Being a woman comes with a price tag. New research published by The Times this week found that “high street stores are charging women up to twice as much as men for practically identical products”. Toiletries, clothing and toys marketed at women and girls are more expensive than those marketed at men, even when the only difference between the two is packaging or presentation. For example, Tesco charges twice as much for its pink disposable razors, marketed as ladies' razors, than its blue disposable ones marketed for men. Although the newspaper did find a few instances in which male products were more expensive, it claims that on average women will pay 37 per cent more for gendered items.
Actually, we already knew this. Many studies on gender-based pricing have discovered the same trend. The practice was banned in the state of California as far back as 1994, after research showed that women could spend up to $1,350 a year more than men on buying the same products (although the effectiveness of such bans isn't clear).
Most gendered products are entirely unnecessary—hair is hair, after all, whether it's growing on a man or a woman's head—as many social media users have pointed out.
I've been using Women's shampoo for 3 months and nothing terrible has happened. — Joshua (@JButeyn) January 8, 2016
Some seem more ridiculous than others, though, if only because we're less used to them. Bic made the headlines in 2012 after introducing ladies' biros (the Amazon reviews are worth a read). A number of Tumblr and Pinterest pages keep a running list sent in by readers from all over the world. They've found shops selling “men's” and “'women's” versions of everything from biscuits to bookmarks.
Hey @SocImages, here's an odd one-a gendered basketball that is "thin" and a "girl." pic.twitter.com/HhkZIh6Owz — HarlotOfTheArts (@HarlotTweets) November 14, 2014The ability of corporations to assign a gender to inanimate objects knows no bounds. But just how do you set about making a can of deodorant instantly recognisable as feminine? Designers have a host of visual stereotypes they can refer to: pinks and pastels; smaller and slimmer designs; curvacious bottles; delicate fonts; and floral or flowing prints. Take one look at the image below and guess which side is for men and which for women—there's no need to read the labels.
today on Unnecessarily Gendered Things: deodorant pic.twitter.com/ItSI1kd0nu
— francis (@gerardsghostacc) March 14, 2015
And for a close-up of the differences between “masculine” and “feminine” packaging of the same product:
But it can be more subtle than that, too. While toiletries and toys are usually explicitly targeted at men or women, other products can be gendered without us even realising it. A recent study by academics at the University of Manitoba in Canada showed how food packaging is often gendered—with healthy foods packaged in a feminine way and junk foods in a more masculine way because of the tendency for consumers to associate healthy eating with femininity.
Pat Kirkham, an emeritus professor of design history at Bard College, tells me she once spoke to a designer who had been asked to produce a masculine yoghurt pot to encourage British men to buy more.
One UK-based packaging designer explains: “Consumers react to certain masculine and feminine cues without even realising it. This could be both shape and colour, but also texture.” Packaging for products targeted at women might have softer-feeling surfaces, for example.
Saana Hellsten is a New York-based Finnish designer who is trying to move the presentation of products beyond these stereotypes. “When starting on a design project, it's very common to find out the gender of the target customer and then make design decisions based on that,” she tells me. “The old-fashioned way is to use the stereotypical 'masculine' visual language for men, such as dark colours and geometric, strong forms. For women, instead, we make it 'feminine' by using soft colours, and subtle, organic shapes. You can see this in all forms of design from razors to yoghurts… This is the traditional way of doing things, but I think it's not always the right approach.”
Instead, when there are genuine differences between the products, she thinks they should be marketed according to function. For example, men's and women's razors might be shaped differently because they're often used for different parts of the body. So she designed a collection of razors that were simply sold as suitable for the body or for the face, rather than for men or women. She highlights earphones as another example which would benefit from this approach: pink earphones sold for women are often smaller, but that forces men with small ears to either buy pink earphones they don't want, or to wear big ones that aren't suited to them. Products based on gendered stereotypes end up with results that aren't right for the customer—even when the difference is just packaging and presentation. “Society is full of individuals who don’t fit into the norms their culture has set them,” she says.
Activists have complained about the habit of gendering objects particularly when it comes to toys—the fantastic campaigns Let Toys Be Toys and PinkStinks stand out—since children are more vulnerable to absorbing negative gender stereotypes. But even for adults, it can be difficult to step outside the box. Some women on social media are saying that, as they become more aware of the price differences, they'll start buying men's razors and deodorant instead of the female versions—but, on the whole, if we walk into a shop and see “'men's” and “women's” aisles, many of us will head towards the one aimed at us without questioning it. The desire to adhere to gender norms can be hard to shake—few women want to smell like a man (which really means smelling like a random scent that marketers have convinced us is masculine).
Women's deodorant scents: rose, cotton, spring, meadow Men's: WINTER ICE, SHARKNADO, GLACIER PUNCH, ANTIFREEZE, GUN — Sophie Gadd (@sophie_gadd) December 1, 2014
Nor is it as easy as simply avoiding gendered products altogether, as some have suggested: it's virtually impossible to buy gender-neutral shampoo or shaving gel, for example. And as the yoghurt pot example suggests, we might not always notice when a product has been intentionally gendered.
For the time being, then, we might be able to subvert gendered products—men wandering around smelling of petals and women of titanium. But to escape them completely might be asking too much.
