Life Uncut - 58. PINK TAX - The cost of being a woman

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Lifers, we were a little slow off the ranks today, but boy do we have a biggy for you!First up on todays episode we are talking about that Adele photo that is causing a stir, then we dive into a little bit of Bach Chat, followed by our favourite Accidentally Unfiltered stories for the week.... and then for the main course we have something a little different for you today.We are getting serious and talking about Pink Tax, and the hidden costs of being female.So what is pink tax? Glad you asked! It’s gender based price discrimination. Basically women are still paying more for certain items than men are, even if the items are identical, effectively shelling out a 'pink tax' simply for being female.Is it not bad enough that women on average are still earning less than our male counterparts!? Even though they often can’t even multitask!? (Ok that part is not fact per se but a it’s strong opinion) But now it costs us more to shop too!? HOW IS THIS HAPPENING!It’s time we all know about this and become smarter consumers.If you also didn’t know about this topic, or think that maybe a friend didn’t know about this, or just liked the episode, share the love, because, well, we love love xSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I am one sick Brittany and that is why this episode is a little bit late today. You might follow Britt on Instagram and if you do you would think she's fine. She's out there living her best most luscious and bougie life but actually she spent the last 24 hours in bed being super sick and couldn't get up to record this last night so that's why we're late guys. I have a few things I want to say. Instagram is a lie. I have a few things I want to say but I want to start by saying I that's one word I really have trouble saying bougie bougie I can never say it right you said it just that only because I just copied you every time I go to

say in a sentence I look like a loser because I'm like boozy like I'm boozy I can't I can never say it you know there's a word he's drunk again guys that's what's happening here you know there's just like that one word that everyone like you all have the word yeah my trouble my my word is penetrative penetrative yes got it so when we did the um episode with a sexologist I was like just internal sex I just couldn't say it I just kept I said it wrong about seven times like penetrative and then I've practiced it it's probably a word I'm never gonna use but now I know how to say it but sometimes there are just those really simple words that's mine anyway next I want to say yes guys um you can blame me for the slight delay usually this episode comes

out Tuesday morning it's coming out Tuesday afternoon because I was just death last night I could not get out of bed I could not there's no way I could have come and recorded with Laura so you can blame me I'm sorry I have had like um I guess it's like a head cold I don't know every time someone has any little level of sickness of like the inkling of a cold everyone now is like COVID stay away so Britt's now sitting in my bedroom um the recording studio yeah sorry the studio wearing a face mask so this is interesting I know it looks like if you follow me like Laura said and this is just like the funny world of Instagram isn't it if you if you follow me you'd think that I was like the epitome of health right now and and I'm out gallivanting around but really

I've been so you can probably hear in my voice today guys but I'm so I've been just like bed ridden so for anybody who wants to know a little bit about the inside workings of an influencer's life I'm not an influencer I still work 90 hours a week in hospital but I post stuff as well you're also very influential. I went and bought a mermaid hair curler thing after you put it on your Instagram. They gave one to Brittany for free and I had to buy it for $89. But you actually know that I use that every day. And I love it. There you go. I was sold. But what I was going to say is, is that the way it works is obviously you sign up with a brand and you know, if you are genuine on your Instagram, it's a brand that you love and stuff that you actually use. And then you have to

send whatever content you've created to the brand for approval. So that way, you know, they make sure that their key messaging has all been kind of executed in a way that represents the brand in the best light. And then there's usually about a week period before you actually then end up putting that content live on your Instagram. So while Brittany looks like she's fine, it's all a big dirty lie. And that's what she wants to apologize for. But anyway. Anyway, moving on. No one wants to hear about that. Who cares about Instagram? The other thing is, is lots of people often say to us is why don't we just record these episodes in advance and then we can drop them on time and pre-schedule this stuff and everything but I love I love the authenticity that comes

with a real mad dash race to the finish line and also the fact that we can then talk about shit that's happened in the week we can talk about episodes of batch that have just passed everything's so fresh and it's like actually in real time with what's happening in our lives and I think that that's really great we love doing it you and I do actually work better under pressure for sure like we could have a week to do something and we don't get it done and then we're like we've got three hours to d-day and then we just we just fucking get it done but i agree with laura it's so much it's so much better when we can do it the day before or two days before because it's relevant we're actually speaking about things that are happening we're speaking about things that you

