Running head: The Cost of Doing Femininity

The definitive version of this article can be accessed at:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12147-011-9106-3

The Cost of Doing Femininity:

Gendered Disparities in Pricing of Personal Care Products and Services

Megan Duesterhaus, University of Central Florida

Liz Grauerholz, University of Central Florida
Rebecca Weichsel, University of Central Florida
Nicholas Guittar, University of South Carolina-Lancaster
 Cost of Doing Femininity 2

ABSTRACT

Economic discrimination has been a major focus of gender research for the past several

decades and such studies reveal a persistent gender wage gap. This study examines

another aspect of the interaction between gender and the economy that has been largely

ignored by social scientists—gender-based disparities in the cost of goods and services in

the personal care industry. We examine prices charged for personal care products and

services that are targeted toward women or men and find that women pay more than men

for certain items and services. Our research suggests that although the differences are not

uniform across types of services or products, women do tend to pay more than men for

items such as deodorant, haircuts, and dry-cleaning. We suggest that such practices

contribute to gender inequality by increasing women’s economic burden and reinforcing

essentialist thinking about gender (i.e., that women and men are biologically different).

KEYWORDS

Price disparities, doing gender, consumer products, sociology of the body

 Cost of Doing Femininity 3

THE COST OF DOING FEMININITY:

GENDERED DISPARITIES IN PRICING OF PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS AND

SERVICES

Persistent gendered wage discrimination has been well documented, especially for

women of color and female-headed families [7, 9, 15, 38], but much less attention has

been paid to any economic hardships women face in the consumer marketplace. While a

few researchers have examined gendered price discrimination in retail sales and

consumer services [2, 3, 26, 27], research in this area is underdeveloped and social

scientists have not examined the everyday costs of being a woman (i.e., doing femininity)

in terms of the consumption of common products and services.

The current study fills this gap by examining the cost of doing femininity through

an analysis of goods and services in the personal care industry. We document price

differences in three industries that provide similar products or services to both women

and men: hair salons, dry cleaners, and the retail sale of personal care products such as

deodorant and body spray. Our research suggests that although the differences are not

uniform across types of services or products, women do tend to pay more than men for

certain types of services and products, especially those that provide the most visible

evidence of gendering the body. We argue that such practices reinforce essentialist

thinking about gender (i.e., that women and men are biologically different) and place

additional economic burden on those who already earn less.

 Cost of Doing Femininity 4

THE COST OF FEMININITY

Civil rights laws prohibit discrimination in certain non-retail markets such as

employment and housing, but do not cover discrimination in the vast majority of retail

markets [2]. According to Ayres:

…the most gaping hole in our civil rights law concerns retail gender

discrimination. No federal law prohibits gender discrimination in the sale of

goods or services. A seller could flatly refuse to deal with a potential buyer of a

car or a paperclip because of her gender. And while the civil rights laws of the

1860s prohibited race discrimination in contracting, the civil rights laws a century

later only prohibited sex discrimination in a narrow range of “titled” markets. The

thousands of other markets that make up our economy are completely unregulated

with regard to gender…discrimination…[2, p. 3].

Although there is no federal law prohibiting price discrimination on the basis of gender, a

few states/cities (California, Massachusetts, New York City) have outlawed the practice

of charging women and men different prices for equal services [27].

Price discrimination—the practice of charging one group different prices than

another for identical goods or services—has been shown to exist in different markets on

the basis of race, gender, and class.1 For instance, Ayres and Siegelman [3] examined

whether car dealers discriminated against women and minorities during the purchase of a

new car. They found that dealers made much better initial and final offers to white men

than they did to black men, black women or white women. For instance, compared to

prices offered white men, the prices quoted were about $200 higher for white women,

$400 higher for black women, and $900 higher for black men. Even after negotiating, the
 Cost of Doing Femininity 5

final markup price was 50 percent higher for white women, twice as much for black

women and four times as much for black men, as compared to white men. Ayres and

Siegelman note: “without any negotiating at all, two out of five white males obtained a

better offer than their counterparts achieved after bargaining on average for more than

forty minutes” [3, p. 44].

The retail clothing industry is another area that has been studied. According to a

chief economist for the American Apparel Association:

Since the 1920s, retailers have purchased and have merchandised women’s

apparel differently than men’s….The way women’s apparel is sold to the retailer

is different than men’s and the retailers themselves have a different system for

pricing women’s apparel than men’s. Even in areas where garments are unisex,

like knit shirts, a shirt in the men’s department will sell for less than the same knit

shirt in the women’s department [47, p. 13].

