LogFAQs > #878355471

Smarkil posted...

adjl posted...

Sure, women can just as easily buy the men's stuff to save money, but that doesn't change that there are multiple industries that pour sizable amounts of money into marketing that manipulates women into paying more for the same product. That's really not cool.

That's like...all of marketing. I mean, that's kinda the purpose of marketing as an industry. They're trying to convince you that an item has more value than it's actually worth.

In a general sense, yeah, but this is marketing that's targeting a specific demographic, such that that demographic needs to do more research in order to avoid being ripped off. That's not cool.

OhhhJa posted...

But but... the poor women's! They must be coddled because they can't make informed decisions due to their smaller brains! They need gallant knights like adjl to save them from evil men's manipulation!

I mean, you can look at sales data and the fact that these pricing differences continue to exist as proof that the manipulation works just fine, so yes, obviously some sort of intervention is needed to prevent it (whether by forbidding the difference or by doing more to prevent the spread of misinformation). That'd be true regardless of which demographic was being exploited; the Pink Tax just happens to be one of the more widespread and egregious examples of discriminatory marketing practices. I don't particularly object to expecting consumers to make informed decisions to ensure their money is being spent wisely, but when a subset of a product's user base has to sift through more lies to make those informed decisions than the rest of the user base, that's not okay.
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