guys have written into us um the badge shows on tv so i love that way more speaking of things that are relevant britney oh yeah nothing could get more relevant than this conversation that's happening with Adele right now. So if you guys don't know, or you haven't been on social media, you haven't read the news, there has been quite the controversial conversation that has been happening around Adele. And for once the conversation has nothing to do with her weight loss. The conversation has to do with a photo that she's posted to Instagram and she's dressed wearing it's unlike I, when I say this and explain it to you, you're probably going to go, Oh, that sounds pretty bad. Cause that's exactly the reaction I had when Brit explained it to me.

She's at Notting Hill Carnival and she's wearing a Jamaican flag bikini and she has her hair in what's called bantu knots and so bantu knots are like tiny little buns all over her head and this photo has seriously divided the internet at the moment and there has been so much criticism around it in regards to the fact that her outfit is cultural appropriation and there is a lot of discussion to and for and I mean it's a hard one because I think it's pretty hypocritical and bizarre for two white women to have a conversation and unpack what we think is cultural appropriation. I don't think that that's our place to do it, but it is a conversation that's happening worldwide. And so we thought we would bring it to the table and have a discussion

about it as well. So for anyone who doesn't know what the Notting Hill Carnival is, it's a massive festival and carnival that happens in the UK. And it is a celebration, a cultural celebration of the Caribbean heritage, arts and culture and how that's impacted the UK. Like the part of this that's like a bit controversial or, you know, there's arguments for and against is that it's not just a festival. And like, for example, obviously it's super inappropriate

and we've heard heaps of conversations happen in the past around girls going to festivals and wearing like Indian headdresses, for example. But that festival in and of itself, like Splendour in the Grass and people dressing up in Indian headwear, like that I can see is a very blatant example of cultural appropriation it's super black and white the reason why I am not sure about this one is because the festival itself is actually about

Caribbean culture and a celebration of this so I kind of was thinking like is it inappropriate to wear a sari as a white woman to an Indian wedding is that a similar example of what has happened here I find this really hard and like Laura said we we do we're just having an honest discussion with how we view this and these are our own opinions. I feel for Adele in this. She has gone to Notting Hill Carnival. I've been to Notting Hill Carnival. It's such a beautiful celebration in the street. It's hundreds of thousands of people all around the world end up celebrating it. Everyone gets in there. They have a really great time. There are discussions about what it's about and it's just a really, really beautiful time. She has been crucified

for wearing a bikini with a Jamaican flag and putting her hair in these little knots when really all she's doing is trying to join in on that celebration and I don't think there's no part of her that's trying to offend anyone and someone actually there's been a lot of people that have crucified her and trying to cancel her and there's this whole new trend of cancelling celebrities like people are jumping out left right and center to cancel them for the tiniest thing when ultimately they are humans they do make mistakes and there was someone there was one comment that I really really did love someone there's a lot of people jumping to Adele's defense someone wrote on it everyone needs to calm down this is cultural appreciation not cultural

appropriation and I really think that in Adele's case this was cultural appreciation she's openly come out and said she's celebrated for years she loves to be a part of it the whole idea is to celebrate the culture and that's what she did she literally put on the flag bikini and put her in these top knots to have a celebration I think it would be different if Adele wore what she wore and dressed up like she did to a dress-up party that's a whole different ball game but she wore it to a Jamaican celebration, like a Jamaican festival. She was celebrating the country and what it's about. And she's got such a huge platform bringing attention to something that the world should be paying attention to. I guess the question is, is it an appropriate form of

appreciation to wear a bikini with another country's flag on it? Is that an appropriate way of showing that you appreciate another culture or is that an insensitive way of showing your appreciation. I'm sure there are better ways to show appreciation for a different culture. And that's probably where this debate has stemmed from. But I definitely don't think that there was any malicious intent behind this. I think that this is constantly opening up a wider conversation and a wider net for what is and isn't acceptable. And obviously, like we've said, as two white, very privileged women sitting here having a discussion about what we think is and isn't cultural appropriation. It's not our place to say there is a lot of debate around it. And we'll put