According to Whittelsey and Carroll [47], women pay more than men for clothes that are

virtually the same.

The area we are primarily interested in is the personal care industry. Here too,

data gathered from government-issued reports and journalistic investigations suggest that

women pay more for various products and services than do men, including personal-care

products, cosmetics, and health insurance (with the exceptions of automobile and life

insurances) [27]. The California Assembly Office of Research also found that women

systematically paid more than men for services in hair salons and dry cleaners [29, 46].

For instance, of 199 hair salons and 67 dry cleaners investigated in New York City, 48

percent of haircutters charged women more than men for a simple haircut and women
 Cost of Doing Femininity 6

were charged nearly three times the price that men were charged to clean their dress

shirts [36].2 Liston-Heyes and Neokleous [23] found similar patterns in the U.K. Such

gendered price disparities apparently persist. In 2011, Ms. Magazine launched a national

campaign (including via Facebook) to stop the “gender pricing gap,” asking readers to

provide information about products that are made by the same company and contain the

same materials or ingredients, but charge more for the product marketed to women (they

promised to publish the most egregious cases in an upcoming issue).

Of course, it could be argued that price differentials are justifiable because the

service or good is not identical or similar in kind. For instance, Liston-Heyes and

Neokleous found that unisex hair establishments justified charging higher prices for

women’s basic haircuts than men’s because the former “take longer,” “are more fussy,”

“are more difficult,” and “expect more” [23, p. 115]. Yet, Liston-Heyes and Neokleous

[23] specifically asked for identical hairstyles. They also note that hair-cutting technology

is similar for women and men, that the training required to work in a men’s hair

establishment takes as long as that to work in a unisex or women’s salon, and that wages

paid to women and men hairdressers are not significantly different. Thus, the rationales

for charging women more than men for basic haircuts do not necessarily hold up to actual

practice. Even if we recognize that variables such as hair length, duration of service, and

materials used may differ for women and men, it is noteworthy that pricing policies are

still often based upon gender itself as opposed to these other variables.

Myers notes that similar arguments have been made in the dry-cleaning business

for charging higher prices for laundering women’s as opposed to men’s clothes: “It is

harder to press a woman’s shirt with equipment designed for men’s shirts” [27, p. 40].
 Cost of Doing Femininity 7

Economist Landsburg [22], speaking of his non-systematic attempt to understand why

women were charged more to dry-clean their shirts, recounts:

I called three different dry cleaners and asked for their explanations. The first said

that men's shirts are machine pressed, while women's are hand pressed. That left

me wondering why they don't simply quote different prices for different kinds of

pressing. The second said that women's shirts require specialized treatment

because they are typically doused with perfume. That left me wondering why men

who use after-shave are not chronically dissatisfied with their dry cleaners. The

third said that this was their pricing policy, and if I didn't like it, I was free to shop

elsewhere.

Interestingly, justifications for women’s increased cost in obtaining certain

services such as haircuts seem to mirror practices in other areas, especially employment.

Passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (which requires that equal pay must be given for

equal work in the same workplace) dictated that jobs need not be identical, only

“substantially equal” [40]. Even after controlling for job characteristics and a variety of

other factors, however, women’s wages are lower than men’s [7]. And similar to reasons

for not granting women equal pay (e.g., women place greater priority on family than

career), those used to charge women more for similar services rest upon individualistic-

level explanations (e.g., women are more difficult to please, need special ingredients, or

require more time) and seem grounded in cultural stereotypes about gender.

In terms of personal care products and services, it is virtually impossible to prove

price discrimination on the basis of gender. To do so, detailed information on the costs of

raw materials, production, and marketing must all be demonstrated as being equal for
 Cost of Doing Femininity 8

both women’s and men’s products and services. Thus, in this study, our goal is simply to

document the existence of price differences in personal care products and services.

Whether any differences are due to discrimination per se, or other factors, is unclear, but

we argue that it is also largely irrelevant to women’s lives. That is, if women do in fact

pay more for basic services and products, then women can be said to incur a greater cost

of doing gender than men. Thus, our research provides insight into the myriad ways in

which it costs to be a woman in contemporary society.

