Why you should always buy the men’s version of almost anything
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
The fact that they cite the claim that women are paid 79% of what men make (a statistic which is only true when you don't account for other important factors such as occupation, experience, and hours worked), tells you about all you need to know about how serious they take their statistics.
Beyond that, anyone who has ever worked in sales can tell you there are huge differences in buying behavior between men and women. Of course, I'm being overly general here, but men and women simply value different things. My wife looks for shampoo and carefully evaluates the scent, the brand, and any special additives that might make her hair more silky/shiny/etc. She's willing to pay a premium for the right combination of features she desires. I look for the cheapest price and could care less what the shampoo claims to do. Same thing with salons. My wife wants to be pampered, have a wonderful experience, and values working with the same stylist on a long-term basis. I don't mind being pampered, but if it costs me more than $30, I'd rather go watch ESPN while some new cosmetology grad cuts my hair for $19. My wife gets much more value out of salon services -- so they can charge her a premium.
They also seem to assume some gender neutral products are "male" products when it's unclear why that would be the case. Both boys and girls like the color red. Why is a red scooter a boy's scooter? Since many people like red, you can get your unit cost down with generic high volume products (though, I also believe Target when they say this was a glitch in their system). You start making modified products that clearly appeal to a more niche market and it's reasonable to assume you might pay a premium.
Lastly, if this was actually some big conspiracy against women, why does the ruthless financial industry seem to behave so much better than these alleged conspirators? My wife sure gets a much better deal on life and auto insurance than I do...
My wife just uses my razor blades to shave her legs, she knows the women's version costs more. (I don't shave my legs, I shave my face and my wife uses my extra razors to shave her legs).
But I agree the women's version should cost the same as the men's version.
Usually the men's version is made first, and then they have to hire a designer to make the women's version. The cost of that designer is figured into the cost of the women's version. But sometimes it is just greed as well.
Edit: Added note about razors due to confusion.
I don't shave my legs. My wife does.
Because of this, women's clothes have higher risk: they may or may not sell before they're "old" and "out of style". So they have a higher price tag to get enough profit on the things that do sell. Then all the stuff that doesn't sell gets its priced slashed in a "closeout" sale to 50-90% off, or it gets shipped off to another store (like Nordstrom Rack, TJ Maxx, Ross, etc.) where it's sold for a fraction of its original price. You just don't see too much of that with men's clothing. (If you go to one of the above stores and look at the men's section, you'll mostly just find a bunch of crappy t-shirts.)
24 is a very small sampling of retailers. What season was it? What was their methodology? I'd like to see a a table of the other 21 clothing retailers.
http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dca/partners/gender-pricing-study.p...
the nyc.gov summary has a useful summary here
Over the course of a woman’s life, the financial impact of these gender-based pricing disparities is significant. In 1994, the State of California studied the issue of gender-based pricing of services and estimated that women effectively paid an annual “gender tax” of approximately $1,351 for the same services as men.12 While DCA’s study does not estimate an annual financial impact of gender pricing for goods, the findings of this study suggest women are paying thousands of dollars more over the course of their lives to purchase similar products as men.
Let's compare that with another market: aftermarket automobile parts and accessories. How many women spend hundreds of dollars on a spoiler or carbon-fiber hood for their car, or thousands of dollars on new rims? Almost none? At best, you might find a small number of women getting fancy rims (usually just tomboyish women who are into trucks), but good luck finding any who buy exhaust headers, intakes, engine tunes, etc. Similarly, you also won't find many women purchasing automotive tools like socket wrench sets, air compressors and impact wrenches, etc.; there's a few but they're ones like my sister, who do it because they're extremely practical and want to save money (and usually stick to easy stuff like oil changes anyway), not because they enjoy spending time working on their vehicles.
There's other markets like this, which largely cater to men and in which men spend lots of their disposable income. For men, these things are usually called "hobbies". For women, clothing and shoes are frequently their "hobby". For many men, clothing is mainly seen as a chore anyway; from what I've seen, it seems that it's mainly only gay men who actually care a lot about "male fashion" and put a lot of effort and money into fancy clothes.
That's just factory paint; if you want to see really crazy and expensive stuff, just visit a high-end body shop and ask them about color-shifting paints (so-called "chameleon colors") which completely change color depending on what angle you view it at.
How does it fit within the guidelines set?
"Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
On that same note, why are there frequently topics about gender politics on a site specifically designed for technology. I thought we were trying to "get over a gender bias." Acting like you're hip and "women friendly" by allowing pro-women politics isn't helping your cause.
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My 2 cents:
1. There is nothing that restricts women from buying "mens" gendered items in those cases. (Women are able to cross over both lines in the majority of cases, men.. not so much [when it comes to clothes])
2. Some of the items described are designed differently and composed of different materials. Women's clothes are designed differently, represent different risks in the market, and have much different demands by the purchaser.
3. "Price discrimination" - Despite the cherry picked examples.. they represent 2 different markets, and they are selling the items at a price that the market is accepting.
Because someone thought it would be interesting to the community and posted it.
If you think that its inappropriate and out of line with the guidelines, that's what the "flag" link is for.
Because someone thought it would be interesting to the community and posted it...
It would be interesting if men started raiding the womens' departments more. But I wonder who would make more rude comments about men wearing any women's clothing (for instance, if guys started running around in skirts): other men, or women? Who's more intolerant?
Stereotypes are important, despite what some people may tell you. If you're in sales or marketing, stereotypes are absolutely important and useful, and to avoid them would make you very bad at your job. Stereotypes exist for a reason: because they usually apply to the majority of people in the targeted group. The danger with them is that there's always exceptions, so you don't want to lump everyone in the group together in the case of a negative stereotype.
However, when you're working in sales or marketing, this isn't the case: you want to find clear trends in different demographics, so that you can make products that appeal to those demographics more, and sell more of them (and also price them for higher profit). To not do this is to miss out on potential profit, or worse it could drive you out of business.
A big department store chain which tries to be PC and avoid stereotyping and because of this decides to dedicate as much floor space to men's clothing and men's fragrances and men's make-up (!!), and of course working with designers and suppliers to actually create all this stuff to sell (since there aren't exactly a lot of men's make-up lines out there) would quickly go out of business.
Imagine if a departments store dedicated as much floor space to men's underwear as it does for women's. That would be a seriously unprofitable store department. Make-up is even worse.