up a post on our Facebook group for you guys to share your opinions and your thoughts. And yeah, we'll throw out that net to the rest of the community to have a conversation around this as well. Okay. All right. Now moving on to something a lot more lighthearted and that is The Bachelor. Guys, if you've been following once again, the Facebook group, I'm really into the Facebook group at the moment. If you can't tell it's Life Uncut Podcast. If you haven't joined it get on it all the good stuff is going down but there's been a lot of conversation around it because it's a very fucking confusing season you're like what on earth has been happening with these episodes okay so I mean we talked about it last week and and we we touched on it

briefly and said that you know they're lacking in content and that's why they're amping up the drama and we had a couple of people who who actually messaged and was like yes but the level of drama is a bit unacceptable and I'm going to put my hand up and say I totally agree I think I think that the the manufacturing of the fights between the girls to the point where actually some of the fights don't even make any sense is ridiculous and it's not enjoyable to watch like it's actually makes me feel uncomfortable how nasty the girls are being to each other and I don't know or think that that they were probably that nasty in real life I think that the editing the music the amplification it really dramatizes and very much intensifies what's happening but for anyone who's

been following it for anyone who's been watching you would know i mean the sentiment was pretty unanimous on the facebook group that it is confusing the fights are confusing they don't make sense they don't make any sense and people are acting super irrational and you know there's no women supporting women there's none of this camaraderie which you know you do see in like which you do see in the bachelorette it just is a whole lot of women tearing each other down and It's been super difficult to stomach. This happens every year, every single year, every season this happens, but this is just a lot.

This one's intensified. It's too much. It happened in my season. My season had a lot of bullying. Every single season has the bitchiness, but this one's just like next level. I do think that, like always, at the end, we're going to see a beautiful love story. We're going to end up seeing, I feel like, camaraderie, I reckon.

This is just what I think. I reckon at the end, and guys, I literally know nothing, but I think we can tell that there are favorites on the season and I think they're going to end up being friends at the end and I think it's going to be this big thing where Lockie he's already said he's in love with two people it's going to be two friends it's going to be like Sophie and I all over again except he'll pick someone I mean he said he picked someone it's going to end up two friends at the end that's what I think and I think we are going to end up seeing this beautiful love story play out we're going to end

up seeing there's going to be heartbreak but I think it's going to be a beautiful I think there'll be a moment of like someone's gonna be heartbroken but they'll be friends supporting each other I don't know this is what I'm thinking because I think two friends are gonna be at the end well I I mean like you hit the nail on the head with it as well there is always bitchiness at the start and I think we sometimes forget how bad it is um if you when I was doing research for this episode I was like I just want to see what other people are saying about this season so I typed in cat fight bachelor and this is me typing into google cat fight bachelor and you know what came up not one article about this season's bachelor 2016 matt and my

season the beginning of our season was rife with catfights and bitchiness and nastiness you know the villains in our season were pretty villainous but people tend to forget that part of the narrative and we and we normally just remember and hold on to the really beautiful parts towards the end and the heartbreak and you know the relationship so i do think that this is pretty standard beginning of the series behavior the only thing is I think it is definitely amplified and where the fuck is Lockie like he has barely been on the show sometimes I'm thinking like there's usually a bachelor on this season he's not here though he's out skydiving or something he hasn't even shown up and also I'm just gonna say it guys no one's gonna like me saying this actually you

will but the bachelor the bachelor production won't the dates are poor like last dude my dates were way poorer last episode they went fencing they did a little like pretend fence we didn't even see the date it was too much about the drama at the cocktail party but this whole like cocktail party at the start of the episode mid-episode bait and switch lack of locky i mean i don't know what's going on look i'm just remembering i don't know if you remember i'm gonna remind you all nick aka the honey badger he's been the highest paid bachelor to ever grace the bachelor screens it was ludicrous what this meant though is that no money left budget was spent on nick like the whole budget now usually the first dates i remember matt's date um for one of his first

few dates last year they went like fighter jet flying like this is high-end stuff yeah we did like skydiving we had a beautiful yacht like okay can i tell you definitely spiraled out of control since then but I'm just gonna remind you guys I was one of the first dates um officially I think the second date do you know what I did I can't remember I'm just remembering the day I love it I remember being like yes this is going to be insane Nick's adventurous I'm crazy adventurous this is going to be something epic. We played foot golf. What's foot golf you say? Foot golf is a made up sport where we went to a golf course and kicked a soccer ball around. That was our date. I'm not kidding. Nothing happened. Nothing turned up. Nothing came out of the sky. And