METHODS

Data

Effort was made to analyze items or services that were comparable for women

and men so that meaningful comparisons could be made. We chose three areas where

products or services are directly comparable or similar: hair salons, dry cleaners, and

personal grooming products.3 The items and services selected for analysis were chosen

firstly because they are consumed and utilized broadly by both women and men. In the

case of personal care products, we selected items that fulfill the same basic need for men

and women but for which slightly different versions are unambiguously marketed to each

gender. Personal care products which are primarily advertized as unisex (e.g. soap,

toothpaste) were excluded from consideration. Similarly, personal care products

generally consumed by members of only one gender (e.g. nail polish, tampons) were also

excluded. Included in our analysis are prices for basic haircuts; dry cleaning of shirts,

pants, blazers, and suits; and standard personal care items (deodorant, shave gel, razors,

body spray). Pricing data from hair salons, dry-cleaning establishments, and personal-
 Cost of Doing Femininity 9

care products were gathered by telephoning providers, physically visiting stores, or, if

available online, by examining company websites. Data gathered via telephone or

physically visiting stores were restricted to a four-county metropolitan area in the

Southeast with a population of approximately 2 million. The overall cost of living index

for this area is equivalent to that for the U.S. (98 versus 100). A score of 100 represents

the national average for major metropolitan markets, and, at 98, our chosen metropolitan

area has a cost of living index just shy of the national average. All data were collected in

the summer of 2006.

Samples and Coding

Salons. A sample of hair salons was culled from yellow page listings for zip

codes in the four-county area. A total of 1,234 hair salons were identified after the list

was purged of inappropriate listings (e.g., beauty supply stores). A list of 100 randomly

generated numbers was used to select the salons to be included in the sample.4 Each

salon selected into the sample was telephoned and asked pricing information for both

women’s and men’s haircuts. The salons were asked the starting price of a woman’s

haircut and style and the starting price of a man’s cut and style.5

Dry cleaners. A sampling list of dry cleaners was also taken from yellow page

listings for zip codes in the four-county area. From a total of 784 listed dry cleaners, 100

businesses were randomly selected to be included in the sample using a list of randomly

generated numbers.6 Each sampled dry cleaner was telephoned and asked to state the

price schedule for dry-cleaning the following items: man’s two-piece suit, woman’s two-

piece suit, man’s blazer, woman’s blazer, man’s shirt, woman’s shirt, man’s slacks, and

woman’s slacks.
 Cost of Doing Femininity 10

Personal-care products. In order to examine whether or not there are substantial

differences in the cost of goods and services in the personal-care industry, we selected

and examined four items that are used by both women and men, but marketed separately

to each.7 These items included deodorant, shaving gel/cream, razors, and scented body

sprays. Although there are other personal-care products manufactured by the industry,

many of them are either not explicitly marketed in a gendered way (e.g. toothpaste), or

only marketed to one gender (such as make-up). Therefore, these types of items were

excluded for the purposes of this study.

Data were collected from four national retail chains: Target, Wal-Mart, CVS, and

Walgreens. Coding for products at CVS and Walgreens was compiled using the prices

listed on their respective websites. Because Target and Wal-Mart do not list their

personal care products on their websites, data collection was completed at a randomly

selected physical store location for both Target and Wal-Mart. Every item found in each

store of the four product types (deodorant, shave gel/cream, razors, and body spray) was

coded for brand, the gender to which the product was marketed, price, and either the

amount in ounces (deodorant, shave gel/cream, and body spray) or the specific number of

items in the package (razors). Items that were identical in all ways except color or scent

(e.g., varieties of Secret deodorant differing only in fragrance) were coded as one item. A

total of 538 products were coded, including 199 deodorants, 89 shave gel/creams, 204

razors, and 46 body sprays.

FINDINGS

Hair Salons
 Cost of Doing Femininity 11

Of the 100 salons for which data were collected, only 15 had equal starting prices

for women’s and men’s haircuts (10 of these were franchise salons). There was no salon

that offered cheaper haircuts to women. On average, women paid $35.02 (SD=11.38) for

a basic haircut and men paid $22.78 (SD=6.23). An independent samples t-test confirmed

significant differences between the prices of women’s and men’s haircuts (t=9.2, p <

.001). The price discrepancy between women’s and men’s haircuts ranged from $0 to

$25.00. These are prices for a basic cut that is similar for men and women; the true cost

of a haircut is likely to be higher because the majority of salons had additional add-on

charges depending upon the hair texture, length, and “difficulty” of the cut.

