March 23, 2011 • 19 mins
It's no secret that women tend to pay more for haircuts, but that's only one of the products and services that are more expensive for women. So how does it all add up? Join Molly and Cristen as they explore whether or not it costs more to be a woman.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never Told You?
From House top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Molly got a
(00:22):
little songbird in my throat today a special treat. Well,
I don't know that it's that much of a treat,
but I really, I really have the earge to seeing
right now because the title of this podcast, does it
Cost More to Be a Woman? Sounds like a country song?
Oh it tell he does? Does it not sound like
the follow up single two? Did I shave my legs
for this? You're for that old one? You know? Like,
(00:42):
does it cost More to be a woman? You know? Yeah?
And I think I think we are onto something there. Yeah.
I think maybe we do the podcast, we learn about
costs of being a man and a woman, and I
think the verses will just fall into place, yea, and
then we can go straight to Nashville and make it
make it big country gold. Yeah, because know that you
know how he said, Um, it's a follow up today.
(01:03):
I shaved my legs for this. Yeah. One thing that
was really interesting when we started googling and searching for
does it cost more to be a woman? Shaving is
an example that comes up a lot because it tends
to be at the drug store that many things cost
more for women than from them. Yeah, check this out.
For instance, Barba sal Arsal soothing aloe shave cream for
(01:25):
eleven ounces sells for a buck sixty nine. Barb Sal
Pure silk shaving cream for women at nine point five
ounces sells for two dollars and forty nine cents. So
how do you explain that? Barb Sal Barbasol said, get this.
He said, well, you know you ladies like to shave
(01:46):
in the shower, so the product needs to be a
rust resistant aluminum bottle can and we need more fragrance
for you gals, you smell nice. Hence you have to
pay more for it. You pay more for less. At
least they gave a reason because a lot of these
um examples that start to come up, and you know it,
just it keeps adding up. You'll find it starts with
something simple like shaving cream. And I feel that a
(02:08):
lot of women, uh maybe sort of have come to
accept that they're gonna have to pay more for the
upkeep of all this, As Dolly Parton says, it takes
a lot to like this trashy um, but you know
it just it goes on from there to dry cleaning,
to health insurance, et cetera. So we're gonna go, We're
gonna take through a few of the items that cost more.
(02:29):
And sometimes the rep will come out and say, like
the barbersoll reptid and um, you know what you shave
in the shower. We've done our market research, so you
need a rest resistant can. Sometimes they have no idea
why they're charging more. They offer some sketchy reasons, such
as when Niveia told Consumer Reports that their body washed
for women cost two bucks more than their body washed
(02:52):
for mint because the women's product is made with quote
skin sensation technology, skin sensation technology. You're just saying you
don't want that, Kristen. I'm saying I don't believe that.
I'm saying that's a bunch of horse hockey. No, it's soap. Yeah,
and well that's like soap with like intel chips crushed
into it or something. But that would be a product
(03:12):
that would hurt and be like the worst exfoliant ever.
But although I will say that people who are saying,
oh man, this is just gonna be some griping about
ladies paying more. No, we do have, we do have
some surprise results in there. So and I think, you know,
sometimes it does um you know, pay to remember that
we're making probably less overall compared to a man thanks
(03:33):
to the gender wage gap. And when you've got less
money in your pocket and then you gotta go pay
more for the same things, it's a little infuriating. Yeah,
And we can all vote with our dollars and not
support companies that charge more samply for lady business. So
I think the easiest place to start really is in
the bathroom with the the upkey, because when it comes
(03:54):
to personal care products, women are paying more just because
we use more. Guys aren't buying nail polished or not
buying uh an exfoliant, um um moisturizing mask, moisturized or
toner foundation, et cetera. We just buy more stuff at
the drug store. And typically women's personal care products costs
a little bit more, like we said with the examples
(04:16):
of shaving cream and um body wash, right, And so
you know they're saying that's a choice you can make.
