Happy Thursday and welcome back to my third and final installment of civic issue blogs on gender inequality! In my first two posts, I addressed two “taxes” of sorts that have been put on goods and services aimed towards women. The pink tax, referred to as any markup up on goods and services that are marketed as being for women, when men are paying less for similar services and products, is not a real tax, but simply an extra cost applied to many everyday items used and needed by women. The tampon tax on the other hand is an actual tax, imposing an additional charge on menstrual products and making them have a value-added tax or sales tax added to the initial cost, which stems from these necessary items being considered a “luxury”. Taking a bit of a 180 from the costs of items and going down to the root of the issue, this weeks blog is focused on the gender wage gap itself, and the way that it is still a prominent issue, putting a further emphasis on the connection to discriminatory gender based taxing.

As of March 14th, 2023, also known as equal pay day, the U.S Department of Labor has determined that women in the U.S who work full-time, year-round, are paid an average of 83.7 percent as much as men, which amounts to a difference of $10,000 per year. These gaps are even larger for many women of color and women with disabilities, and are the equivalent to it taking females approximately 15 months to make the same amount of money that a male does in 12 months. While this is a gap that affects women as an entire gender, it is also important to highlight the fact that there are significant differences within the gap based on race and ethnicity, with gender gap being most significant and easily identifiable in the lives of women of color. When comparing the 2018 median earnings of full-time, year-round workers by race/ethnicity and sex, it was found that Hispanic or Latino women have the largest pay gap, making a whopping $0.54 for every $1.00 that a white man makes. Following closely behind is American Indian and Alaska Native women, making $0.57 per mans dollar, Black women at $0.62, White women at $0.79, and finally Asian women, making $.90 for every dollar a white man makes. This $0.36 difference within the female gap itself exemplifies the way that while gender is the main and overall broadest category of discrimination when it comes to pay, it comes down to so much more than that, with factors adding upon each other to create an environment so far from fair. The larger wage gaps for most women of color reflect the compounding negative effects of gender bias as well as racial and/or ethnic bias on their earnings.

While these wage gap calculations reflect the ratio of earnings for women and men across all industries, they do not reflect a direct comparison of women and men doing identical work. Through calculating it in this manner, experts have been able to capture the multitude of factors that are driving the gender wage gap, and have been for so many years. One of these is a difference in years of experience.  For years, women have been disproportionately driven out of the workforce to accommodate caregiving and other unpaid obligations and thus tend to have less work experience than men. While the societal view that women “belong in the kitchen” has thankfully shifted as years pass, and the sexist idea is not necessarily the norm anymore, there is still a firm belief held by many that women should not work for long, and instead should raise children and be homemakers.  Access to paid family and medical leave makes women more likely to return to work—and more likely to return sooner. However, as of March 2019, only 19 percent of civilian workers had access to paid family leave through their employers and only 40 percent had access to short-term disability insurance benefits to deal with their own medical needs. This factor, while stemming from overall inexperience and not necessarily direct discrimination, is a result of a sexist societal view that has yet to fully shift, leaving many women unfairly compensated even when they’re not choosing to take on the common role of motherhood or homemaking.

Another factor driving the gender wage gaps is a difference in hours worked between men and women. This piggybacks off of the reasoning behind the difference in years of experience, as women tend to work fewer hours to accommodate caregiving and other unpaid obligations, and as a result are also more likely to work part time, which means lower hourly wages and fewer benefits compared with full-time workers. Once again, this factor avoids the black and white general discrimination of simply being female and therefore being paid less, and instead places the blame on our society as a whole, and the way that women have always been viewed and categorized as putting other aspects of life before the workforce, even when it’s untrue for so many. The most widely known and easily explainable driving factor of the gender wage gap is general discrimination. Gender-based pay discrimination has been illegal since 1963, but it is still a frequent, widespread practice, particularly seen in the lives of women of color. It can thrive especially in workplaces that discourage open discussion of wages and where employees fear retaliation. Beyond making the explicit decision to pay women less than men, employers may discriminate in pay when they rely on prior salary history in hiring and compensation decisions. This can enable pay decisions that could have been influenced by discrimination to follow women from job to job, creating an endless cycle of underpaid work simply due to ones gender.