In order to further evaluate the extent to which characteristics other than the

gender of the client impact the cost of a haircut, a one-way analysis of variance was

conducted to evaluate the relationship between salons at different price points and price

differences between women’s and men's haircuts. The sample of salons was divided into

three categories (low-end, mid-range, and high-end) based on the cumulative percentages

in the frequency distribution of the cost of a woman’s haircut. 8 The dependent variable

was created by subtracting the price of a men's cut from the price of a women's cut for

each salon. The ANOVA was significant, F(2, 97) = 137.15, p = .001. The means and

standard deviations for the price differences between women’s and men’s haircuts for the

three salon types are presented in Table 1.

TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE

Follow-up tests using Tukey HSD were conducted to evaluate pairwise

differences among the means. Pricing disparities between men’s and women's haircuts

differed for each of the salon groupings (low-end, mid-range, and high-end). The results
 Cost of Doing Femininity 12

of the ANOVA indicate that the more upscale a salon, the higher the magnitude of

discrepancy between the price of a woman's haircut and a men's haircut.

TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE

Dry Cleaning

The prices charged to women and men to dry-clean their respective two-piece

suits, blazers, shirts, and slacks were compared using a series of independent samples t-

tests. No significant differences were found in the cost to clean women’s and men’s suits,

blazers, and slacks (see Table 3). There were, however, significant differences found in

the cost to clean women’s and men’s shirts. The average cost to clean a men’s shirt was

$2.06, while it was $3.95 for a women’s shirt (t = -14.64, p < .001). This pricing disparity

exists before considering the additional costs incurred if the item of clothing is made of a

special fabric, such as silk or rayon, or has embellishments or pleats. In other words, the

observed pricing disparity is for identical shirts except that one is labeled a “men’s” shirt

while the other is a “women’s” shirt. Ninety-seven percent of the sample included an

additional charge for special fabrics, 94 percent charged more for embellishments, and 92

percent of the sampled dry cleaners included an up-charge for pleats. Because women’s

clothing is more likely to have embellishments and pleats and to be made of delicate

fabrics, the actual average dry cleaning costs for women is likely to be even greater than

the base price noted above.

TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE

Personal-Care Items

Independent samples t-tests were used to compare the price per purchase,

ounces/number of items per purchase, and the price per ounce/item for women and men
 Cost of Doing Femininity 13

for deodorant, shave gel/cream, razors, and body spray. As shown in Table 4, no

significant differences were found for the price of a single stick of deodorant for women

and men, (t = -.13, p = .90). Thus, at first glance it would appear that men and women

pay the same amount for deodorant but closer examination reveals that women’s

deodorants contain fewer ounces (t = 6.53, p < .001) and cost more per ounce (t = -5.04, p

< .001) than men’s. On average, women pay $1.44 per ounce of deodorant while men pay

$1.15, a difference of almost 30 cents per ounce. Additionally, a typical container of

deodorant for women contains 2.29 ounces while an average deodorant for men contains

2.86 ounces.

TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE

The t-tests revealed a slight difference between the price each gender paid for a

container of body spray (t = -1.94, p = .06) but not for ounces per container (t = -1.07, p =

.29) or price per ounce (t = -.57, p = .57). Women pay on average $5.81 for a container of

body spray while men pay $4.58. No significant differences were found between women

and men for the overall cost (t = .90, p = .37), amount (t = .75, p = .46), or cost per ounce

(t = .29, p = .80) of shaving gel/cream. Moreover, no significant differences were found

between women and men for the cost per package of razors (t = .63, p = .53), number of

razors in a package (t = 1.43, p = .15), or the cost per individual razor (t = -.70, p = .48).

DISCUSSION

Overall, our data suggest that women tend to pay more than men for certain

services and products. These gendered price disparities are not as widespread as what

journalists have previously reported but it does appear that women pay more for certain
 Cost of Doing Femininity 14

goods (deodorant), services in hair salons (haircuts), and dry-cleaning of shirts.

Unquestionably, costs for haircuts and dry-cleaning vary by region (e.g., women and men

pay more in New York City than Tulsa, OK) but within regions, the question is whether

women would pay more than men for the same services. Our findings suggest that they

do.

