Snehal Khemka
The “pink-tax” refers to a phenomenon in which women consumers pay an additional price for products and services that are similar and equivalent to those of men, particularly when products are targeted toward women. Whether this stems from product packaging, designing, labeling, or branding, the colour pink plays a pivotal role in the capitalizing and marketing techniques huge companies adopt. This establishes a pricing disparity of consumer goods and services by gender and reproduces real-world socio-demographic inequality structures through passive recommendation systems in fashion.
Even though some of this price disparity can be speciously explained by gender-neutral factors such as variations in the cost of materials, ingredients, labour, and marketing, the tacit reality of the tax rests solely upon discrimination based solely on gender and extends to a diverse group of consumer products such as clothing, toys, bicycles, disposable razors, shower gels, deodorants, shampoos, and services such as dry cleaning, haircuts, clothing alterations, and other retail activities.
In a world deeply rooted in race-based versioning, sexual-orientation-based versioning, or religion-based versioning, the gender-based versioning in the form of pink tax leaves nothing but a bitter taste in my mouth. While Pink Tax takes root in societal and cultural norms, it is undoubtedly the businesses responsible for continuing the economic disparity among women consumers. This often takes place in the form of brands capitalising on the opportunity to overprice female items to reinstate the norm of female consumption. Generations of psychic numbing coupled with pre-conceived beauty standards create deep inherent biases to convince women regarding the necessity of such products, thereby compelling them to be less price-sensitive than men. Marketers often target women in the form of appealing packaging and features owing to their value held for aesthetic beauty in products while consequently remaining neutral in the packaging of most men’s products.
To add insult to injury, experts often justify Pink Tax on personal-care products as mere keystones of effective pricing strategy. This perspective denotes the distinction between how men and women view and value personal care products. Additionally, just because women care more, it is assumed that they would be willing to pay more and are hence charged a higher price.
This logic is not only flawed but also exploitative in the sense that it uses a broad brush-stroke categorization to create a meaningless differentiation by selectively charging one sex more money than the other. The underlying premise itself of such selective consumption tax is based on slothful, clumsy generalizations. The assumption that women are more concerned about personal care, so they will be willing to pay more sounds almost as irrational as the logic adapted for the gender wage gap where it is assumed that women would be willing to work for a lower salary than men, hence it makes sense to pay them less. What’s fascinating is how these gullible presumptions, when applied to both the sexes(male and female), get called out and repealed immediately, as noticed over a decade ago when Coca-Cola tried introducing vending machines with changing prices depending on the fluctuating temperature outside. The idea was purely cynical and profit-oriented, intending to increase prices of chilled soft drinks on hot summer days and decrease them on wintry days. Consumer and media outrage, however, caught up and put an immediate end to it. Similarly, the possibility and profitability of differential pricing of personal-care products between genders is nothing but unethical, unfair, and rudimentary in nature and needs to be done away it. This shrewd and sneaky attempt to discriminate prices on the basis of sex is not only unethical but also latently targets women as naive and credulous consumers.
Another crucial facet behind its problematic nature is the existence of a wage gap in the country that doubly troubles women solely based on their gender. The presence of a structured and ever-widening wage gap combined with the evils of pink Tax creates a vicious cycle where women, with lesser income and more significant expenditure, stay in a constant loop of “earn less, pay more.” Even though in 2018, the Government of India slashed the 12 percent GST on menstrual sanitary products, it only led to tokenistic change. What’s particularly interesting about this is that while contraceptives remain tax-free and are considered “essential goods,” tampon tax was still imposed on women’s sanitary products as they were considered a luxury instead of a necessity. It is in this purview that one requires to recognize this draconian Tax on necessary products and the lack of proper legislation to accrue to the same.
Ways to Combat the Pink Tax
- Pay close attention to all prices. – Ever noticed that male and female versions of the same products are often placed into separate aisles instead of simply being kept side by side? This is done by marketers in order to trick the consumer into not paying enough attention to checking and comparing prices, which is why they can profit from charging the premium processes for superficially different products. Hence, it is pertinent to be circumspect before buying such products.
- Buy Unisex Products. –It is outrageous to spend rs 325 on a pink/purple color razor compared to Rs 65 for a blue/black colored one, mainly when they both belong to the same brand. Hence, It is high time that we get done away with gender binaries of “pink” and “blue,” and ramify ourselves by adopting genderless, Unisex products that are both gender-neutral and inclusive.
- Boycott and negotiate a lower price. – To avoid the gender surcharge, one may boycott companies levying huge pink taxes and shifting to their substitute brands that levy lower taxes. Additionally, they may simply play the loyalty card and ask a store employee whether a better deal is available or bargain while purchasing services that usually have hefty gender-based pricing differentiation. Eg- Haircuts or dry-cleaning, where service providers often enjoy humongous discretion in the pricing strategy.
- Education and awareness- As mentioned above, generations of psychic numbing have pushed women to acquiesce to pink Tax without challenging it. A survey revealed that as many as 67% of adults in India had never even heard of the Pink Tax. The first time this gendered pricing was brought to the public eye in India was through the movement against the 12-14% GST levied on the tabooed sanitary napkins and other women’s hygiene products. It’s vital to thus raise awareness about this concept at an individual, social and societal level through debates, discussions, advertisements, and social media.
- Increasing women in leadership positions – The acute shortage of women in positions of power is an issue of critical nature highlighted exceptionally well in 2020, during the onset of the first lockdown in India. There was no inclusion of pads and sanitary items in the “essential items” list of the Central Government. This speaks volumes about the degree of care and consideration men in positions of power extend towards women’s issues in the country, further reinstating that it is in fact high time to be proactive instead of reactive.
REFERENCES:-
[1] Is the Pink Tax Ethical? – https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201903/is-the-pink-tax-ethical
[2] Why Do Women’s Products & Services Cost More?- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201512/why-do-women-s-products-services-cost-more
[3] Jacobsen, Kenneth A. (2018) “Rolling Back the “Pink Tax”: Dim Prospects for Eliminating Gender-Based Price Discrimination in the Sale of Consumer Goods and Services,” California Western Law Review: Vol. 54: No. 2, Article 2. Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cwlr/vol54/iss2/2
[4] The Pink Tax: The Persistence of Gender Price Disparity- http://research.monm.edu/mjur/files/2020/02/MJUR-i12-2019-Conference-4-Lafferty.pdf
[5] Pink Tax- The Additional Cost of Being a Woman- http://gjle.in/2020/08/19/pink-tax-the-additional-cost-of-being-a-woman/
