Why you should always buy the men’s version of almost anything - The Washington Post

TheDude41 · 2015-12-23T09:27:37+00:00

Plantation mentality & "white women's burden."

Actually, the title is incorrect. The real title should be "Why you should by a unisex version of everything."

Because unisex products are always cheaper than products tailored or marketed to any smaller demographic. This is by necessity, because carving up your product line to create more variants tailored to varied demographics always takes up more space on a store shelf per product sold, more problems with managing inventory, always costs more to produce, and always provides more opportunities for marketing. And marketing is really about getting people pay more for things that are not intrinsically more valuable and that are not more costly to produce.

I think most men understand that a "men's" bar of soap is not intrinsically more valuable than a unisex bar of soap, and men are generally unwilling to spend a significant premium to get the "men's" bar over the unisex or generic bar.

Women less likely to perceive it as so. They want everything to be special for them -- even if it's not.

As I run through the isles of a store looking at products marketed at women, I amazed at the crap that women are willing to pay additional money for that are objectively worthless. Paper towels and napkins with floral prints, weird botanical additives and scents, garish packaging, "women's" vitamins, "organic" ingredients, silly proclamations about negligible fractions of proceeds to be contributed to some charity or another, etc.. etc... etc...

I think this is a manifestation of the "women are wonderful" effect. Women like to think they are wonderful all day, hence when they see a product on a shelf that seems specifically marketed to them (for women! that means special / safer / better!), they are intrinsically inclined to pay more to buy it. If the woman's product costs the same, they might actually be less inclined to buy it. This is not a manifestation of women being downtrodden. Quite the opposite really -- it's a manifestation of women having a plantation mentality and feeling they are worthy of a "special" product that is for their use and not for others. More expensive for her of course, how could it not be?

For example, many women want to have several bottles of more expensive "women's" shampoo cluttering the shower that only they (or sometimes their female children) are allowed use. This means that every time a man or a boy runs out of "generic" shampoo (for plebs) and instead uses her more expensive shampoo, he gets scolded. (Yes this has happened to me.)

Another way to have this experience: make sure your wife sees you apply her most expensive facial cream to your feet. (Don't worry, the facial cream is made of the same crap -- nothing will happen to your feet.)

Women want to feel "special" and entitled -- always having women's segregated products and spaces that exclude non-females. Segregated products, segregated bathrooms, and now segregated rail cars "for women" on public transportation.

Imagine a plantation owner complaining that his special hair tonic marketed to white landowners is marketed at a higher price than a product marketed to plebs and slaves, and you'll get some idea of the mentality of the white woman shopping experience. Is he going to buy the hair tonic for plebs and slaves instead? Never! He's too good for that, unfair! It comes down to, white women don't want to stoop to the level of buying something that's not just for them, so they complain about paying more. In fact, I'm willing to bet that a manufacturer who prices women's products the same as men's products would probably sell less to women, because generally, women feel they ought to be treated to something better than men get, want to splurge on themselves, and many probably take it as something of a personal insult if they are not pampered with something at least slightly more expensive than what their man uses.

But don't think for a moment that they won't complain about it afterwards (damseling)!

Of course one should never buy things that are marketed specifically to females. One should never buy anything that is specifically marketed to anyone.

I wonder what studies there are out there that compare women's vs men's susceptibility to marketing practices.

Frankly, when I head to the grocery store to buy food & cosmetics, I don't like to spend a lot of time doing it. I just pick the cheapest item off the shelf, bulk if necessary, and don't spend a heck of a lot of time reading labels. Why the heck should I pay more for a spritz of "aloe vera" or whatever other crap they are going to add to a product to make it seem "special" when it's really not? I'm not going to waste time clipping coupons either, just so I can buy a brand-name item for a price that is closer to, but still slightly higher, than a generic item sold by default at a reasonable price.

In fact, unisex products are something that I prefer because it significantly simplifies my household. Why have four different bottles of product in your home (men, women, boys, girls), when you can have one? Apparently, that doesn't cut with many women it though. I can't count the number of times when, while cleaning, I have been tempted to throw out 8 of the 10 different bottles of shampoo and soap that cluttering the shower at home, and just declare that from now on, everyone is going to take from the same bottle of bulk product.

But guess who would complain about that? I encourage you all to try it. Throw out all the bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and soap in your bathroom at home, and leave just one cheap bottle of shampoo, and on cheap bottle of conditioner, and see who comes complaining. Ask yourself who is more "entitled" when you consider that those products all cost your household money, and consider who is spending more of it.

