It’s your own thread – It would be nice if you read the responses. Yes, more than half of the cleaners that CBS News checked charged more for the same shirt.
Most women buy over the counter. I’m pretty sure that some men buy from salons. That really isn’t the issue.
And what RitterSport said.
It’s not necessarily that easy, though. In my example (post #23), I bet many people would have been fooled by the fact that a man’s three-month supply was $15/month whereas the woman’s was $11-something a month. I had to look really closely to figure out why the woman’s stuff was more expensive. You know they did that on purpose to fool people.
It’s also not necessarily obvious, unless you take the time to do some research, that there isn’t an important difference between the male and female product versions. After all, we think of male pattern baldness, women’s hair thinning after menopause and so forth as gender-specific phenomena. So why would your average layperson be expected to automatically know that there is not important difference between the male and female Rogaine? We can’t all be armchair endocrinologists.
I used to buy the woman’s Rogaine. But then I read (on our very own ignorance-fighting board, aptly enough) that one woman’s doctor told her to just use the men’s product as it was more concentrated. And then I noticed that the minoxidil is advertised as not containing any hormones.
That’s when I realized I could safely buy the cheaper men’s version and not worry about it. But even a relatively smart (I hope) cheapskate like me got conned into the more expensive stuff for a while.
Everyone, regardless of gender, should try to be a smart shopper. But we all get tired, careless or indifferent from time to time. Women pay a greater price for those lapses than men do, and that is unfair.
Re: extra fringe and whatnot on tops, my tuxedo shirts cost more to dry clean because of this, but honestly most of the tops the women in my office wear (when we were in the office) are as plain as my office shirts. It’s a very grey suit kind of place.
I normally wouldn’t have a clue about this but my wife asked me to scout office wear when she was changing careers a few jobs back.
I asked my last dry cleaner and she said it depended on whether they could machine press the shirt or if they had to hand press it. Full-shouldered, no extra material, minimal pleating, and not too big or small, then they could machine press it. If not, they charged more. Whether she was feeding me a line, I don’t know.
The best way to tell would be to have your wife go in and ask the same questions.
True, although we don’t live there anymore. I (was – now I work in gym shorts) getting pick-up/delivery dry cleaning since we moved, and most everything she wears can be machine washed.
In any case, there probably are some dry cleaners charging fairly. The question is whether most of them are doing so.
The two studies cited in this thread apparently found in one case slightly under half and in the other study something over half. I would say that if approximately half of such businesses are still doing this, that’s definitely enough to be a problem. And many people don’t have easy access to lots of different dry cleaners; so aside from the fact that in single-gender households, or households in which only one person’s clothing of a given type usually gets dry cleaned, they may not realize this is happening: ‘go shop somewhere else’ may not be a practical option.
I just checked amazon for deodorants, and the prices seem about the same. Same with most toys.
Adults womens clothing costs more than mens, of course- but there is a reason for that. 90% of Women’s clothing is taken off the shelves and sold to discounters after only a few months, as it is out of style. That is very expensive to the manufacturers and the retailers.
OTOH, mens shirts, pants ect, say the same, year after year, with a few new items coming in, and of course warmer/cooler clothes for the season. A men’s dress shirt of s certain type can be sold for years and years, often a decade or more. Hanes tshirts havent changed in decades, except maybe becoming tagless. etc etc.
I just checked on amazon, and similar disposable razors- were more expensive for men.
Yep. Mens 'fashion"- at least for working clothes- is pretty stagnant. Ties change, but you just cycle thru them.
as for women dressing for women:
That is very well known.
I buy all of my hair care products from a single salon in France at $300-$400 per 5 ounce bottle. My wife rummages through our neighbor’s garbage for leftover shampoo.
So what? How are you imagining that relating to this topic? If the form of the social pressure is that it comes through women, then do you think it isn’t oppressive? Whether it comes through women or men, the beauty standards exists for women, and has real consequences. Also, why do you think women might try to enforce beauty standards on other women? Do you think it has nothing to do with men or misogyny?
They may well be priced differently now, I have no idea. When the whole thing of different prices for women’s vs men’s came out many years ago, there was a considerable difference in price between the pink ladies’ razors and the men’s razors.
I just checked and, comparing apples to apples, saw the opposite. The Schick Quattro, e.g., has women’s and men’s versions, with the women’s being more expensive.
Personally, I dress for the weather.
If women oppress women it cannot be a “pink tax” in any way. Social pressures will exist, they can’t be erased. So, if women complain about the price of makeup, because men don’t have to spend on it or that they hairs-care is more expensive, it’s because they want to impress each other, it’s “men” or “societal pressure”, it’s themselves. This is something we men cannot help much with.
Most women’s trousers/pants/skirts still don’t have proper pockets. Women prefer fit over practicality, apparently. Go tell them to switch.
This makes me crazy! I know no women who don’t want pockets. I refuse to own pants that don’t have them. This makes pants buying options extremely limited.
In support of this post, and of women’s desire for pants with pockets:
Yes, for many children’s toys it is true.
Here are some examples of other items with different prices based solely on the color/gender marketing of the packaging, such as store-brand “foam earplugs” colored blue at $4.59 for 14 pairs, and the exact same earplugs colored pink and labeled “women’s earplugs” at $5.29 for 12 pairs.
It’s a Catch-22: girls and women are incessantly told that they’re supposed to have the “pinkified”, “feminine” versions of things whose “men’s” versions are just “standard”. And then the women get charged more for the “feminine” version.
To be fair, the same phenomenon does exist in a reverse direction for products that are considered innately “women’s stuff”—such as household cleaning products, bath soap, etc.—which can then be modified into a more stereotypically “manly” version to sell at a premium.
For example, you can buy alcoholic drinks called Mangria and Brosé if you think it’s too “girly” to be seen with ordinary sangria or rosé wine.
If keeping random small objects in a small box seems embarrassingly fussy and feminine, you can buy a Man Tin proclaiming that your small objects are “leads and screws” and other pointless (but manly!) stuff that you “must keep”. This box doesn’t contain any seashells or beach glass or sentimental souvenirs, guys, it holds SCREWS! Can’t get more manly than that.
If you want to wash your skin but you think a bottle of Dove brand moisturizing body wash at $8.94 for 34 fluid ounces looks kinda effeminate, you can buy the far more rugged-looking steel-gray hi-tech-dot-fade-patterned flask of Dove Men+Care Clean Comfort Body and Face Wash at a mere $7.34 for 23.5 fluid ounces.
So yeah, if overpricing “feminized” packaging of standard items to sell to women can be considered a “performative femininity tax”, then there does exist a corresponding “performative masculinity tax” in macho-fied packaging of standard items to sell to men.
Does “men’s” deodorant make you not-smell like a man, as opposed to making you not-smell like a woman? 