Pink tax: Why do women's products cost more than men's?

The ‘pink tax’ is a mark-up on women’s products just because they’re for women.

On this topic, I am Gen-Z, because it seemed so obvious it never even crossed my mind to write this column. Or, more likely, because I’m a man I don’t have to deal with it.

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For goodness’s sake, I have a sister; she was stealing my deodorant when we were tweens, while I was complaining that the added scent in most men’s deodorant was giving me a rash.

The mark-up itself is just messed up. You’re looking at a price increase of five per cent to 10, to 50, sometimes 90 per cent based on packaging and vibes. I know the pink tax is a problem in the UAE because it’s a problem here in Canada and it’s a problem anywhere it goes unsolved. Women spend an average of Dh5,000 more a year on hygiene and beauty products than men, from haircuts and shampoo to clothing and accessories.

Just the same though, I’m not just talking about the pink tax because I wanted lavender moisturiser and not ‘arctic gun oil’ or whatever the cheaper men’s version was scented; it’s because of the extra costs put upon women that makes their daily, most essential products more expensive.

Having to pay for menstruation products are only the start. The UAE remains, by every metric, a leader in gender equality based on private and public studies. The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index for 2023 found in the UAE, the gender gap had been closed at 71.2 per cent — the highest in the Middle East and higher than countries like Italy and Indonesia.

Yet problems persist. The pink tax is a tax on time and energy. On not feeling free to post on social media or when walking down the street minding their own business. I repeat all of these things to insist on them, because they have been the cause of feminists and activists for years, and I would not have been told to write about the pink tax by a Gen-Z woman living in the UAE if she weren’t going through the same thing.

The pink tax comes from this, women are willing to spend more. But most content won’t say why. Why? Because men make them.

Not to heap more blame on the patriarchy, but the average woman has much higher societal expectations put on her for her appearance compared to the average man. There are cries of gold-digging and the ideal dad bod, or how it’s fair because men pay for more dates, or whatever, but the fact of the matter is there is still a net loss for women.

I’m not ahead of the curve to say as much, but for people living in the UAE, I have higher expectations. The country is a growing one, and a young one, but it is small, and someone’s world can only be so big. By the time I moved away for university, I had friends from Ras Al Khaimah to the Burj Khalifa, and even a monoculture had emerged for our age group. We all saw the same memes, played the same games, and suffered the same schooling.

But stuff like the pink tax is just the start. When Adolescence came out on Netflix everyone cried shock and awe, but not me and any man or woman my age who was in school when social media came about. It’s just so much more in their faces now with social media, it can’t be ignored.

The pink tax is easier to turn a blind eye to.