You can choose to wear nail polish. You can choose
to wear a lot of makeup, you're gonna have to
pay for that choice. Oh and let's not forget tampons,
tampons or menstrul cups. You know, we we we have
specific personal care items and men simply biologically do not
(04:36):
have to buy right. Um, and now let's look at
hair salonts. How many times have you driven down the road,
Kristen and you'll see the sign. I know, I drive
by one every day that says ladies cut forty five
men's cut. Yeah, men's haircuts are almost always cheaper. I
I spent a stupid amount of money to get my haircut.
And uh, you know the this article we found justifies
(04:58):
it in that a woman's hair is longer, but points
out that that really doesn't how much to do with
the complexity of the haircut. Yeah, it doesn't mean that
I have long hair, you have pretty long hair. It
doesn't mean that every time we go in we're asking
them to cut off like ten inches. Yeah, it's a
little trim, but they've got us, They've got us in
their pockets. Yeah. I mean we're kind of conditioned at
this point to to pay to pay more. But here's
(05:22):
where it starts to get a little weird. Okay, dry cleaners. Yes,
they have done so many investigations of dry cleaners where
the men will have some sort of dollar ninety nine
deal on the window for a men's shirt and a
woman's shirt, which is you know, maybe no more. Fancier
is charged five dollars. Yeah, And there have even been
(05:42):
some lawsuits that have taken place because of this dry
cleaning UH controversy. And this is referred to as gender
pricing when men and women are charged different prices for
the same service, such as you know, like when one
example would be like ladies night at a bar, whomen
are drinking for for penny a drink or something, whereas
(06:05):
guys have to pay full price. So it does go
both ways, but it often comes up at the dry
cleaners and the dry cleinners. Is weird. And there's a
really good analysis of this in Slate where the guy
Stevinie Landsberg basically writes, you know, economics wise, based on
everything you learn in your economics class, either they're charging
a higher price because women's clothing has a much higher
(06:26):
costs just to clean, or because they can make such
a high profit margin off the woman. And and he's
saying that, really, neither of these hold up, because you know,
it's there are some more delicate fabrics that a lady
might bring in, but those are typically gonna be charged
even more um. And when you have something that's like
a one to one ratio, it should take the same
amount to clean. You know, it's not like these shirts
(06:48):
that are costing more have any more intricate like you know,
pleading or intricate fabric. They're saying, you know, a playing
cotton shirt versus playing shirt. Women are still getting overcharged,
and they're saying that it can't be He's saying he
can't be much about the profit margin because if it was,
some dry cleaner would come out and just say all
women are five dollars and they would rip off all
(07:09):
those cleaners that are charging five. But they don't do that.
So why are they charging more? They can't find a reason. Well,
it's probably goes back to the whole drug store thing
like we are used to, or the haircut I should say,
that's a better example. We're used to paying probably fifty
bucks more to get her hair chopped off than men are.
So when we go to the dry cleaners. They were
(07:31):
just used to paying more for them to handle our
our delicates a silk blouses, Molly set blouses, and uh
and maybe you know, they're saying, maybe these guys have
sticker shock and just don't wouldn't care enough to get
dry cleaning at all if they had to pay as
much as women did. And I guess there are definitely
weeks where I don't get things dry cleaned, but you know,
(07:53):
at some point you do, ye, And I wonder if
this goes all into the personal care bucket. You know,
how we're spending can be divided up into that level
little pie chart of categories, um. And just to get
an idea of how differently we do spend our money.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women will spend
an average of four hundred seventy one dollars per year
on personal care, while men only drop a hundred and
(08:16):
ninety three bucks. So we definitely do buy into whatever
standard it is, whether it's societal or our own personal
standard of how to look, we will pay for it.
But one very troubling example of gender pricing that was
just outlawed by Congress is with health insurance. With the
new healthcare reform law, Congress said that it is no
(08:39):
longer legal for health insurance companies to charge women more
for coverage than for men, because this has been a
huge problem in with health insurance for a long time,
where women will be charged more um, their premiums will
be higher than men, not necessarily because of the you know,
we were unhealthier based being a woman is sort of
(09:01):
considered a pre existing condition. Well, women, they say, visit
the doctor more until the age of fifty when things
even out. There's sometimes saying that maternity cares included in that,
although having done a child free podcast, we know that
not every woman wants material care as part of her
health insurance coverage. UM. Now, we have to note that
federal law already did prohibit companies with more than fifteen
(09:23):
employees from charging different premiums for health insurance. So this
was mainly something that fell on people who were trying
to self insure or who worked at really small companies.
