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Target accused of sexism over ‘pink tax’ on laxatives aimed at women

'Remember to check the gender of your stools'

Thursday 30 May 2019 11:34 BST

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Peppa Pig accused of sexism for using the word 'fireman'

US retailer Target has been accused of sexism for charging more than twice as much for laxatives aimed at women.

The backlash relates to the issue known as “pink tax” where products advertised towards women cost more than similar products marketed towards men.

On Monday, a Twitter user who goes by the handle @BUGPOSTING shared a photograph of two near-identical boxes of laxatives by brand Up & Up being sold at Target alongside the caption: “Paying the big bucks so I can perform gender, with my a**."

In the image, the box of 25 5mg tablets in a green box is currently on sale for $1.49 (£1.18), while the box of 25 5mg tablets in a pink box costs more than twice the price at $3.69 (£2.92).

The two items appear to be almost exactly the same apart from the colour of the product and that the pink laxative features a “comfort coating” for “sensitive stomachs”.

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Show all 12

1/12The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Anne Hathaway

The 32-year-old actress said she has already experiences job rejections because of her age. “Now I'm in my early thirties and I'm like, 'Why did that 24-year-old get that part? I was that 24-year-old once. I can't be upset about it, it's the way things are,” she told Glamour.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Helen Mirren

On news that Maggie Gyllenhaal had been turned down for being ‘too old’, aged 37, to play a 55-year-old man’s partner: “It’s f***ing outrageous. It’s ridiculous. Honestly, it’s so annoying. And ’twas ever thus. We all watched James Bond as he got more and more geriatric, and his girlfriends got younger and younger. It’s so annoying.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Gyllenhaal revealed she was told by a Hollywood producer that she was too old, aged 37, to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man. “It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made feel angry, and then it made me laugh,” she said at the time.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep has helped fund an all-female screenwriters group called The Writer’s Lab to encourage more women to pen Hollywood scripts. She previously told Vogue in 2011: “Once women pass childbearing age they could only be seen as grotesque on some level.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Emma Thompson

The actress said she thought Hollywood is “still completely s***” when it comes to treating women equally to men. ““When I was younger, I really did think we were on our way to a better world. And when I look at it now, it is in a worse state than I have known it, particularly for women, and I find that very disturbing and sad.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Elizabeth Banks

Banks said she was driven from acting to directing due to the lack of roles for older women in Hollywood. “"[Industry sexism] drove me to direct for sure. I definitely was feeling that I was unfulfilled and a little bit bored by the things that were coming across my desk. I mean look at Gwyneth Paltrow who has her Oscar [for Shakespeare in Love] and played fifth banana to Iron Man,” she told Deadline.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Viola Davis

“I had never seen a 49-year-old, dark-skinned woman who is not a size 2 be a sexualised role in TV or film. I'm a sexual woman, but nothing in my career has ever identified me as a sexualised woman. I was the prototype of the ‘mommified’ role,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Liv Tyler

The Lord of the Rings actress said she only get cast in roles where she is treated as a “second class citizen” at the age of 38. “When you’re in your teens or twenties, there is an abundance of ingenue parts which are exciting to play. But at [my age], you’re usually the wife or the girlfriend - a sort of second-class citizen. There are more interesting roles for women when they get a bit older,” she told More magazine.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Cate Blanchett

The actress famously called out sexism on the red carpet at the 2014 Screen Actors Guild Awards. When a camera operator scanned her up and down, she said: “Do you do this to the guys?” In her Oscar acceptance speech for Blue Jasmine, she reminded the film industry that movies with leading women can still be successful. “And thank you to... those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the centre, are niche experiences. They are not -- audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.”

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Ellen Page

Asked if she had ever encountered sexism in Hollywood, Page told The Guardian: ‘Oh my God, yeah! It's constant! It's how you're treated, it's how you're looked at, how you're expected to look in a photoshoot, it's how you're expected to shut up and not have an opinion, it's how you... If you're a girl and you don't fit the very specific vision of what a girl should be, which is always from a man's perspective, then you're a little bit at a loss.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Zoe Saldana

The actress says she refuses roles where she has to play the generic girlfriend, wife or sexy bombshell. "It's very hard being a woman in a man's world, and I recognised it was a man's world even when I was a kid. It's an inequality and injustice that drove me crazy, and which I always spoke out against — and I've always been outspoken,” she told Manhattan magazine.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Charlize Theron

The actress spoke to ELLE about negotiating equal pay for the Snow White and the Huntsman sequel: "This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way."

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Both products contain the same number of tablets, the same dosage per tablet, and the same active ingredient.

Social media users have criticised the brand and supermarket for adding a pink tax to the product aimed at women, with the original post receiving 600 comments, 13,000 retweets and 89,000 likes.

Many people on Twitter expressed their disbelief at the brand’s attempt to gender bowel movements.

“Remember to check the gender of your stools,” one person wrote.

Another commented: “Twice as much for your lady's gentlebutt.”

While a third added: “Pooping! Now available FOR HER!”

Other users highlighted the fact that while there was a difference between the products, the brand could have marketed the product with the “comfort coating” at people who have sensitive stomachs, not just women.

“Not only is this medicine bizarrely performing gender, but what about the people who happen to be male who need sensitive stomach coating?” one person commented.

“Wouldn't marketing it as 'regular' and 'sensitive stomach' make more money, as they'd have 2x the potential market for both formulations?”

Another person agreed, adding: “I think it would make more sense to say its for sensitive stomachs rather than women.”

This isn’t the first time a brand has come under fire for charging more for products aimed at female consumers.

Earlier this year, Gillette was accused of sexism after it was found to be selling identical razors advertised towards men and women, with the women’s version costing $3 (£2.37) more.

In 2015, a report from The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that on average “women’s products cost seven per cent more than similar products for men,” with the increase applying to a number of products, from scooters to shampoo.

In March 2019, Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine introduced the Gender-based Pricing (Prohibition) Bill in the House of Commons.

The bill aims to help put a stop to products marketed towards women from being sold at a more expensive price than similar items aimed at men.

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“It is entirely unacceptable that in 2019 women and girls are still paying more than men for basic products, such as razors and deodorant.,” the Edinburgh West MP said.

“Whilst women are often still being paid less too, women really are being hit by a double whammy."

The Independent has contacted Target for comment.

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