Opinion: A Call for the Removal of the Pink Tax - Ana Lomaka

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Whether it’s hearing a complaint about the price of period products, or seeing a TikTok “life hack” to buy men’s razors because they’re cheaper than women’s, the inconvenience of pricing for women’s products has seeped into the everyday lives of female consumers in the most frustrating way possible. However, the question still remains: why are prices for most women’s products so high in the first place?

The answer lies in the pink tax: an alleged (but very evident) extra amount that women must pay for a majority of services and products that are comparable to men’s. In a 2015 study done by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, it was found that girl’s toys cost more 55% of the time, women’s personal care products cost more 56% of the time, and women’s senior home health products cost more 45% of the time. Therefore, no matter a woman’s age or financial standing, products marketed towards them are nearly always more likely to cost more. However, the reasons for this are essentially useless when looking at the products themselves. In most instances, the only distinctions between said gendered products have been their marketing, with no other drastic differences between the two. It should be noted that this stark increase is almost never present when looking at the pricing of men’s products, with them only having to pay 18% more for products. This isn’t even comparable to the extra 42% that women have to pay, and highlights how utterly useless the concept of the tax is.

Although the higher prices are already an issue on its own, the effects of the pink tax are worsened when the buying power of women is taken into consideration. According to the United States Joint Economic Committee, 85% of all consumer purchases are made by women, and 3 out of 4 women would consider themselves their household’s primary shopper. When looking at this data, there’s a clear correlation between women making up the majority of consumers and the subsequent high prices they have to pay for everyday products, and an even clearer case of women once again being exploited and stepped on in a common industry. This distinction is strikingly similar to the lack of power women have faced in careers fields they dominate, with men almost always holding more power over them. In this case, men are dominant in the sense that they make up a minority of American consumers, but still manage to come out on top due to the pink tax automatically putting women at a greater disadvantage when buying.

With all the progress made by women in the financial world, the pink tax is something that is continuously stifling all their accomplishments and hurting their buying power. According to a 2015 study by the United States Joint Economic Committee, women’s earnings have increased from $593 billion to $3 trillion since 1967, with this figure projected to increase in 2023. This newly-gained financial power, combined with the dominance women have as the majority of shoppers, almost makes the pink tax feel like a last-ditch effort to continue the restraint of women that has existed since the beginning of American commerce.

Despite openly praising women when they see fit and capitalizing off what they find most appealing, American businesses continue to suppress women with the pink tax, and the U.S. government has done nothing about this corporate stance against women. This has only been handled on the state level, with laws regarding the prevention of gender-based discrimination being passed by states such as California, New York, and Massachusetts, meaning a vast majority of women in the United States continue to face active drawbacks as consumers.

With all of these factors taken into consideration, something must be done about the ever-continuous presence of the pink tax. If the lack of federal attention brought to the ongoing financial oppression against women continues as it has for the past 30 years, nothing will change, and women will continue to face the same financial setbacks for generations to come.

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Works Cited

Maloney, Carolyn B. “The Pink Tax.” United States Joint Economic Committee, December 2016,

https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/8a42df04-8b6d-4949-b20b-6f40a326db9e/the-pink-tax---how-gender-based-pricing-hurts-women-s-buying-power.pdf Accessed October 22, 2023.

Menin, Julie. “From Cradle to Cane; The Cost of Being a Female Consumer.” New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, December 2015,

https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Study-of-Gender-Pricing-in-NYC.pdf Accessed October 22, 2023.

Moshary, Sarah. Tuchman, Anna. Bhatia, Natasha. “Investigating the Pink Tax: Evidence against a Systematic Price Premium for Women in CPG.” ftc.gov, October 29, 2021.

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/1588356/mosharybhatiatuchman_updated2.pdf Accessed October 22, 2023

Lafferty, Mackenzi. “The Pink Tax: The Persistence of Gender Price Disparity.” Monmouth College.

http://research.monm.edu/mjur/files/2020/02/MJUR-i12-2019-Conference-4-Lafferty.pdf Accessed October 22, 2023