While the gender pay gap has unfortunately not changed much in the last two decades, it has narrowed considerably when looking at the longer term, both among all workers ages 16 and older and among those ages 25 to 34. The estimated 18-cent gender pay gap among all workers in 2022 was down from 35 cents in 1982. And the 8-cent gap among workers ages 25 to 34 in 2022 was down from a 26-cent gap four decades earlier. Women’s and men’s earnings may shift slightly each year with each new batch of Census Bureau data, but the gender wage gap will not close anytime soon without action. Efforts to close the wage gap must address more than simple discrimination, but the driving factors so deeply rooted in our countries discriminatory history.  The gender wage gap is an issue of not just economic security, but equality as well, and women and their families cannot afford to wait for either.

Text Citations:

Gender pay gap in U.S. hasn’t changed much in two decades

Quick Facts About the Gender Wage Gap

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20230314#:~:text=In%20the%20U.S.%2C%20women%20who,color%20and%20women%20with%20disabilities.

Image Citations:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/parsing-the-gender-pay-gap-1542917969

https://www.inquirer.com/news/inq2/gender-pay-gap-philadelphia-men-women-wages-20220915.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/14/the-wage-gap-gets-worse-when-women-hit-their-30s-heres-why.html

Happy Thursday and welcome to blog number two in the civic issues series. In my last post I addressed the pink tax, which is referred to as any markup up on goods and services that are marketed as being for women, when men are paying less for similar services and products. This however, is not a real tax, but simply an extra cost applied to many things. What is a real tax though is the tampon tax on women’s menstrual products, and it is what I will be addressing in today’s blog post.

Defined as “a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers’ income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.” by the Oxford Dictionary, taxes are something we see in our everyday lives, common with most purchases, and coming as no surprise when they add on a few dollars to the end of our shopping receipts. What does come as a surprise when you look into it is the way that items necessary to a females (or simply menstruators) life is significantly taxed, and seen as a “luxury” item.  On average, a person who menstruates spends about $1,773 on period products in their lifetime. However a portion of that spending on menstrual products is not actually on the products themselves, but the tax added to them, and could be avoided if governments recognized sanitary pads and tampons as items “necessary for life” instead of continuing to classify them as luxury goods.

The tampon tax is an additional charge on menstrual products, making them have a value-added tax or sales tax added to the initial cost. Many items such as other essential health purchases like prescriptions, some over-the-counter drugs, clothes in some regions, toilet paper, condoms, groceries — and even some much less essential items like golf club memberships and erectile dysfunction pills — are typically tax-exempt.  This picking and choosing of what is seen as “essential” and what is seen as a “luxury” in need of being taxed is a blatant form of gender-based discrimination seen in our every day lives.

This tax exists due to US states and countries exempting menstrual products from being taxed, which then results in reduced public revenue collection. For instance, by cutting the tax on both diapers and tampons, the state of California is estimated to eliminate about $55 million in revenue per year. Another example of this is in New York state, who’s elimination of the tampon tax is estimated to account for an approximate $14 million reduction in annualrevenue. When states eliminate the tampon tax they end up having to increase tax rates on other items to make up for the loss, which is one of the leading causes of the tampon tax still being a prevalent issue modern day.

The average American woman will experience 450 periods in her life, spend an average of $20 on products per periods spanning up to a week, and pay an additional cost between $100 and $225 in tampon taxes over her lifetime. On top of this, the majority of people who menstruate are women, who are already at a financial disadvantage due to the way that the gender pay gap impacts the female population,  allowing women to earn less than men across all regions by an average of 23% (stay tuned for the next civic issues blog, this will be the topic!). Despite it being a prominent issue talked about often in relation to less affluent areas, this tax still remains in effect in wealthy and poor countries and states alike. In terms of the United States, period products are currently still subject to a state sales tax in 22 of the 50 states as of September of 2022, despite many efforts to put a country-wide ban on the tampon tax.