Because we did not control for production and marketing costs, or elasticity of

supply and demand [16], we are not able to establish absolute price discrimination on the

basis of gender. For instance, it is possible that the formula for women’s deodorant may

contain more (expensive) fragrances than those of men’s9 or that women’s shirts are more

difficult to dry clean than men’s. However, it stands that women do in fact spend more

than men for certain comparable goods and services in the personal care industry, and

this has important implications for women’s daily lives. While these products and

services are relatively inexpensive (though haircuts can run $100 or more for women),

the cumulative cost is not insignificant. These costs also hit hardest those who already

earn lower wages. Of course, women with scarce financial resources may buy generic

brands, have less need for dry-cleaning, and frequent lower end salons (where there is

less gendered price disparities), but gendered products are pervasive and even lower-end

salons charge more for haircuts. Thus, on a daily basis, it appears to cost women more it

does men to “do gender” appropriately [45].

This high price of femininity is fueled by the cultural expectation that women

appear attractive and women’s own desires to do so. Indeed, the success of marketing

equivalent products and services differently to each gender suggests that these products

are in some way fulfilling the consumers’ wants and needs. As noted by Keat:
 Cost of Doing Femininity 15

In a market economy, rival producers compete with one another in pursuing their

overall aim of profit-maximization. Their success or failure in this task is

ultimately determined by their relative ability to meet, in a cost-effective manner,

the demands of actual or potential purchasers of their products: that is, to satisfy

the wants or preferences of consumers, where these preferences are indicated by

the consumers’ willingness to pay for the products on offer [19, p. 28].

Women, in fact, do seem to be willing to pay more for products or services.

Why might women be willing to act is such seemingly “irrational” (economically

speaking) ways? One answer to this question is that they do so in order to create or

maintain difference on a valued dimension (i.e., gender). And the juncture at which this

occurs is where body, identity, and consumerism converge. In other words, the

construction of the gendered self is accomplished in part by consumer practices [6, 17,

19, 24, 41]. The choice to buy one particular product over another, or to buy one

particular service over another, is less about any meaningful differences in the competing

products and more about how the chosen items reflect the consumer’s identity.

Individuals express themselves through what they buy, whether it is clothing, cars,

personal electronics, or music [11, 35]. The results of this study suggest that personal

identity is expressed even through the purchase of the most mundane products and

services (e.g., razors, deodorant, hair cutting). While the use-value of a personal care

product is likely the primary reason for its purchase (e.g., deodorant is purchased and

used to mask body odor), the product is also bought for its symbolic meaning and what

that product represents (e.g., a deodorant with floral fragrance and extra moisturizers is

thought to beautify and feminize the body). By buying a “woman’s” deodorant, using a
 Cost of Doing Femininity 16

“woman’s” razor, or getting a “feminine” haircut, women are able to express themselves

as feminine in a largely masculine world. It is perhaps for this reason that many services

and items marketed to men are priced less: the expressions of masculinity through

consumption are not likely to be focused on grooming and appearance, although for some

men this may be changing [5].

In our study, we found that certain items tended to reflect larger disparities than

others. For the most part, they were items that are the most visible ways of gendering the

body. For instance, the dry-cleaning item that reflected disparity was the “shirt,” which is

arguably the most gendered piece of clothing among those we studied. Both men and

women may wear slacks, but only women wear “blouses.” Women and men may don

suits, but men wear “dress-shirts.” Perhaps more telling is the disparity surrounding

haircuts. Hairstyles are visible to all and are a major means by which women do gender

(as well as race and class) [4, 5, 43]. As Barber notes, “hair is a social symbol that allows

people to associate themselves with others along the lines of race, class, gender,

sexuality, and age” [5, p. 457]. Further, the hair salon is the site within which women

participate in women’s culture [5, 13, 14, 33] and as such, “purchasing beauty work in

the salon is one way women… participate in the ‘naturalizing’ of social arrangement” [5,

p. 458].

Thus, we suggest that services and goods that contribute most obviously to visible

aspects of the gendered self, such as haircuts or feminine blouses/shirts, are most

susceptible to price disparities. Haircuts, in particular, because they are both

public/visible but also linked personally/biologically to the body [42], and allow women
 Cost of Doing Femininity 17

to participate in women’s culture (in a way that going to the dry-cleaner’s or Target does

not), are likely to be one service for which women are willing to pay a high price.

This “visibility” explanation does not entirely account for why deodorant, of all

the personal care products we analyzed, showed significant differences in gender pricing.

While perspiration is culturally gendered (women perspire, men sweat), the type of

deodorant used certainly is not visible (although many deodorants are scented and may

smell more “manly” or “womanly,” but this difference is not likely to be noticed). Hence,

it is interesting to consider the importance of deodorant in terms of body maintenance.

