Joan Crow laws?

An Ontario MP recently brought up the idea of gender bias in consumer pricing. For example, you go into the Gap, and pants for women cost more than similar pants for men. Women's shampoo tends to cost more, as does the haircut itself. It was brought up then, that this was seemingly a violation of the human rights section of the Charter, whereby people can't be biased against for their gender, among other things. Interesting point, but I don't believe women are being bilked in every case.

With the example of Dry Cleaning the MP brought up, I believe there is a case to be made for discrimination. You bring in a shirt, you should pay the same amount for that same shirt regardless of what you look like. Period. Now, if it's silk or casmire or cheeta pelt, you may be paying more, but same shirt same price.

Deodorant is also another clear cut case of women getting the short end of the stick. So to speak. In a seperate study, The Star found like brands of deodorant are about equally priced between the sexes, but the mens was bigger, so they got more bang for their buck. Clearly not fair, especially if you note that A guys smell more (generally), and B that means you have to put more anti-smell crap in each stick. If anything, guys should be paying more (not that I'm advocating that).

That said, I don't think there's bias in every case. With haircuts, women tend to take more time of the stylist, and require a higher level of skill than a simple buzz cut. Better service over longer time = higher price. Makes sense right?

Another one, clothes, is also not as cut and dry as it first seems. The arguement can be made that since womens fasions change so much more than mens, they cost more to keep in stock. Let's say a womens pair of jeans changes fasion twice a year, and a guy's does once a year. Not so unreasonable. That means the shelf life of a womens product is half that of mens. That means the store has to put more work into stocking and reordering new clothes. It also means that once the fasion goes out of style, which happens twice as much in the women's aisle, the store is stuck with overstocked merchandise. Which is hard to sell off at full price. Plus, I'd say it's fair to say that guys are less aware of changing jean fasion than women are. As a result, it's easier for store X to sell off their leftovers to guys at reduced prices, while fasion conscious women will be more loathe to take on yesterday's look.

So while the individual price of womens jeans vs mens jeans doesnt seem reasonable, the overall service costs more to the company over time. The same princible is true throughout retail stores, its just that in clothes stores products are naturally split along gender lines.

Another arguement is that guys are 'nessecity shoppers'. In other words, we just don't give a damn. If deodorant got too expensive, I have a sneaking suspicion entirely too many of us would try and do without. Actually, entirely too many of us currently do. Going on the idea that most people, but men in particular, are idiots, this seems like a pretty realistic fear.

Now, let me be clear: Inequality is bad. If you don't have a reasonable reason for giving uneven treatment to people, you're violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and should be forced to stop. But if there is a reasonable cause to charge different amounts, based on service and overall cost to the store to carry item X, I think a case can be made. As always, feel free to argue with me.