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July 7, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
08:48
The #PinkTax： the Patriarchy's Most Insidious Trap
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In the 1990s, a California survey found that women pay an extra $1,351 per year due to gender discriminatory pricing.
Oh no!
But women are making 77 cents for every man's patriarchal dollar.
This is how the patriarchy gets them.
Not only does it pay them less, it taxes them more.
Fucking damn that patriarchy subsequent initiatives like the gender tax repeal act of 1995.
Wait, wait, don't tell me It failed to have any effect whatsoever, right?
Have aimed to eliminate this discrepancy.
So does it still cost more to be a woman?
Well, a trip to your local drugstore can show you firsthand that the pink tax still exists.
Shit.
I can feel a barrage of stupidity coming any second now.
In 2015, a male and female reporter from Mike.com teamed up to buy very similar but gender-specific razors.
Yeah, but it doesn't cost a man any less to buy the woman's one, does it?
Shaving cream.
Same problem.
Deodorant, moisturizer, and body wash.
Why buy any of that crap?
Why not just buy soap and shampoo and be done with it?
The man spent $37.42.
The woman paid $42.69.
And how much did the man spend on makeup?
I mean, you can imagine what kind of pink tax there is on that, can't you?
In almost every case, it's like 100% extra.
That's a difference of $5, which over time obviously can add up.
Yeah, but none of this is mandatory.
I don't spend $40 a month on toiletries.
Because I don't fucking have to.
The same gender discriminatory pricing towards items like these was also noticed in a 2010 consumer report and a 2011 study by the University of Central Florida.
Alright, Diocletian, calm down.
Are you suggesting that there should be government-enforced price fixing for women's toiletries?
The latter study suggested that women do tend to pay more than men for certain types of services and products, especially those that provide the most visible evidence of gendering the body.
And that is a decision that I'm comfortable with them making.
They have the option of being an absolute skin flint when it comes to this sort of thing, like me, because I'm just not interested in gendered signifiers.
But these women are.
And so the market provides them with a method of buying it, because supply is there to meet demand.
And it's not just at the pharmacy.
Isn't it?
Do go on.
Female haircuts at the beauty salon?
Yeah, isn't that because women want a lot of stuff done?
Like they want it styled and dyed and dried and curled and stuff like this.
Stuff I don't really know anything about because I'm a man.
Whenever I've gone to a hairdresser's, I just get a trim and I pay as little as possible for it.
Women's shirts at the dry cleaners.
Really?
Isn't that a fact?
Is it the dry cleaners?
They're like, well, this is a nice shirt.
Oh, it belongs to a woman.
Sorry.
Twice the price.
Or is there some physical reason it costs more?
Women's shoes?
Oh, men's shoes don't cost as much as women's shoes.
I wonder if that's anything to do with vanity.
Women's car payments?
Is that because you bought a more expensive car?
But do you know what doesn't cost more for women?
Car insurance.
Incidentally, or at least it didn't until the EU's Gender Equality Directive barged in and decided, you know what, it's not fair that women are paying less for their car insurance than men just because they're safer drivers.
This is despite the fact that young women get into less serious accidents than men and that young men are in general more reckless drivers.
But no, equality.
And even women's health insurance.
Yeah, but this is the car insurance issue in reverse.
You're more likely to go to the doctors and women are more likely to be hypochondriacs.
So not even have a good reason to go to the doctors.
Can all be priced significantly higher than their male counterparts.
Yeah, but if you don't examine why that is, then it makes it sound like it's some terrible conspiracy against women, when in fact all it is, is market forces.
In 2012, CNN reported that Florida women could pay an extra $1,141 per year in health insurance premiums.
In 2014, Obamacare laws banned gender discrimination in health insurance.
Before that time, 42 states allowed women to be charged higher premiums simply on the basis of gender.
No, no, no, no, no.
No.
It's not just on the basis of gender.
It's because women are more likely to go to their doctors and waste their motherfucking time.
In 2011, the European Union banned gender discriminant pricing for life and auto insurance.
Yeah, well done for making that sound like a good thing when in fact it costs women more money.
And the ironic thing as well is that the life insurance costs them more as well.
I don't know whether it's you're trying to deliberately mislead people or you see the term gender equality and despite having a negative effect on women and their finances, you think, oh, it must be a great thing.
Just the words gender equality make it great.
In what is looking more and more like Pavlovian conditioning.
And in 2014, France's finance ministry pledged to investigate claims of the invisible women's tax.
And I'm sure they'll find nothing they can change without exceedingly draconian measures.
On certain products like shampoos and razors.
France's Secretary of State of Women's Rights supported the investigation, tweeting, is pink a luxury colour?
How stereotypical.
Are you saying that women don't buy things that are say yellow or green or purple?
In Australia, a good and services tax, which applies to tampon purchases, but not condoms, has been in practice for 15 years.
Oh, you fucking...
Condoms aren't exclusively used by men!
The benefits are not just enjoyed by men.
They are also enjoyed by the women who those men are having sex with.
Unlike tampons, with which men have absolutely zero fucking need for.
But presently, there's been a push to scrap the tampon tax.
Many consider sanitary napkins to be an essential health good.
Now this I actually agree with.
Why would that be considered a luxury item?
It's not like women have got the choice to not buy sanitary towels or tampons and stuff like that.
Which should be exempt from the 10% price increase.
While there are a few examples of man taxes out there, most notably for auto insurance.
Remember that you said that it was wonderful that there was gender equality in the EU when it came to life insurance and car insurance.
Women do seem to more often experience subtly higher prices.
Oh, they seem to, do they?
If they seem to, maybe we should get the government involved.
But no, they don't really though, do they?
They have the option of buying what, in most cases, apart from the tampons, are indeed luxury goods.
And they spend more money on gender signifying products.
It's not a tax, it's not mandatory.
No one's making you do it.
Now, whether these prices are the result of a larger picture of gender inequality in the world is up for debate.
But given that you're a feminist, we're just going to assume that it is.
What else could it possibly be?
But many reporters have noted that it's frustrating for women to have this kind of added taxation to their purchases when they are already paid less than men for similar work across the globe.
I'd call you a liar, and it seems that you are trying to deliberately mislead people, but I'm going to be generous, give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you are just a giant fucking idiot.
If you're interested in the world of science, be sure to check out our new show, Test 2101.
Fucking hell.
If you do the same amount of research in that that you do in this, I dread to think what you're going to be telling people.
We'll be answering tons of science questions in short, fun videos every single day.
Stuff like, yes, man did live with the dinosaurs.
And no, the earth is actually flat.
Make sure to subscribe and let us know if you've got questions of your own.
We're listening.
Thanks for watching.
Hang on, hang on.
Is this like affiliated with the Discovery Channel?
Because if it is, that's really fucking embarrassing.
I'll tell you, despite this not having almost any truth to anything that was said in this video, I still feel the need to do something to help out these poor feminists who are not only being screwed by the patriarchy out of money that they failed to earn, but also being screwed by the patriarchy for buying things that they don't really need.
I mean, what could I do about this?
I just can't think of a thing.
If only there were some feminists on Twitter who had an idea of what I could do with the stacks of cash that I have ready to give away to random women on the internet.
I just don't know.
I just don't know what to do.
It's just, you know, the feminists are just too shy to tell everyone what their real driving motivations for doing all this are.
I mean, you know, it's not like they're going to create a hashtag called give your money to women or anything.
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