This is also quite illuminating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HEr8zmVEZQ&app=desktop#t=9m13s

SporkTornado · 2015-12-23T05:39:48+00:00

TL:DR explains the "Pink Tax" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HEr8zmVEZQ

2015-12-23T13:38:27+00:00

Flip that on its head: Parents are willing to spend $50 on their daughter's scooter, but only $25 on their son's.

Wargame4life · 2015-12-23T09:25:48+00:00

The stupidity it hurts.

according to the Washington posts logic (appalling journalism) if i sell two scooters one which is generic and one which is customised with "dave is awesome" written on it and "Dave" in massive letters on it, if i dont price them identically i am deliberately discriminating against people called dave.

its market forces you retarded fucks, the scooter in the example is a generic scooter (unisex) the "special girls version" will obviously cost more because the market is smaller.

This entire article is absolutely fucking ridiculously stupid.

iainmf · 2015-12-23T10:15:22+00:00

When asked about the price differences of other gendered toys — like the Raskullz shark helmet ($14.99) and the Raskullz unicorn helmet ($27.99) or the Playmobil pirate ship ($24.99) and the Playmobil fairy queen ship ($37.99)

Those aren't gendered toys unless you think only girls can like unicorns and fairies, and only boys can like sharks and pirates.

Jonesey505 · 2015-12-23T12:23:23+00:00

Women, on average, paid 48 percent more for goods like shampoo, conditioner and gel

This is where they dumped their credibility in the toilet and pulled the chain. Women have complety different requirements when it comes to hair care, and have an abundance of exotic and high priced products to maintain their curls/colours/highlights/whatevers, but most significantly, women are willing to spend exorbitant amounts on that stuff where most men are simply not.

The fact that feminism needs to constantly fabricate bullshit statistics by grossly distorting and misrepresting the truth shows how craven and empty their movement is.

onyonn · 2015-12-23T06:53:07+00:00

This is such a textbook example of missing the business and manufacturing context of all of this, which isn't based in gender, but in profit motive.

I think my favorite is this:

“Those prices aren’t being driven by costs,” Ayres said, “but just because you take advantage of certain groups but not others.”

Prices aren't driven by costs. The price of something is driven by what people are willing to pay for it.

Women are willing to pay more for personal hygiene products (and especially when marketed to them specifically)? Why wouldn't you price it accordingly.

In order for this theory (that certain groups are simply being taken advantage 'just because') to work, there would have to be a conspiracy of companies to price-fix gendered products. Otherwise, other companies would simply drop their prices and sell more.

There are other issues that are unexplored as well.

If there is a gender-marketed item, and that item isn't all that popular(lower volume), then the manufacturing run is shorter, and you need to make more money across a smaller number of items

Think of pink bandaids as an example. I just checked amazon, and pink band-aids are over double the price of regular band-aids. Why is that? Because most people don't care too much about the color of their band-aids. Pink band-aids are a specialty item.

On the other hand, there have been legitimate race issues around band-aids in the past. I remember light-skin-toned colored band-aids growing up. I can understand how the presence of light-skin-toned bandaids as the 'default' color can be part of alienation for non-white people. These days, band-aids seem to be darker, which is all fine and good, and progress as far as I'm concerned.

Distinguishing between these two types of situations seems to be something virtually no one is able to do.

Swiggy · 2015-12-23T15:59:34+00:00

Production costs aren't the only costs. You watch any show that has even a sliver of a female audience and you will see all of the hair care ads. There are so many products companies have to spend a ton in marketing to get women to buy theirs. And if you price something too low a lot of women will think that it is a sign of poor quality.

A lot of men will just buy whatever is on sale or has 25% free. Except of the morons who think axe body spray will get them more action.

DavidByron2 · 2015-12-23T04:44:29+00:00

I think if anyone here said you should always buy the man's version of any story people would call it sexist.

andejoh · 2015-12-23T21:06:46+00:00

Well the reason that women pay more for things is that they aren't the people generally who work to get the money. If they worked for the money, they be more judicious in it's use.

Title	Why you should always buy the men’s version of almost anything - The Washington Post
Author	jimrosenz
Upvotes	21
Comments	20
Date	December 23, 2015 4:07 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/3xx86o/why_you_should_always_buy_the_mens_version_of/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-you-should-always-buy-the-mens-version-of.964655 https://theredarchive.com/post/964655

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