Pink Tax. It is something women deal with every single day. Pink tax refers to the markup of items targeted at women. For example: deodorant, razors and even shampoo. This is hugely common in almost every country around the globe with markups being up to an astounding 50% more expensive(Bankrate,2023).
This is not sustainable at all. In our world, women tend to make a lot less money for doing the same job as men. Women make on average 83.7% of a man’s salary for the very same job(dol.gov, 2023). This makes it even harder for women to be able to afford this markup. Now you might be thinking that this markup can’t make that big of a difference, but women spend on average 188,000 dollars(Bankrate,2023) in their lifetime.
We have a pink tax on everything that is produced for women. From deodorant to feminine hygiene products, we can see the change. Some examples of these markups are razors, deodorant, feminine hygiene products, shampoo, clothes, backpacks and more. This idea of pink tax even applies to children’s toys. A girl might want a pink scooter but a pink scooter could cost up to 50% more. This difference should not exist at all but especially not for kids. Where men would pay 5 dollars for Dove deodorant, women would pay between 10-20 dollars. Where men would pay 11 dollars for a Gillette razor, a woman would pay 16.
Women cannot keep affording this. We are constantly fighting for rights and gender equality but this is one of the biggest problems each woman around the globe faces on a daily basis. If we don’t start with the small things, how can we ever expect to fix the larger issues in our lives?
This idea of ‘pink tax’ brings our gender inequality to a whole new level. It separates us from even more than we already had been. This whole idea of women needing to pay more to get a “pink” product is crazy and completely unjust and unsustainable.