Bryan Turner [37, p. 3] discusses the concept of “social fluids,” arguing that fluids that

leak or seep from the body are regarded as dangerous and a “vehicle of contamination.”

The most feared female fluid, of course, is menstrual fluid [37], but if we take seriously

the idea that any bodily fluid is perceived as dangerous, it is easier to see why women

may be persuaded to invest more to prevent its occurrence. Arguably, men’s social fluids

are more acceptable than women’s, so that heavy sweating (and odor) may be more

damaging to women’s images than men’s.

There is another aspects of buying an “image” that was observed in our study. Not

only does consumption (in particular, haircuts/styles) provide a means by which we do

gender, but it also appears to enable us to “do social class.” We found that high-end hair

salons had greater gender disparity in the cost of haircuts than those found in mid-range

or low-end salons. In this way class adds another dimension to the gendered price

disparities seen across all salons. Williams [48] found similar class-based pricing

disparities in her study of two toy stores—one a “big-box store,” the other a more

“upscale” store. She found that identical items at the upscale store were priced
 Cost of Doing Femininity 18

substantially higher than those at the big-box store. Affluent customers were willing to

pay more because they believed it enhanced their social standing. Similarly, it appears

that women who frequent high-end hair salons are willing to pay a higher price in order

to convey femininity and class-status. Of course, patrons of a high-end salon are not

necessarily of a more privileged social class than those who frequent lower-end salons,

but expensive haircuts provide a rich opportunity for anyone who can afford them a

visible means of doing “difference” [44], and achieving the “look” of privilege.

Thus, social class is important to understanding consumption patterns, not only in

terms of “doing class” but also for understanding how class and gender may intersect in

terms of consumption patterns. We suspect that it is indeed more privileged women who

buy more, and more expensive, products in order to enhance their public images. Yet, for

those women who must (or hope to) participate fully in the professional arena, where

“image” is critical, there is a higher price to pay than men in these positions.

But focusing solely on individual practice ignores structural features that serve to

reinforce gender inequality. We suggest that to understand why women spend more

money on personal care products and services, it is important also to consider the

gendered institutions in which they operate. Acker [1] argues that while organizations are

presumed to be gender neutral, assumptions about gender are pervasive. One way in

which this occurs is through “the construction of symbols and images that explain,

express, reinforce, or sometimes oppose those divisions” [1, p. 146] and this includes

grooming and appearance. Women must pay particular attention to how they present

themselves in public and the workplace because when women interact in the gendered

workplace (and other institutions) their appearance “signifies something” [21]. With over
 Cost of Doing Femininity 19

75 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 54 participating in the workforce [10],

many American women spend a significant portion of their time conforming to the

managerial imperative of “rationality and efficiency” [18, p. 20], and thus “masculinity.”

Although women are expected to act in ways that can be read as masculine in the

workplace, they are, nevertheless, faced with societal expectations that women should be

feminine. In response, women may buy and use products that are expressly “feminine” in

order to reinforce their feminine identities but also to fulfill gendered expectations in the

workforce.

We believe that the development and marketing of gendered products designed

for personal care also reflect and reinforce essentialist thinking about gender, and

therefore serve to reinforce gender distinctions. Consider that pricing differentials on the

basis of gender can only be sustained if 1) women believe that it is natural and normal to

pay more than men do for essentially the same products or services, and 2) women

believe that there really is a “need” for gendered products (or that products marketed to

men are inadequate for their needs). Products directed at one gender or the other therefore

reinforce the idea that gendered products are rooted in sex-based differences (e.g., ph

levels, hormones), as well as gender-based differences (e.g., personal care, grooming

practices). The apparent acceptance of gender-based price differentials in society (note

the lack of public or academic attention paid to it) reflects the cultural perception that

gender categories are fixed and that women and men really are radically different types of

human beings, in need of different products. Gender is already a divisive social force, but

the pervasiveness of gendered products and services reinforces such essentialist thinking.
 Cost of Doing Femininity 20

Marketers have successfully convinced women and men that the gendered

products they sell are in fact different (recall Secret’s promise that their deodorant is

“Strong enough for a man but made for a woman”) and consumers literally “bought into”

this essentialist-based marketing (i.e., that men and women are biologically different and

require different products). Apparently, most opt for items that “match” their gender,

regardless of the price. It is also interesting to observe that products are becoming

increasingly “gendered.” For example, until recently “lotion” was not explicitly gendered

but recently has become so (e.g., Vaseline Intensive Care for Men). Do women really

believe that men’s deodorant wouldn’t work, or do men believe that the generic lotion

won’t heal dry skin, or are they simply opting for the product that enables them to

express their femininity and masculinity?

