You want room 12A, next door.
(Abuse is here.)
Because she has to go to two sections of the store to get stuff instead of one. Because she has to actively fight marketing that is directed towards her sensibilities.
Men don’t have to do this. It’s extremely rare for a man to have to peruse the women’s section of the store to see if the feminine version is cheaper, and decide if he’s willing to go that route in order to save a few bucks.
Men have to actively fight marketing that targets their sensibilities. All the time.
I know it’s common for people now to believe contrary opinions are abuse e, but i don’t think we’ve even approached abuse in this thread.
It’s also worth pointing out that women drive a healthy majority of consumer spending. They are completely capable of putting an end to a pink tax on their own, if they really want to.
I read the thread. I do not find it to support the idea of a pink tax. Even putting aside the issue of whether such a thing would constitute a tax.
If the issue is one of paying more for the same thing, that is not the case.
There is a claim that women pay more for car repairs, and a cite is provided to support this. I read the cite. It doesn’t say what it is claimed to say. The study was designed to determine optimum bargaining strategies for people seeking car repairs. Optimum strategies are different for men and women, but the implication that prices are lower for men is not supported. Men get better prices amongst those who offer no price expectation. Women get better prices when asking for reductions in the initial quote.
So, moving on to the cite regarding dry cleaning, which is a report from CBS News. I impugn their journalistic standards. The report is a lie. The claim is that women were made to pay substantially more while purchasing the same service a relation to a “virtually identical” shirt. They show receipts they obtained from those businesses which charged them different rates. If you pause and zoom in you will see that the receipt lists to item subject to higher prices as “blouse”. A shirt and a fitted blouse are different things, and require different equipment to dry clean and press, and it requires significantly more human labour, hence a much higher price. It would seem the phrase “virtually identical” covers a multitude of sins.
As far as barbers’ shops go, I have never seen one which has a flat rate for each sex, and thus far the standard of evidence for that claim has been “I seen it”, so I feel no need to go further.
If we’re to branch out from the claim of higher prices for the same items or services into costs associated with social expectations then I expect to be equally unconvinced. Of course if you ignore similar expectations on men you can make a point, but it won’t be honest.
Can you cite an example? I just looked and for every niche, there was a cheaper choice for men’s.
Cheapest women (or just Pink) $0.20 per razor
Cheapest men’s: $0.13 per razor
Similar results when comparing name brand disposable (Gillete 3 blade disposable, mens $1.25, women’s $1.37), and razor cartridges.
WTH do you think the point of this thread is?
Every point you think you’re making has already been addressed multiple times in this thread. Just read the first 30 posts, where I cite an article about it and read that article.
There was a cite from the Christian Science monitor as well. If you’re just going to ignore cites, I think we can all safely ignore your posts.
Do you know what the difference is between a “shirt” and a “blouse” to a dry cleaner? Which side the buttons are on. I read one of these articles way back when the research was first done. The shirts were “virtually identical” except for being mirror images of each other. And you are right, the machine that presses men’s shirts is designed to expect men’s buttons.
Why do you suppose that is? And why can’t the dry cleaner turn the blouse inside out to press it, putting the buttons on the other side? As best as I can tell, the answer is because they can get away with charging women more.
So if women are responsible for the market they drive (and seem to want, as a majority), what’s the problem?
The minority of women who don’t agree with it can shop better, or buy mens products, since they don’t seem to have the same priorities as the majority of women. Problem solved.
I don’t happen to have a dry cleaning ticket around - but every one I can think of had “men’s” items listed together and “women’s” items listed together. And the was no “women’s shirt” - only “blouse” . This would be a blouse on every dry cleaning ticket I’ve seen if I brought in in - but maybe not if my son did.
Women have another burden regarding clothes, or so my wife tells me: sizing is not standard. If I need a pair of 34" x 31" jeans, I’ll get the same sized pants, whether I’m buying Levi’s or Wranglers or Dickie’s. A Van Heusen 16" collar is the same as a Polo 16" collar is the same as an LL Bean 16" collar.
Not so with her; an Ann Taylor size 12 top can be very different from a Lane Bryant size 12 or a Kate Spade size 12. So whereas I can go into a store, grab a pair of jeans, and be done, she has to spend time trying different clothes on, just to make sure she gets the right fit. Not a tax on her money, like the pink and blue razors; but a significant tax on her time.
Men have to spend time if they want to wear tailor fitted clothes the way many women do. And they’ll pay more for it in time and money, the same way women do.
It just so happens that more men than women don’t care about wearing clothes that look like they were tailor made. So the clothes are cheaper and easier to find. This is to be expected. It makes sense. No one is getting scammed.
Actually , it’s worse. I might need size 12 in one Ann Taylor top but a size 10 or 14 in a different Ann Taylor top.
Stepping back, one reason for higher prices for women is more variety of women’s stuff. The press for “men’s shirts” was cost effective, despite the capital cost of getting it, because the dry cleaner had a whole lot of virtually identical shirts to press, whereas there is more variety among women’s shirts. It’s just bad design that the “standard” machine is handed, and can’t press a woman’s shirt even when her shirt is virtually identical to a man’s shirt. No doubt because the machine was designed by a man, and it never occurred to him to even think that shirts might button on the other side.
And I did once find nearly identical products where the women’s version was cheaper. I used to buy a shoe that came in both men’s and women’s sizes. I often bought the men’s version, because the 7.5W fit me, whereas in women’s I needed an 8.5WW, and the shop often didn’t carry the extra wide sizes. But when they did, it was a couple bucks cheaper, despite being identical. I think the materials must have made up enough of the cost that the larger average size of the men’s shoe cost them more than the women’s.
My waist can be anywhere between 40" and 42", depending on the brand; combine this variable sizing & difficulty finding the right waist with 34" legs and you get the reason why I tend to buy 44" × 34" online.
I can always wear a belt but I can’t shorten my legs.
Completely missed the point of my post, didn’t you? She’s not talking about evening gowns or fitted suits; she’s talking about simple T-shirts. Women’s clothes don’t have standard sizing - that’s a burden that men don’t have to put up with. Imagine a J. Crew polo shirt is twice the size of a Land’s End polo, but the LL Bean polo was 1/3 smaller than either, but - and here’s where the “pink tax” comes in - they were all labelled “medium”. That would be annoying, yes? That would impose a burden on you, yes? That’s what women have to put up with.
That is the case for mens clothing as well, if you want fitted clothes. Perhaps you’ve never bought a fitted shirt, or jeans? I can see why you’d miss my point then, too.