women’s fight on pink tax

A couple days ago, I went shopping with my boyfriend since both of us were in need of our usual basic necessities. When we were checking out, I was shocked to see how much more I was spending than him. We each purchased one package of razors and a stick of deodorant of the same exact brand, the only difference being that my items were specifically for women and his were meant specifically for men. I exited the store with the same amount and brand of products as a man and still paid roughly $5 more for these toiletries because of being a woman. This is all thanks to the pink tax.

Pink tax refers to how women are often charged more than men on products or get less than what they are paying for. These higher priced items entail soap, shampoo, earplugs, pencils, dry cleaning services, and many more extraneous products and services. According to Banking Democrat Carolyn B. Maloney, companies claim that there is a higher cost is producing women’s goods or services so that is why women are charged more but there is still an extensive amount of evidence that companies are charging women more for essentially identical items and services. Various companies have been proven to sell the exact same product for a higher price, simply because they colored it pink and labeled it “for women.”

Pictured below is an example of a company distributing a personal care kit identical to one another but charging more for the kit that is dyed pink while being labeled as a “for her” product:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pink-tax-examples_l_5d24da77e4b0583e482850f0

According to Bankrate writer Lane Gillespie, women’s products cost about 7% more than a similar product which was made for men. This contributes to a woman paying about $1,300 more per year than a man solely in pink taxes and $188,000 more than men in their entire lifetime which is completely unfair. No one should have to pay more due to their gender.

Women make about 80% of what their male counterpart earned, according to Banking Democrat Carolyn B. Maloney. So, my question is: Why are women making less than men and still being charged more than them, too? This also plays into why poverty rates among women are so much higher than they are among men, because women are being set up for that economic failure. If women were to be paid equally to men and given that same opportunity for lower prices than their poverty rate would actually be cut in half, according to research done by Maloney.

However, children aren’t immune to this sexist taxing either. Pictured below, is an example of how young girls are even falling victim to pink tax:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pink-tax-examples_l_5d24da77e4b0583e482850f0

A little girl’s bicycle helmet produced and distributed by the exact same company should not be $5 more than the helmet made for a young boy. Each helmet is made for children 3-5 years old with various different cartoon characters upon it, the only difference is the color which gives the impression that one helmet is made for a girl while the other is made for a boy.

Self-identified women, and even young girls, are being set up for failure. Pink tax is targeting the people who have already been proven to make less and rather than helping them with the financial burden, it is instead targeting them and making these people pay more for luxury or basic necessities. Pink tax is an example of how gender inequality is a real-world issue in our society and women are suffering especially from it.