Because the larger your pool, uh, the more the costs
can get spread around. So basically what was happening is
women were paying higher costs in small pools because they
couldn't spread that around, and what happened in Kentucky in
(09:44):
the ninet nineties is that when they did try to
spread those costs in a small pool, the men totally
left the insurance market because, uh, they said, we're not
paying for all these women's health insurance. So um, that's
why something like an individual mandate, which is in the
current healthcare and form policy, is important because it does
spread all those costs of being a woman around. But uh,
(10:08):
you know, and maybe you can say, yes, I do
want ma trant caring, Yes I do go to the
doctor more than like my boyfriend, But when they look
at some of these things, like women who don't smoke,
we're paying more than men who do smoke, and smoking
is a far bigger risk factor for disease. It's going
to need health insurance than a non smoking female. And
a two thousand eight analysis from the National Women's Law
(10:29):
Center found that women were paying anywhere from four percent
to forty eight percent more than men. So that kind
of that kind of gender pricing, it's serious business. We're
not talking about haircuts. This is healthcare. Is a much
bigger deal than you can gripe about the ladies nights
where we get in for free, but I think I'd
rather pay ten dollar cover than a really big insurance premium. Although,
(10:52):
speaking of ladies nights, some UH counties have outlawed that's
on the basis of gender discrimination. I remember I first
started going to college. They were all sorts of lady deals,
girls drinking for pennies. Um, you know, free drinks before
ten for the women, stuff like that. No more, there
are no there are no women only drink specials in
(11:15):
the county where my college is trying to like cover
it up for some reason, it sounds like, but it's
not that hard to figure out now speaking of drinking,
Kristen and I do have to say, it's a little
funny that, like a county. I know, health insurance is
a very complicated thing, but it is kind of funny
that a county can get rid of um, ladies night
discrepancies faster than our country can get rid of insurance
discrepancies between men and women. Just saying, don't want to
(11:38):
get political, um, but let's let's turn to UH. Let's
continue on booze, and we're gonna kind of cover a
little bit of territory we've covered in our shopping difference podcasts.
But we've got a look at you know, if it
does cost more to be a woman in terms of
personal care, are we making that money up in other
elements of our shopping and Mint dot com had a
(12:00):
really good breakdown of how men and women spend their
money against some of this week did on the Shopping podcast.
But I think it's kind of you know, it shows
that you know, they're they're definitely places where we're hitting
hitting our wallets harder maybe than we should, or definitely
than the men are. Yeah, and speaking of alcohol, this
is a great example of how men absolutely spend more
(12:24):
than women men's and this is again according to mint
dot com, men spent almost twice as much per year
on alcohol than women, five and fifty two dollars versus
two hundred and thirty three dollars. And maybe they're buying
women to say now cue the jokes are like, well,
I would have to spend as much of you ladies
bought your own to drinks joints. You know that's a
whole recent song, Yeah, song that you're going to really
(12:46):
that's the bridge bridge about yeah, you buy me a drink.
But but yeah, they're spending more on boothe and uh.
They're also spending more on food. According to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics, boys are spending eight dollars per year
eating out, while women spend one thousand, one five dollars.
And again que and que joke about, well, we gotta
(13:08):
take you ladies out to dinner, off we buy you
a drink. And there's actually an article about how um
single people's spending compared to a married couple saving and
one guy was quote as saying, you know, when you're
dating someone, you do feel that pressure to put all
the money out to impress a lady of your choice.
And then once you get married, you have, uh, you
know this vallied reason of saying, hey, I'm saving for
(13:30):
a house, I'm saving for this and that our future
and uh, and once you get married, that's spending dramatically increases. Yeah,
single women definitely tend to spend a lot more than
married women on on personal care things because space, we
gotta look we gotta look good. We're out, we're out,
you know, keeping our eyes open for were lovely man
(13:51):
or lady. I don't know that. Just then, it seems
like all the married people are just letting themselves go. Yeah,
that was probably kind of insulting people. I didn't mean
it like that. Married folks, you know what I'm saying. Though,
here's an interesting fact that I would not have believed
before we did the research for this podcast. Women spent
spend more on the lottery than men do. Yeah, that
was kind of weird. And I don't know if it's
just we're hoping to make up that money we're not
(14:13):
getting from the gender wage gap or from all the
beauty products we're buying. But yeah, women spend more by
a percentage on lottery. Maybe that's location specific though, because
that was based on the Texas lottery poll. I'm sure it's.