Of course, corporations and marketers did not have to think too far outside the

box to come up with gendered products. They merely tapped into cultural practices that

start early in life. Most parents, for instance, seek to eliminate any gender ambiguity in

children by putting bows in girls’ hair or dressing them in gender-appropriate colors and

children quickly come to embody these gendered differences [25]. Using “women’s” or

“men’s” razors simply extends this practice to adult bodies. There is an irony here, of

course. If women and men really were essentially different, there would be little need to

prove this on a daily basis through clothing or products. Thus, gendered products provide

yet another means by which we “do gender” on a daily basis.

The social construction of the gendered self through consumerism, and

essentialist beliefs about women’s and men’s inherent differences, help explain why

women simply do not opt to buy cheaper products—those marketed to men. But this is
 Cost of Doing Femininity 21

not the whole story. While buying the similar but cheaper product sold in stores may be

an option, gendered structural arrangements constrain human agency. A gender-based

pricing scheme is not something that can be argued at the point of sale in a hair salon.

One might simply abandon such an establishment and seek out a salon that has a pricing

strategy based on gender-neutral criteria, but our findings suggest that the cost is still

likely to be greater for women regardless of the ways in which salons justify their pricing.

Dry cleaners present a similar challenge. One way to challenge the heightened cost

associated with laundering women’s shirts may be to buy and wear men’s shirts, but

doing so further reinforces masculinist norms and forces women to “buy into” hegemonic

masculinity, presenting women with even more challenges of doing gender. And as

Featherstone reminds us, individuals may refuse to cultivate this appearance, “yet if they

do so they must be prepared to face the implications of this choice within social

encounters” [12, p. 98].

We see similarity between the phenomena noted here and other ways that

masculine values are imposed as the “norm.” For instance, charging women more to dry

clean their blouses because their shirts do not fit on equipment made for men’s shirts is

similar to airlines excluding women from being pilots because airplanes are made to fit

men’s bodies (e.g., Boyd v. Ozark Air Lines) [49]. A basic haircut for a woman is not

likely to be more complicated than that for a man. In the dry-cleaning business, not every

men’s shirt fits neatly on the machine press nor does every women’s shirt not. Although

it is difficult to rule out the possibility that women’s haircuts are more labor and time-

intensive than men’s, a fairer practice would be to base prices upon actual time or labor

involved rather than assumptions about gender differences. Certainly prices for haircuts,
 Cost of Doing Femininity 22

dry-cleaning, and products should be tied more closely to factors such as style or labor

rather than gender, but doing so would still not eliminate the cost of doing gender for

women. Given gender differences associated with hair and clothing styles, even a pricing

scheme based purely on style or labor costs would still serve to reinforce gender

differences and result in a higher cost of doing gender for women. It would be a start, for

sure, but legal remedies are also important.

It should be noted that laws exist in California, Massachusetts, New York City,

and the province of Ontario that prohibit the practice of charging women and men

different prices for equal services, but similar bills have failed to pass in Florida, Rhode

Island, and West Virginia [27, 28, 46]. Further, there is evidence that such laws have

done little to reduce gendered price disparities [30]. Two years after passing the Gender

Tax Repeal Act in California, which prohibited gender discrimination in pricing, a report

published in the Daily Times of Los Angeles found that 45 percent of hair salons, 46

percent of launderers, and 17 percent of dry cleaners still charged women more for these

services [30]. Loopholes built into the law allowed service providers to charge more to

women if they feel the service will be more difficult or time-consuming than similar

services for men [28, 29].

The existence and acceptance of gender-based price disparities represents one

way in which gender distinctions and inequality are reinforced in daily life. We believe it

is important to consider whether women and men pay different prices for similar goods or

services in a wide range of areas because these consumer and industry practices affect

women’s standard of living. They also, ultimately, speak to issues of fairness. In Blau and

Kahn’s [7, p. 38] discussion of why wages are important, they note that wages affect
 Cost of Doing Femininity 23

individuals’ economic well-being and relate to “issues of fairness and equity.” It is for

precisely these reasons that the heightened, literal cost of doing femininity deserves

further investigation.
 Cost of Doing Femininity 24

NOTES

1. Price discrimination is widely acknowledged among economists, who are primarily

interested in the conditions under which price discrimination “works”; that is, when are

consumers willing to pay more for identical or similar items? [8, 34].

