In a marketing stunt that has garnered a lot of attention, Burger King rolled out “Chick Fries” to demonstrate the unfairness of the “Pink Tax.” The problem? There is no “Pink Tax.”
The issue they are foregrounding is yet another of the seemingly endless stream of silly complaints the regressive left has taken up as a “the” most important socio-cultural inequity: the production and sale of products that are identical in every way other than that they are pink. The pink items, those marketed to women, purportedly cost more “42%” of the time . . . because sexism.
Reason notes that the “Pink Tax” fervor gained steam following a study by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) in which the DCA declared that it “affects almost every product marketed at American females, ‘from cradle to cane’.”
Here’s the Burger King ad:
One of the more laughable articles I found on this “Pink Tax” was from People; it’s too good not to share: “On average, women pay 42 percent more a year than men for essential products like tampons, pads and shampoo. Studies have found that female-branded products are priced higher than regular products.” Yep, we women are charged more for our tampons and pads then are men for theirs. Or something.
Hilarity aside, the regressive left has latched onto this latest SJW frivolity with some gusto; unfortunately, there is little merit to their argument.
Forbes reported in 2014:
. . . .[W]hy are the stores offering this different pricing? The obvious first answer is because they can. Everyone likes to be able to charge more rather than less. OK, but how do they know that they can charge more? Because they’ve tested this. Women will pay more for pink razors than men will for blue ones. Women will pay more for Excedrin Complete Menstrual than they will for Excedrin Extra Strength, exactly the same product except for the label. Entirely sensibly too, given that part of the effect that is being sought is the placebo effect of taking something you think will aid those menstrual pains.People wouldn’t be able to charge different prices if the people doing the buying didn’t think they were not the same product. And given that the consumer is the only possible person to entrust with the defining of whether something is equal, the same, a perfect substitute, then the fact that they don’t tells us that price differences are entirely fine. If people thought they were the same product then price differentiation would not be possible.Absolutely no legislative relief is necessary here. Everyone’s already got the choice and that they make the choices they do shows that they’re entirely happy with the choices they are making.Or, to be obvious about it, the reason that a blue razor is not the same price as a pink razor is because a blue razor is not the same product as a pink razor. Nor is Excedrin Complete Menstrual the same as Excedrin Extra Strength.
While most products designed for and marketed to women are indeed different, there are still some things that at first glance seem to fall into the “women pay more” category. Examples of this can be seen more in services than in products: women do pay more for our dry cleaning (but we often have more delicate garments with more detail that needs careful ironing, starching, etc.), for our car repairs (I have tales I could tell on this one!), and for haircuts (we tend to have longer hair and/or require more detailed cuts. Washing, drying, and styling also add to our costs, but we can skip those if we so desired). Most of this, however, likely has little to do with ingrained sexism and more to do with production, sales/marketing, and good old-fashioned supply and demand.
Those of us who love a good sale know that the same exact product is discounted in certain colors and/or sizes. This is why I have a bright orange Dutch oven; I couldn’t see paying almost $50 more for a color that didn’t clash with my kitchen. Why was it cheaper? Did they think that I was a man because I had somehow accessed the men-only price point? Nope, they probably manufactured too many in this unpopular color, and it didn’t sell (it’s amazingly bright. And really really orange.). The only way to get rid of them was to significantly slash the price, and I was more than happy to benefit from this rational business decision.
Burger King’s virtue signalling new ad demonstrates how “woke” they are:
Twitter, however, is unimpressed.
Don’t confuse the newest member of the frothing SGW self-righteous brigade with logic and reason.
And there’s the rub. Let’s allow, for argument’s sake, that there is merit to this “Pink Tax” nonsense. The regressive left is, in effect, arguing that women are too stupid to discern that the only difference between their pink product and that of men is that theirs is pink in color. This group of leftists has further determined that even a woman who knowingly pays more for a product in the color of her preference is somehow a victim. She’s not empowered and making her own decisions about how she spends her own money; the poor thing is deluded and needs to be shielded from herself.
The busybody left feels that its duty is to “protect” these feeble-minded women from their own ignorance and/or from making decisions based on their aesthetic preferences . . . with, get this, a proposed federal law to repeal a tax that is not a tax in the first place.
For the regressive left, protecting women from our own weakness, our ignorance, and/or our simple preference is a sign of progressive advancement “Forward!” and of inclusiveness, of equality and fairness, of leveling the playing field to the lowest common denominator. In this case, women, as an entire population, are the lowest common denominator. Assuming women are being ripped off is a problem; assuming that women who see the cost differential and pay it anyway need to be protected from themselves signals a catastrophic failure of today’s leftist feminism.
An argument that hinges on the unique inability of women to read a label and make our own purchasing decisions without busybody leftist groups and/or government intervention is incredibly and inherently demeaning, insulting, and yes, ultimately, sexist.
The regressive left’s goal, however, is not to abolish sexism; the radical left wants to undermine capitalism and the free market by gently “nudging” the public toward embracing economy-killing government-mandated price controls.
No thanks, Burger King. It’s Chick-fil-A for me.
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