I mean, well, like this thrifty nickel does not gamble,
I'm terrified of losing my money. Well, this article doesn't
(14:34):
speak for everyone, Kristen. I don't think everyone who listens
has bought a lot of beauty products, so that part
probably it ring true to them either. Um. Yeah, you're
pretty personally offended by this lottery accusation. No, not really offended,
just just a little mystified. But when we're talking about
to answer this question of whether or not it coust
more to be a woman, you know, it might seem
like the answer is yes, because all of these small
(14:56):
items like the personal care items add up a lot
at the drug store register, what have you. But men
tend to spend a lot more money on big ticket items.
They might not be going out and buying as many
clothes as we are, might not be getting expensive haircuts,
et cetera. But they're spending a lot more on electronics
(15:18):
and on cars and that stuff. It really hits the wallet,
and you know that starts early. I think one interesting
way to kind of wrap this up is this article
from The Times in the UK that looked at whether
a son or a daughter was more expensive to raise,
and they came to the conclusion that the sun is
more expensive because that gadget obsession starts so early. Um.
(15:41):
Raising suns, according to this article, cost pounds through their
school years, which is seven thousand more than girls for
the same period of time. And one of the biggest
discrepancies is in buying the boys like gadgets like computer
game consoles equipment for their hobbies. Um. That was almost
pounds compared to six pounds for the girls. And they
(16:02):
would spend more surprisingly on the boys school uniforms than
on the girls on the boys extracular hobbies like football, bowling, um,
after school activity, sports equipment, UM, and and the girls
did have lots of charges for things like new shoes
and accessories and toiletries these same personal care items, but
(16:23):
it just it didn't come anywhere close to the amount
it would cost to raise a boy giving him everything
he wants. Obviously, you don't have to give your kid
computer game consoles and fourteen pounds of new shoes. But
and surprise, surprise, fact of the day. With all of this,
while women might be spending more money, the single women
(16:45):
might be spending more money on clothing, which some surveys
have found. Men tend to spend more money on online dating.
According to at least one study in Canada, for every
woman using an online dating service, there are more than
two men. And while some sites like okay Cupid are free,
not all of them are. And the total amount spent
on online didnting each year is two and fourteen million bucks.
(17:09):
And with with more dudes doing it, that means they're
dropping more cash on it. So to wrap all of
this up, does it cost more to be a woman?
Might seem like it, but not necessarily we just spend
our money differently. That is not going to be a
good end to your song. Kristen, does it cost more
to be a woman? Well? I just say it depends.
(17:30):
How about that? Okay, that's all right, working on it. Yeah, Well,
if you'd like to contribute any verses to my song,
or you know, volunteer to give me some some voice
coaching because I clearly need it, email us some moms
stuff at how stuff works dot com and let's read
an email from there. I have one here from Desiree
(17:53):
and it is about our vibrator podcast. And Desiree does
a podcast herself. It is called Coming Together and it's
a sex podcast. So they probably took had a little
bit of a spicier take on some vibrator stuff. But
one thing we said in particular jumped out of her. Uh.
We alleged that John your the naturalist, uh, patented a vibrator,
(18:15):
and she did a little more research and says that
she could not find the patent number, and based on
the evidence she is scored to me of of her
research trail, it was definitely larger than ours. So let's
put an asterixk by that fact and say that maybe
that didn't happen well again. If you've got anything to
send our way, our emails mom Stuff at how stuff
works dot com. We'd also love to see you over
(18:36):
at Facebook. Like us, talk to us, comment, and you
can follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast and
read our blog during the week, It's stuff Mom Never
told You, which you can find at how stuff works
dot com for moral nous and thousands of other topics.
