Off brand – why women are paying more for the same products men use

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Before I start describing how I feel about a certain issue – it might be better for you to first understand the issue. Here is Buzzfeed to the rescue, with a handy article comparing the prices of women’s products to men’s products.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maitlandquitmeyer/lady-products-that-cost-more-than-their-male-counterparts#2soimul

As a female consumer, Buzzfeed’s article was not the first time I noticed this phenomenon. I often used to be irked at the price differences for very similar articles of clothing for men and women. But the bigger question here is why these price differences exist. From an economic standpoint, brands often employ this strategy because men are likelier to buy off-brand products than women are, so name brands lower the prices to make them more attractive to male consumers. Women, however, are likelier to buy a name brand regardless, so the companies can drive up the price with confidence that women will still buy the brand products.

But why would women buy these ‘brand products’? A lot of these products, tend to be in areas of ‘feminine’ care, such as cosmetics and hygiene. These are areas in a woman’s life where societal norms often encourage them to adhere to a prescribed ideal of beauty. Women often feel more pressured to look good and brand names cater to these insecurities. Thus when a woman sees a Dove ad or a slogan from Gillette claiming to make her look good, it appeals to her need to ‘fit in’ and look ‘normal’. If the woman were to buy the men’s razors instead (which functionally have no difference), society’s norms could make her feel like she isn’t feminine enough.

The heart of the issue lies in how society has often made cosmetics and hygiene industry a direct reflection of the norms of beauty in women. If we want these norms to change, I urge Gillette to make unisex razors, or Dove to make unisex soaps. Recently a Dove campaign claimed to make women feel more at peace with their own body, with a video, showing them that women themselves are the worst critics of their own body. But none of these campaigns will truly make a difference unless society can become more willing to make cosmetics and hygiene more gender-neutral.

Stores like Bath & Body Works cater mostly to women, who are taught that they should smell ‘feminine’ – which often means washing themselves with scents that are floral in order to capture the essence of ‘femininity’. But what is feminine? It’s whatever the woman already is. With cosmetics and hygiene products being dictated by these demands, women have far too much pressure to change who they already are. If we scale those back, and make hygiene for women back to being what its original purpose was – cleanliness, I think we can slowly cause societal norms to shift a bit.