No one's being made to go to those venues. If some people want to go to those sorts of venues, let them. We don't have to turn everything in to an act of discrimination.
"Of the 24 retailers in the New York City report, the worst gender pricing disparity surfaced at Club Monaco, where women’s clothing cost an average of 28.9 percent more than men’s clothing, according to an independent analysis by economist Ian Ayres. Urban Outfitters trailed with a 24.6 percent gender premium, followed by Levis with 24.3 percent."
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.
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.
One more reason to encourage women to learn maths. If they don't care enough to compare prices, they just have to pay more. Incidentally, this could also explain why there is a women's aisle to begin with: women seem to be willing to pay more, so it makes sense to differentiate your products to allow women to pay more.
There's another factor here: interest. The women's department in clothing stores is almost always MUCH larger than the men's department. Women typically have a lot more clothes, and a shitload more shoes than men. They just spend a lot more on clothing than men do, on average.
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.
Also, when we bought a car a few years ago there were some standard colors that cost nothing, and several "premium colors" that cost a lot more. So the concept of letting customers pay for special colors is not new (I already mentioned the black Apple MacBook in another thread). I still think it is simply a status symbol that you pay for.
Actually, there's frequently a reason for that besides marketing. Some paint finishes simply cost more than others. One thing you'll typically see on Euro cars is that the "pearl" finishes cost more than the standard black and white ones; that's because the pearls are a metallic paint that costs a lot more. Another one on my new Mazda is the "Soul Red" color they're selling, which costs $300 more. There's a good reason for this: unlike the regular pearls, this is a special 3-layer paint (basecoat, tinted clear, top clear), which costs more in materials and requires a special set-up to apply.
That's just factory paint; if you want to see really crazy and expensive stuff, just visit a high-end body shop and ask them about color-shifting paints (so-called "chameleon colors") which completely change color depending on what angle you view it at.
Well you pay extra so that you can signal "I am a girl" (more specifically - a princess girl. Wouldn't you expect a princess to get more expensive things?). Like the black MacBook that cost 100$ more just because of the color (or was it the white one that was more expensive? I forgot). It's a status symbol. If you don't care, what is stopping you from getting the red scooter?
Note that the pink scooter has a grayed-out "Add to cart" button. They are sold out of the pink version so you can't even buy it on target.com (Where the screenshot appears to be from). The old price is completely irrelevant when comparing to what the red version now sells for. Note also that walmart.com which has inventory of both colors sells them each for $24.96, which is about the same price that target.com is selling the red version for. The author of this article knows this and is being intentionally misleading.
Haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but is this normalized by shopping volume by gender, by chance? Perhaps it is an unjustified stereotype, but the women I know shop more than men (i.e., higher demand) so the price would naturally go up.
>Perhaps it is an unjustified stereotype, but the women I know shop more than men (i.e., higher demand) so the price would naturally go up.
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.
"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.
I think this article explores pricing strategies. If it only looked at how insurance is priced differently for men and women, I guess the comments would be different. It's however interesting to see the different comments out here.
>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])
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?
Department stores have a bigger women's section from clothing and other items. They keep more women's items in stock because they have to have a larger selection for women because women's fashion values are different from that of men. Keeping a bigger section for women or females means they have to mark it up more. They mark it up more because they don't sell all of it and have to eat the cost of the items that don't sell and are out of season.
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.
I think there's a bit more to it than that. Women's clothes probably represent more risk. Women buy a lot more clothes anyway and care more about fashion, which changes a lot. Men's clothes, on the other hand, barely change at all and are usually extremely boring. Men's formal clothes haven't changed substantially in well over a century, and men's casual clothes basically amount to "jeans and a t-shirt".
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.)
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...
34 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 77.7 ms ] threadLadies' night is all about objectification of women. Spinning that as "gender discrimination" against men is sick.
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.
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.
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.
-------
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10787613
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?
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.
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.)
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...