(18:56):
Is it how stuff works dot com. To learn more
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brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never Told You?
From House top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Molly got a
(00:22):
little songbird in my throat today a special treat. Well,
I don't know that it's that much of a treat,
but I really, I really have the earge to seeing
right now because the title of this podcast, does it
Cost More to Be a Woman? Sounds like a country song?
Oh it tell he does? Does it not sound like
the follow up single two? Did I shave my legs
for this? You're for that old one? You know? Like,
(00:42):
does it cost More to be a woman? You know? Yeah?
And I think I think we are onto something there. Yeah.
I think maybe we do the podcast, we learn about
costs of being a man and a woman, and I
think the verses will just fall into place, yea, and
then we can go straight to Nashville and make it
make it big country gold. Yeah, because know that you
know how he said, Um, it's a follow up today.
(01:03):
I shaved my legs for this. Yeah. One thing that
was really interesting when we started googling and searching for
does it cost more to be a woman? Shaving is
an example that comes up a lot because it tends
to be at the drug store that many things cost
more for women than from them. Yeah, check this out.
For instance, Barba sal Arsal soothing aloe shave cream for
(01:25):
eleven ounces sells for a buck sixty nine. Barb Sal
Pure silk shaving cream for women at nine point five
ounces sells for two dollars and forty nine cents. So
how do you explain that? Barb Sal Barbasol said, get this.
He said, well, you know you ladies like to shave
(01:46):
in the shower, so the product needs to be a
rust resistant aluminum bottle can and we need more fragrance
for you gals, you smell nice. Hence you have to
pay more for it. You pay more for less. At
least they gave a reason because a lot of these
um examples that start to come up, and you know it,
just it keeps adding up. You'll find it starts with
something simple like shaving cream. And I feel that a
(02:08):
lot of women, uh maybe sort of have come to
accept that they're gonna have to pay more for the
upkeep of all this, As Dolly Parton says, it takes
a lot to like this trashy um, but you know
it just it goes on from there to dry cleaning,
to health insurance, et cetera. So we're gonna go, We're
gonna take through a few of the items that cost more.
(02:29):
And sometimes the rep will come out and say, like
the barbersoll reptid and um, you know what you shave
in the shower. We've done our market research, so you
need a rest resistant can. Sometimes they have no idea
why they're charging more. They offer some sketchy reasons, such
as when Niveia told Consumer Reports that their body washed
for women cost two bucks more than their body washed
(02:52):
for mint because the women's product is made with quote
skin sensation technology, skin sensation technology. You're just saying you
don't want that, Kristen. I'm saying I don't believe that.
I'm saying that's a bunch of horse hockey. No, it's soap. Yeah,
and well that's like soap with like intel chips crushed
into it or something. But that would be a product
(03:12):
that would hurt and be like the worst exfoliant ever.
But although I will say that people who are saying,
oh man, this is just gonna be some griping about
ladies paying more. No, we do have, we do have
some surprise results in there. So and I think, you know,
sometimes it does um you know, pay to remember that
we're making probably less overall compared to a man thanks
(03:33):
to the gender wage gap. And when you've got less
money in your pocket and then you gotta go pay
more for the same things, it's a little infuriating. Yeah,
And we can all vote with our dollars and not
support companies that charge more samply for lady business. So
I think the easiest place to start really is in
the bathroom with the the upkey, because when it comes
(03:54):
to personal care products, women are paying more just because
we use more. Guys aren't buying nail polished or not
buying uh an exfoliant, um um moisturizing mask, moisturized or
toner foundation, et cetera. We just buy more stuff at
the drug store. And typically women's personal care products costs
a little bit more, like we said with the examples
(04:16):
of shaving cream and um body wash, right, And so
you know they're saying that's a choice you can make.
You can choose to wear nail polish. You can choose
to wear a lot of makeup, you're gonna have to
pay for that choice. Oh and let's not forget tampons,
tampons or menstrul cups. You know, we we we have
specific personal care items and men simply biologically do not
(04:36):
have to buy right. Um, and now let's look at
hair salonts. How many times have you driven down the road,
Kristen and you'll see the sign. I know, I drive
by one every day that says ladies cut forty five
men's cut. Yeah, men's haircuts are almost always cheaper. I
I spent a stupid amount of money to get my haircut.
