. The majority of women already have to go through paying for menstrual hygiene almost every month, whereas men don’t even have a menstrual cycle. Menstrual products are already as expensive as is. Women do not choose to have this; it is a natural trait. I’m sure we wouldn’t have menstrual cycles or need to purchase these goods if we didn’t have to. The need of spreading the word about the Pink Tax and educating other women was made clear to me as a result of my research. Women typically do more in general and its fairer to us. If you have to buy male products to do it, try to avoid it.
Works Cited:
Boxed. (2019, March 1) Pink Tax: Why Boxed is taking a stand against unfair gender pricing.
https://www.boxed.com/blog/pink-tax. Accessed 24 Sept. 2022.
Guittar, S.G., Grauerholz, L., Kidder, E.N. et al. Beyond the Pink Tax: Gender-Based Pricing
and Differentiation of Personal Care Products. Gend. Issues 39, 1–23 (2022). https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1007/s12147-021-09280-9. Accessed 24 Sept. 2022.
Kingston, Anne. “HIS, HERS, AND EVERYBODY’S.” Maclean’s, vol. 132, no. 12, Jan. 2020, p. 64. Gale OneFile: News,
“The Pink Tax.” New York Times, 13 Nov. 2014, p. NA(L). Gale Academic OneFile,
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/opinion/the-pink-tax.html?searchResultPosition=1 Accessed 1 Oct. 2022
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