While we see tax and think of just a few cents added on to each purchase, the tampon tax is costing so much more, in both price and overall impact. Globally, 12.8% of women and girls live in poverty and struggleto access the resources to manage their periods to begin with. The tampon tax makes it even more difficult for these people, who can barely even afford their basic needs, much less a necessary product that is advertised as a “luxury”. On top of this, people who depend on a product are usually willing to spend more on it, which companies are aware of and take advantage of, leading to price discrimination that is continually ignored. No matter what, menstruators need these products, and while the taxing of them is not stopping women from purchasing them for the most part, as again they are necessary, it is a cost that adds up, and is particularly apparent in the lives of people who are already struggling with proper resource access. This tax goes so much deeper than simply having or not having the proper products to deal with menstruation comfortably, as in many cases of those living in poverty, the inability to have easy access to period products means that they cannot go to school or work or otherwise participate in daily life. More-so than this, if they do attempt to continue on with life as normal, many experience anxiety and fear of others becoming aware they are menstruating, and are not able to comfortably live for that week.

There are many organizations who’s solepurposes are to fight for equality in regards to menstrual products. An example of this is the organization Period Equity, who are a national law and policy advocacy group dedicated to ensuring accessible, affordable, and safe menstrual products. They have been working for many years to remove the tampon tax in the 22 states where it still remains in effect. In June of 2019, they introduced a collaboration with the women-led period and sexual wellness brand LOLA, for a coordinated legal, advocacy, and public engagement campaign called, “Tax Free. Period”. Together, these two groups worked to raise awareness for the unconstitutional state laws in place around the country, and while they were aiming to ensure all period products tax-free by Tax Day 2021, have unfortunately not gotten to that point quite yet. However, when they began their efforts there were still 30 states that remained taxing menstrual products, and since then the number has decreased. This decrease, while not nearly significant enough, shows hope for a world where all menstruators will have equal and fair access to all products necessary for a clean, safe, and comfortable period. Until then, organizations like Period Equity will continue working in the hopes that one day they won’t need to.

Text Sources: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/08/period-action-day-tampon-tax-poverty/8194651001/

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/tampon-tax-explained-definition-facts-statistics/

https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/spending/articles/the-pink-tax-how-inflation-impacts-the-period-product-industry#:~:text=The%20average%20person%20who%20menstruates,estimated%20%249%2C000%20over%20a%20lifetime.

https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a29490059/tampon-tax-state-guide/

 

Image Sources: https://shscedarpost.com/4643/opinion/tackling-the-tampon-tax/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/womens-equality-starts-with-ending-the-tampon-tax

https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/03/pf/taxes/tampon-tax-lawsuit-new-york/

In typical Daniella fashion, I have decided to drift from my original posted idea for this blog and go with an entire new one, gender inequality. It is a topic that I focused on pretty heavily last semester, and while I told myself that I would stray away from it this spring and attempt to broaden my horizons, I have found that I hold a great passion towards it and would like to continue exploring and analyzing the gender inequality found in many instances. For the first of this blog entry trio, I will be addressing the pink tax and tampon tax.