And uh, you know the this article we found justifies
(04:58):
it in that a woman's hair is longer, but points
out that that really doesn't how much to do with
the complexity of the haircut. Yeah, it doesn't mean that
I have long hair, you have pretty long hair. It
doesn't mean that every time we go in we're asking
them to cut off like ten inches. Yeah, it's a
little trim, but they've got us, They've got us in
their pockets. Yeah. I mean we're kind of conditioned at
this point to to pay to pay more. But here's
(05:22):
where it starts to get a little weird. Okay, dry cleaners. Yes,
they have done so many investigations of dry cleaners where
the men will have some sort of dollar ninety nine
deal on the window for a men's shirt and a
woman's shirt, which is you know, maybe no more. Fancier
is charged five dollars. Yeah, And there have even been
(05:42):
some lawsuits that have taken place because of this dry
cleaning UH controversy. And this is referred to as gender
pricing when men and women are charged different prices for
the same service, such as you know, like when one
example would be like ladies night at a bar, whomen
are drinking for for penny a drink or something, whereas
(06:05):
guys have to pay full price. So it does go
both ways, but it often comes up at the dry
cleaners and the dry cleinners. Is weird. And there's a
really good analysis of this in Slate where the guy
Stevinie Landsberg basically writes, you know, economics wise, based on
everything you learn in your economics class, either they're charging
a higher price because women's clothing has a much higher
(06:26):
costs just to clean, or because they can make such
a high profit margin off the woman. And and he's
saying that, really, neither of these hold up, because you know,
it's there are some more delicate fabrics that a lady
might bring in, but those are typically gonna be charged
even more um. And when you have something that's like
a one to one ratio, it should take the same
amount to clean. You know, it's not like these shirts
(06:48):
that are costing more have any more intricate like you know,
pleading or intricate fabric. They're saying, you know, a playing
cotton shirt versus playing shirt. Women are still getting overcharged,
and they're saying that it can't be He's saying he
can't be much about the profit margin because if it was,
some dry cleaner would come out and just say all
women are five dollars and they would rip off all
(07:09):
those cleaners that are charging five. But they don't do that.
So why are they charging more? They can't find a reason. Well,
it's probably goes back to the whole drug store thing
like we are used to, or the haircut I should say,
that's a better example. We're used to paying probably fifty
bucks more to get her hair chopped off than men are.
So when we go to the dry cleaners. They were
(07:31):
just used to paying more for them to handle our
our delicates a silk blouses, Molly set blouses, and uh
and maybe you know, they're saying, maybe these guys have
sticker shock and just don't wouldn't care enough to get
dry cleaning at all if they had to pay as
much as women did. And I guess there are definitely
weeks where I don't get things dry cleaned, but you know,
(07:53):
at some point you do, ye, And I wonder if
this goes all into the personal care bucket. You know,
how we're spending can be divided up into that level
little pie chart of categories, um. And just to get
an idea of how differently we do spend our money.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women will spend
an average of four hundred seventy one dollars per year
on personal care, while men only drop a hundred and
(08:16):
ninety three bucks. So we definitely do buy into whatever
standard it is, whether it's societal or our own personal
standard of how to look, we will pay for it.
But one very troubling example of gender pricing that was
just outlawed by Congress is with health insurance. With the
new healthcare reform law, Congress said that it is no
(08:39):
longer legal for health insurance companies to charge women more
for coverage than for men, because this has been a
huge problem in with health insurance for a long time,
where women will be charged more um, their premiums will
be higher than men, not necessarily because of the you know,
we were unhealthier based being a woman is sort of
(09:01):
considered a pre existing condition. Well, women, they say, visit
the doctor more until the age of fifty when things
even out. There's sometimes saying that maternity cares included in that,
although having done a child free podcast, we know that
not every woman wants material care as part of her
health insurance coverage. UM. Now, we have to note that
federal law already did prohibit companies with more than fifteen
(09:23):
employees from charging different premiums for health insurance. So this
was mainly something that fell on people who were trying
to self insure or who worked at really small companies.
