I’ve got a brand-new hairdo….and it cost me three times what my husband paid for his! Your hair is longer, you might argue, or it required more styling. And if that were the case, I might concede point, but it’s not. My husband had been growing his hair for Locks of Love and so had over 10 inches cut off and the remaining few inches styled. I, on the other hand, had a measly ½ to 1 inch trimmed off the ends of my relatively short, straight bob. That doesn’t matter to the salon, though—I’m a woman, so I pay more.
I wish I could say that this injustice is the only instance in which women pay more for a product or service simply by virtue of their sex, but it’s not. In fact, Consumer Reports compared six beauty product pairs in which one was specifically targeted at women, and in all cases, the women’s product cost more—sometimes over 50 percent more!
So why the price difference? Sometimes, there’s a legitimate reason. The shaving gels they compared, for example (Barbasol Soothing Aloe for men and Barbasol Pure Silk for women), are essentially the same product, but with a few distinctions. The women’s version has more fragrance, and the can has a rust-resistant bottom, since the majority of women like to shave in the shower. Therefore, the product costs more to produce and needs to be sold at a higher price.
Okay, that seems to make sense. We’re paying more for the convenience of shaving in the shower and the privilege of smelling nicer than a man. I can live with that. I can’t, however, live with paying over 30 percent more for a body wash that is exactly the same as the men’s version except for what the company calls “skin sensation technology” (which, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing).
My husband may not like it when I buy myself the same razor as him, but as long as the men’s version costs $3.00 less and is the same as the women’s (which it is, minus the pink color and a couple of ridges on the handle they call “extra grip technology”), he’s going to have to live with it.
Lest you think this incongruity exists only in the beauty world girls, consider the recent finding that women of childbearing age tend to pay between 20 and 50 percent higher premiums for health insurance than men of comparable age and health. And, of course, there’s still the problem of wage disparity: Women earn an average of 78 cents to every dollar earned by men.
We may have burned our bras and traded our aprons for business suits, but women still aren’t fully equal. Paying a few dollars more for soap or a haircut may not seem like that big a deal, but when that price difference isn’t justified by any significant difference in the product or service, it’s another inequality that needs to be challenged.
amen,sister!