Battle of the sexes brewing in drug store aisles

There’s a battle of the sexes going on inside every store. From moisturizer to deodorant to razors, women are paying more.

Local 6 took cameras to a local skin care and cosmetics factory to get some answers and figure out how we women can start fighting back.

When customers walk down any drug store aisle, they see dozens of products promising to soften your skin, make you smell like spring and make your wrinkles disappear. Read the Local 6 report in full here.

A recent study by members of the Sociology Department at the University of Central Florida breaks down the cost toiletry by toiletry.

They found women pay 29 cents more per ounce on deodorant. 33 cents more per razor. 26 cents more per ounce for body sprays.

The study, by Megan Duesterhaus, Liz Grauerholz and Rebecca Weichsel, all from the UCF Sociology department, was recently published in the journal Gender Issues.

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).

Read the full study here.