Because the larger your pool, uh, the more the costs
can get spread around. So basically what was happening is
women were paying higher costs in small pools because they
couldn't spread that around, and what happened in Kentucky in
(09:44):
the ninet nineties is that when they did try to
spread those costs in a small pool, the men totally
left the insurance market because, uh, they said, we're not
paying for all these women's health insurance. So um, that's
why something like an individual mandate, which is in the
current healthcare and form policy, is important because it does
spread all those costs of being a woman around. But uh,
(10:08):
you know, and maybe you can say, yes, I do
want ma trant caring, Yes I do go to the
doctor more than like my boyfriend, But when they look
at some of these things, like women who don't smoke,
we're paying more than men who do smoke, and smoking
is a far bigger risk factor for disease. It's going
to need health insurance than a non smoking female. And
a two thousand eight analysis from the National Women's Law
(10:29):
Center found that women were paying anywhere from four percent
to forty eight percent more than men. So that kind
of that kind of gender pricing, it's serious business. We're
not talking about haircuts. This is healthcare. Is a much
bigger deal than you can gripe about the ladies nights
where we get in for free, but I think I'd
rather pay ten dollar cover than a really big insurance premium. Although,
(10:52):
speaking of ladies nights, some UH counties have outlawed that's
on the basis of gender discrimination. I remember I first
started going to college. They were all sorts of lady deals,
girls drinking for pennies. Um, you know, free drinks before
ten for the women, stuff like that. No more, there
are no there are no women only drink specials in
(11:15):
the county where my college is trying to like cover
it up for some reason, it sounds like, but it's
not that hard to figure out now speaking of drinking,
Kristen and I do have to say, it's a little
funny that, like a county. I know, health insurance is
a very complicated thing, but it is kind of funny
that a county can get rid of um, ladies night
discrepancies faster than our country can get rid of insurance
discrepancies between men and women. Just saying, don't want to
(11:38):
get political, um, but let's let's turn to UH. Let's
continue on booze, and we're gonna kind of cover a
little bit of territory we've covered in our shopping difference podcasts.
But we've got a look at you know, if it
does cost more to be a woman in terms of
personal care, are we making that money up in other
elements of our shopping and Mint dot com had a
(12:00):
really good breakdown of how men and women spend their
money against some of this week did on the Shopping podcast.
But I think it's kind of you know, it shows
that you know, they're they're definitely places where we're hitting
hitting our wallets harder maybe than we should, or definitely
than the men are. Yeah, and speaking of alcohol, this
is a great example of how men absolutely spend more
(12:24):
than women men's and this is again according to mint
dot com, men spent almost twice as much per year
on alcohol than women, five and fifty two dollars versus
two hundred and thirty three dollars. And maybe they're buying
women to say now cue the jokes are like, well,
I would have to spend as much of you ladies
bought your own to drinks joints. You know that's a
whole recent song, Yeah, song that you're going to really
(12:46):
that's the bridge bridge about yeah, you buy me a drink.
But but yeah, they're spending more on boothe and uh.
They're also spending more on food. According to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics, boys are spending eight dollars per year
eating out, while women spend one thousand, one five dollars.
And again que and que joke about, well, we gotta
(13:08):
take you ladies out to dinner, off we buy you
a drink. And there's actually an article about how um
single people's spending compared to a married couple saving and
one guy was quote as saying, you know, when you're
dating someone, you do feel that pressure to put all
the money out to impress a lady of your choice.
And then once you get married, you have, uh, you
know this vallied reason of saying, hey, I'm saving for
(13:30):
a house, I'm saving for this and that our future
and uh, and once you get married, that's spending dramatically increases. Yeah,
single women definitely tend to spend a lot more than
married women on on personal care things because space, we
gotta look we gotta look good. We're out, we're out,
you know, keeping our eyes open for were lovely man
(13:51):
or lady. I don't know that. Just then, it seems
like all the married people are just letting themselves go. Yeah,
that was probably kind of insulting people. I didn't mean
it like that. Married folks, you know what I'm saying. Though,
here's an interesting fact that I would not have believed
before we did the research for this podcast. Women spent
spend more on the lottery than men do. Yeah, that
was kind of weird. And I don't know if it's
just we're hoping to make up that money we're not
(14:13):
getting from the gender wage gap or from all the
beauty products we're buying. But yeah, women spend more by
a percentage on lottery. Maybe that's location specific though, because
that was based on the Texas lottery poll. I'm sure it's.