Honeybadger's like, I'm fine with this. I've got a big ass paycheck in my pocket. I'm not going to part with any of this for a super yacht. That was my date. And I kept waiting for the next thing to happen thinking like this is gonna be epic and that was it they're like time to wrap it up and I was like oh my actual god I just kicked a soccer ball around on a date on one of the first days on the bachelor you just had a Lorena moment where you're like everyone else is getting planes and I'm getting a dirty street pie it was like not even as I'm getting a dirty football anyway scraping the bottom of the barrel we're all the plebs over here but yes they literally have no budget is what it seems it's it's weirdly edited I think we can all agree I'm staying tuned I'm

staying positive i'm still watching the series and every episode we have like a thread running where we kind of you know have some very funny banter happening on the episode but it's a lot guys it'll get good they'll get they'll get the love story at the end fingers crossed we're hoping i think we need to jump in laura to accidentally unfiltered should we tell the people what the episode's gonna be about first well otherwise they're gonna listen to like 45 minutes of us yabbering on and then they got no clue yeah that's how we keep them hooked yeah come on hook line and sinker reeling your babies in now you can tell me if you want so okay well I'll keep it really brief but we are talking about pink tax on this episode what is what is

that Laura well I'm gonna get into it when we get into the episode um some of you might know some of you might not it's very interesting it is to do with gender and pay discrimination and we're gonna unpack it we're going to get into it because like I said it's a super interesting topic now Please, Laura, can we finally get into Accidentally Unfiltered? I've just tried to – Laura's going to edit it out. I've tried to get into Accidentally Unfiltered three times this episode and she keeps cutting me out. She's like, no, not yet.

And I'm like – There's more to talk about. We've got some more yapping to go. All right, Accidentally Unfiltered. Britt, have you got one for me? I do and it's short and sweet. Okay, so for anyone who doesn't know what Accidentally Unfiltered is, if you're new to the podcast, it is you guys –

you guys write in your most embarrassing stories and we read them out and then we all laugh together i just thought this one was really cute it's actually super short i was out last night at a busy pub i was really feeling myself thought i looked great good vibes good energy and was feeling hot i was sitting at the table with some friends i got up to walk outside when i turned around and there was a string of gum like five meters long from my ass back to the chair this reminds me of the time where I was at the um like it was very shortly after the bachelor had started and and I was out with a girlfriend we were at a club and I'd just gone to order a

drink I was standing at a bar and this other girl came up to me and she was like oh excuse me and I thought she was going to be like are you the girl from the bachelor and I was like had this moment of like, yes, I am so cool. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I'm on the bachelor. And he was like, I don't watch that show, but you have toilet paper stuck to your foot. It was a really perfect moment that just cut me back down to earth. And I needed that. That's so embarrassing. Like on every level standard. Okay. So this is also a very innocent, accidentally unfiltered, but I kind of feel for this girl. Okay. I had just hit 10 weeks pregnant and only myself and my partner knew at the time each week I would send my partner a text message to tell my partner what type of fruit the baby

was now anyone who's had a baby you would know that there are so many apps which you can follow and it's like this week your baby's a blueberry this week your baby's a pineapple anyway so she was sent her partner a message which was like hey honey baby this week the baby is a fig and guess what my uterus is the size of a grapefruit anyway my partner didn't write back and I thought it was really weird because usually he's so quick to respond and super excited about this pregnancy next thing I get a text back from my father-in-law whose name also starts with the same letter and he writes that's great news not exactly how I expected to find out that you were pregnant but we're happy all the same wait that's fun imagine I mean I can't imagine but imagine writing that to your

father your father-in-law it's just kind of like such a waste especially if you're planning on doing such a nice surprise or a nice like a reveal yeah like surprising like their first grandchild like here it is not like oh yeah my uterus is the size of a grapefruit I remember when my brother was pregnant he organized like for all these little suits he like he made it a big deal obviously my brother wasn't pregnant his partner was but they made it this big thanks for clarifying they made this big deal we all sat around the table like we had this big meeting it was almost like a meeting and I was like shit someone's off their job or something's really bad because it was unexpected and we all got these beautiful little gifts of like um each one

