Cartoon created by Callista Murray-Wright
What is the Pink Tax?
Have you ever walked into a store and found two products, one for men the other for women? When the price for the men's product is $5.84 while the one for women is $6.84? This is the pink tax where women on average have to pay more for being a woman, even if they're buying the same thing!
This Pink Tax is not necessarily a tax but rather a system of discriminatory pricing on products based on gender or color. The Pink Tax costs the average woman over $1.3k a year and impacts all aspects of daily life from shopping for necessities to even dry cleaning. This is because a few years ago, there wasn’t equality between men and women. Men were valued more than women.
One of the most accurate product comparisons are merchandise of similar quality from the same company and in these comparisons, gender bias is prevalent among many top clothing stores. For example, the average cost of a woman’s pair of jeans at one popular retailer is $62.75 while the same jeans ment for men at the same store cost $57.09 a 10 percent price increase for the woman just because of the pink tax.
Depending on where she lives and by the place you work, by the time a woman turns 30, she will have paid about $15,600 dollars more for the same products!( this is counting from the average amount paid more per year, starting at age 18.) And, if this wasn't enough, the wage gap between men and women is so big it will take over 100 years to fix it!
Sources
New York City Department of Consumer Affairs