I mean, well, like this thrifty nickel does not gamble,
I'm terrified of losing my money. Well, this article doesn't
(14:34):
speak for everyone, Kristen. I don't think everyone who listens
has bought a lot of beauty products, so that part
probably it ring true to them either. Um. Yeah, you're
pretty personally offended by this lottery accusation. No, not really offended,
just just a little mystified. But when we're talking about
to answer this question of whether or not it coust
more to be a woman, you know, it might seem
like the answer is yes, because all of these small
(14:56):
items like the personal care items add up a lot
at the drug store register, what have you. But men
tend to spend a lot more money on big ticket items.
They might not be going out and buying as many
clothes as we are, might not be getting expensive haircuts,
et cetera. But they're spending a lot more on electronics
(15:18):
and on cars and that stuff. It really hits the wallet,
and you know that starts early. I think one interesting
way to kind of wrap this up is this article
from The Times in the UK that looked at whether
a son or a daughter was more expensive to raise,
and they came to the conclusion that the sun is
more expensive because that gadget obsession starts so early. Um.
(15:41):
Raising suns, according to this article, cost pounds through their
school years, which is seven thousand more than girls for
the same period of time. And one of the biggest
discrepancies is in buying the boys like gadgets like computer
game consoles equipment for their hobbies. Um. That was almost
pounds compared to six pounds for the girls. And they
(16:02):
would spend more surprisingly on the boys school uniforms than
on the girls on the boys extracular hobbies like football, bowling, um,
after school activity, sports equipment, UM, and and the girls
did have lots of charges for things like new shoes
and accessories and toiletries these same personal care items, but
(16:23):
it just it didn't come anywhere close to the amount
it would cost to raise a boy giving him everything
he wants. Obviously, you don't have to give your kid
computer game consoles and fourteen pounds of new shoes. But
and surprise, surprise, fact of the day. With all of this,
while women might be spending more money, the single women
(16:45):
might be spending more money on clothing, which some surveys
have found. Men tend to spend more money on online dating.
According to at least one study in Canada, for every
woman using an online dating service, there are more than
two men. And while some sites like okay Cupid are free,
not all of them are. And the total amount spent
on online didnting each year is two and fourteen million bucks.
(17:09):
And with with more dudes doing it, that means they're
dropping more cash on it. So to wrap all of
this up, does it cost more to be a woman?
Might seem like it, but not necessarily we just spend
our money differently. That is not going to be a
good end to your song. Kristen, does it cost more
to be a woman? Well? I just say it depends.
(17:30):
How about that? Okay, that's all right, working on it. Yeah, Well,
if you'd like to contribute any verses to my song,
or you know, volunteer to give me some some voice
coaching because I clearly need it, email us some moms
stuff at how stuff works dot com and let's read
an email from there. I have one here from Desiree
(17:53):
and it is about our vibrator podcast. And Desiree does
a podcast herself. It is called Coming Together and it's
a sex podcast. So they probably took had a little
bit of a spicier take on some vibrator stuff. But
one thing we said in particular jumped out of her. Uh.
We alleged that John your the naturalist, uh, patented a vibrator,
(18:15):
and she did a little more research and says that
she could not find the patent number, and based on
the evidence she is scored to me of of her
research trail, it was definitely larger than ours. So let's
put an asterixk by that fact and say that maybe
that didn't happen well again. If you've got anything to
send our way, our emails mom Stuff at how stuff
works dot com. We'd also love to see you over
(18:36):
at Facebook. Like us, talk to us, comment, and you
can follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast and
read our blog during the week, It's stuff Mom Never
told You, which you can find at how stuff works
dot com for moral nous and thousands of other topics.
(18:56):
Is it how stuff works dot com. To learn more
about the podcast, clock on the podcast icon in the
upper right corner of our home page. The houstufforks iPhone
app has a ride down with it today on iTunes,
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Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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