The pink tax is a completely bonkers excuse for retailers to make money. If you aren’t familiar with the term, the “pink tax” is exactly that: a tax applied to pink items, or more explicitly female-marketed products, that isn’t applied to gender-neutral or male versions of the same products. Now, you might be thinking… Duh, the entire point of selling products is to make money. It’s not like this is a real, discriminatory issue. However, the facts say differently. Just one example of this phenomenon was uncovered in the UK retailer Boots. In 2010, they were called out for the difference in pricing between their store-brand disposable razors. The female razors were selling for £2.99 for 8 while the male razors were £1.49 for 10. That is not an insignificant jump, especially for what is essentially the exact same product. Okay, then what if they aren’t the same product? Woman’s products are generally perceived as being much more sophisticated than the equivalent men’s product. Body lotions are richer, deodorant has super-secret magical properties to keep us smelling fresh for a week, and shampoo …show more content…
Well, one sure-fire way to reach the companies that control the price of products is simple—stop buying the products. If women switch categorically over to the cheaper men’s products, it sends the message that we are no longer willing to pay. The only thing that corporations care about in the end is the bottom-line. Stop spending, and they’ll have to look at why they’re losing profit margins. Another solution is education. Make sure that women know which products are marked-up and provide alternatives that work the same. The French feminist group Georgette Sand has been keeping a website updated since 2014 that documents price differences when spotted in the wild, posting pictures of salons and supermarkets across the country. Awareness of a problem is the first step towards solving