As a phenomenon analyzed by researchers since at least the 1990’s, the pink tax is a markup up on goods and services that are marketed as being for women, when men pay less for similar services and products. While it’s not a tax in a literal sense, it is still an extra cost that applies to almost every aspect of a females life, from apparel, to menstrual and hygiene products, to services, to even children’s toys and pens catered towards girls. The most recent data shows that the pink tax is costing women an average of $1,351 a year. While this is already a substantial number on its own, it also adds up significantly, and by the time a woman has reaches the age of 50, she has paid approximately $67,550 more than a man, simply due to her gender. The tax does not only affect adult women, but also female children as well. During an investigation, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs study found that even young girls cannot escape the pitfalls of the pink tax, because “girl toys” cost on average 2 percent to 13 percent more than “boy toys” that are exactly the same other than their color. Many examples of this can be found in the “18 Kids’ toys that prove girls start paying the ‘pink tax’ early?” blog post on the sheknows.com. This post showcases the way that a toy such as a glow-worm doll can jump from a reasonable $15 to $27, simply for being pink instead of blue. Or the “princess castle” pop-up tent that costs almost $10 more than the boys “knight castle” pop-up tent, even though they are the same exact thing, just with the princess version being pink and knight version being blue. These are just a couple examples of the way that a simple color stereotypically catered towards girls can make such a difference, and help to highlight the lifelong discrimination faced by women while shopping.

 

In addition to the marking up of products catered towards women, there is also a clear added cost that comes along with many services simply for being female as well. In 2016, CBS News conducted an experiment where two members of their staff — a man and a woman — went to multiple dry cleaners in New York City with the same white cotton button-up shirt. Through this experiment, they found that “more than half of the dry cleaners charged the female staff member at least twice as much to clean the shirt. Some even charged her three times as much.”. This is not the only proven instance of clear gender discrimination causing a price markup through everyday services in our society. During another study conducted in 2013 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a male and female participant called mechanics to get quotes for car repairs. The callers who appeared to be well-informed about pricing were treated the same regardless of gender. However, female callers who were uninformed on pricing were taken advantage of, and quoted almost $23 more on average than male callers. This side of the pink tax is one not talked about nearly as much, as it’s not a clearly advertised difference in pricing based on gender, however when investigated there is a clear gap, only made worse by companies aiming to take advantage of uninformed female customers. However, despite these gender-based price disparities in services, the most visible up-charge can be found in female personal care products.

In 2015, a government study on gender pricing in New York called “From Cradle to Cane: The Cost of Being a Female Consumer”, analyzed 800 gender-specific products from nearly 100 brands. The report found that, on average, personal care products targeted to women were 13% more expensive than the similar men’s products. Every day products such as hair care, razors, lotions, and body washes have all been proven to be more expensive when advertised towards women, even when it’s the exact same brand and virtually exact same product as well. This price gap doesn’t just end at typical personal care products either, but includes senior/home health care products such as supports and braces, and even bladder control pads, or “guards” as they’re advertised for men. While there are some cases that an explanation for the gaps can be supported, such as the different materials used to manufacture certain mens versus women’s clothing items and the costs that go along with said materials, items that are for all intensive purposes exactly the same have little to no excuse regarding the difference in price point. Although not significant at first glance, as many don’t bat an eye at an extra dollar or two for their favorite products, these costs add up, and have lead to a collective protest from many, urging a change.

The start of October in2020 brought forth a promising systemic change in the continued fight for gender-based price discrimination for New York State, as according to the governor at the time, Andrew Cuomo, the practice of “pink taxing” was officially prohibited by law. More specifically than just an overall ban of the price gaps in general, he referred to the tax as a “form of discrimination…for services that are the same or “substantially similar” to comparable services for men.”,  and the law passed a way to ensure that women and girls are “no longer be subject to harmful and unfair price discrimination”.  While the classification of businesses that will be reviewed under the new ban was vague, this ban on something affecting so many women has been lauded as “tremendous progress in advancing gender equity” by the chair of the New York State Council on Women and Girls, Melissa DeRosa, and a “landmark law” for gender equality by Secretary of State Rossana Rosado. It’s far from a solution, but one very large step in the right direction as our society continues to discriminate based on gender.

 

 

Sources:

https://www.investopedia.com/tampon-tax-4774993

https://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/pink-tax-how-women-pay-more/

https://www.sheknows.com/parenting/slideshow/4257/pink-tax-toys/15/

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Study-of-Gender-Pricing-in-NYC.pdf

https://www.creditcards.com/to-her-credit/new-york-bans-pink-tax/