2. Following the release of this report, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani signed into law a bill

preventing gender discriminatory pricing practices within the city of New York [31].

3. We recognize that women’s and men’s haircuts are not identical and that hair

represents major ways in which gender displays are accomplished. However, these

stylistic differences are separate from the price differentials, which is the focus of this

study.

4. We were unable to obtain information from five salons (2 no answer, 1 disconnected

line, 1 no longer in business, 1 refused to give prices over the phone). In these cases an

alternate salon was selected into the sample via a random number.

5. Some salons reported a price for a “woman’s cut and style” and a “man’s cut.” In order

to account for these discrepancies, prices were recorded for just women’s and men’s cuts,

excluding style, for these particular establishments. Several of these salons did not have a

starting price for a women’s cut without a style. In these situations prices were recorded

for the women’s cut and style and a man’s cut.

6. A total of eight dry cleaners were eliminated from the original sample. One of the

telephone numbers proved to be a non-working number, one number was a fax machine,

and another business had stopped accepting clothing for dry cleaning. The final five

businesses refused to provide their prices over the telephone. Eight alternate dry cleaners
 Cost of Doing Femininity 25

were then selected, again using a list of randomly generated numbers, resulting in a final

sample of 100 dry cleaning establishments.

7. The determination of whether a product was marketed to women or men was made by

an examination of the product’s labeling (e.g., Arrid for Men) and marketing message

(e.g., Degree’s men deodorant “protects men who take risks”) and/or the categorization

of the store by aisle organization (physical stores) or website organization. In no cases

was it unclear which products were for whom.

8. The cost of a women’s haircut was used to create a variable representing the type of

salon, as there was a wider range of prices for women’s cuts than men’s overall.

9. We do know that products such as razors, body spray, deodorants and the like tend to

be manufactured in countries that have relatively low wages [39] and therefore, the

higher cost of women’s products is not likely to be based solely upon these labor costs.
 Cost of Doing Femininity 26

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 Cost of Doing Femininity 31

Table 1: Average Price Difference between Women’s and Men’s Haircuts by Salon Type

Haircut N Price Difference

Low-End Salons 23 2.17 (3.33)
Mid-Range Salons 34 11.71 (4.48)
High-End Salons 43 12.24 (3.21)
Note: Main cell entries are means, standard deviations in parentheses.
 Cost of Doing Femininity 32

Table 2: Tukey HSD Comparison for Price Difference between Women’s and Men’s
Haircut
95% Confidence Interval
Comparisons Mean Price Std. Error Lower Bound Upper Bound
Diff
Low-end vs. Mid-range -9.53* 1.0 -11.92 -7.14
Low-end vs. High-end -15.87* .96 -18.16 -13.59
Mid-range vs. High-end -6.34* .85 -8.37 -4.31
*p < .001
 Cost of Doing Femininity 33

Table 3: Average Dry Cleaning Costs in Dollars by Item and Gender

Clothing Item N Price

Two Piece Suit
Women 100 8.51(1.54)
Men 100 8.57(1.56)
Blazer
Women 100 5.26(1.26)
Men 100 5.24(1.26)
Shirt
Women 100 3.95(0.88)*
Men 100 2.06(0.93)
Slacks
Women 100 4.30(0.92)
Men 100 4.27(0.90)
Note: Main cell entries are means, standard deviations in parentheses.
*p < .001
 Cost of Doing Femininity 34

Table 4: Average Cost (in dollars) and Volume of Personal Care Products by Item and
Gender

Product N Price Volume Price per oz/item

Deodorant
Women 81 3.16(.84) 2.29 oz.(.06)** 1.44(.05)**
Men 118 3.15(.73) 2.86 oz.(.06) 1.15(.03)
Shave Gel
Women 25 2.67(.24) 7.0 oz.(.53) .45(.06)
Men 64 2.97(.18) 7.5 oz.(.36) .47(.04)
Razors
Women 80 6.14(.29) 4.82(.42)1 3.00(.37)
Men 124 6.40(.28) 5.62(.35) 2.67(.30)
Body Spray
Women 30 5.81(.57)* 4.43 oz.(.49) 1.76(.28)
Men 16 4.58(.27) 3.80 oz.(.35) 1.50(.35)

Note: Main cell entries are means, standard deviations in parentheses.

1
Denotes average number of razors in package.
*p < .10
**p < .001