Sir, – I am writing to express concern about the price difference between products aimed at men and women.
Studies show that consumer products marketed at women are sometimes more expensive than comparable products marketed at men. The “pink tax” is used to describe this inequity.
Companies will add flowers and bows to products advertised to women. This is the same product as advertised to men, but the cost is different.
The pink tax does not refer to the cost of items such as lipstick and menstrual products that many women use and pay for throughout their lives. While that is an issue, that is not what I am writing to discuss.
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I find it blatantly discriminatory that I have to pay more simply because I am a woman.
A common rebuttal to the pink tax is often “why can’t women just buy men’s razors?” But it is not about the colour, or the design, but the fact that because it is marketed towards women, companies are allowed to get away with the horrific mark-up in price.
For example, women pay 35 per cent more than men for body wash. Women also pay 10 per cent more for deodorant, 59 per cent more for facial moisturiser, and 78 per cent more for razors.
As a woman I also pay more for jeans, dry cleaning and haircuts. Across many industries, women pay more than men an unimaginable 42 per cent of the time.
We need to stop companies from charging women more and from hiding behind the excuse of scents and colours. – Yours, etc,
ADRIANA CULLINANE,
Student, Sacred Heart Secondary School,
Clonakilty,
Co Cork.