individual was like favorite auntie even though there's two aunties sharon and i both got favorite auntie so he didn't think that through but favorite grandpa favorite grandma it was really really sweet so i feel like you'd be shattered if you were this person you have these big plans to announce your pregnancy and yes accidentally wrote to your father-in-law hey i'm up the duff with like a grapefruit so we also do a section on this podcast where we do i can't believe they said that and we constantly get in some of the most outrageous I mean people are shit and people say some pretty shit things some people are proper shit like proper well good shit but I also wanted to ask this week and I put it out on the Facebook group which was like the weirdest place that you've

ever been picked up so we're gonna get into that but firstly this is just a super innocent and very funny I can't believe they said that so this girl is sitting with her family and she has a little four-year-old nephew and the little four-year-old nephew has been going around the table and saying everyone's names and it's like your auntie Sarah your uncle Jimmy anyway he gets to this girl and she goes hey honey what's my name and he goes you are nothing wait that's happened to me before self-esteem absolutely plummets from a four-year-old I just thought it was so great I read it and I actually like I was like that is children say the damnedest things but also sometimes it really hurt no this is why it hurts the most with kids because they just tell the truth like they're

so honest with you that whenever they say something to you you're like oh oh that really hurt my feelings Marley's new favorite thing is to just grab the loose bit of skin on the back of my arms and pinch it like I never noticed it before but I was at like I honestly had never noticed like how how saggy the back of my arms were until I was standing buying a sandwich the other day and Marley was just in like I was holding her on the side of my hip and she just reached around and started pinching the back of my arm and now she does it every single day and I think she wants me to go to Pilates but I'm not quite sure I'm not letting it anywhere in my arms so this is pretty sad Laura messaged me she's like think of the craziest weirdest most wonderful place you've

ever been hit on slash picked up and I was like okay I started thinking I was racking my brain and I was like I literally can't think of anywhere because no one ever asked me out I have to ask out everyone and I have hit on everyone that I've basically ever been with and I'm like I don't know I don't know if this is all Brittany being like power independent or if this is just that no one wants to actually date me I don't know which one it is it's not the second one I do feel like it's like girlfriend goes and gets what she wants but also I understand why but I was like oh my god this is so sad but then I did think of one when I lived in Notting Hill in London oh I like the yeah I know didn't even mean to but it's just the only place so ask me out you know for those of you

that have lived in London the underground like the subways they're everywhere that every single suburb every corner it's so easy to go around it's brilliant so there's this one next to my house that obviously I got every every day multiple times a day and there was this guy if you've ever been on the underground they have workers everywhere so they usually have someone at the top that's at the gate that like lets you in and then someone that's like take the stairs ma'am take the elevator you know like whatever there's always someone that's helping in case things go chaotic or sell tickets whatever so there was this guy that I started to see every morning he was a bit older started to see him every morning and like he just started to say hello like there was

no attraction it was just like an older man working and you know what I'm like I'm like hey like so friendly you want to talk to everyone this happened for a few weeks and then every time I saw him he was talking more and more and more and then one day and this will show you how much I've grown as a person one day he stops me and asks me we're chatting and he asked me for my number and you gave it to him yeah I panicked I was like I panicked he's like we can catch up and I was like gave you my number and then just like hurried down and scurried into the subway like a subway rat why didn't you just get a fake one because I panicked that someone's going to be like I'll prank you now so you've got it and

then it doesn't ring you know fair because that's a legitimately happened to me like now I would have just said no like now say I'm sorry like whatever I'm seeing someone or whatever I'm not interested yeah just not interested and I wouldn't even think twice about saying that but then I was just I was years ago so I was like here's my number so he messages me and I thought I'd been thinking about it all day to the point that I walked home I walked home like an hour because I didn't want to get the subway in case I ran into him and then um he he sent me a message and then I messaged him back and I'd been thinking about it I was like hey like appreciate this but just so you know I'm seeing someone like not single as fuck and I should not have given you

my number I was like I'm not interested yeah I said that I was seeing someone and I should I shouldn't even give my number and he's like he literally wrote back that's okay we can still hang out as friends and I was like no no I think you're gonna put me in your basement I was like no we're not we're not friends you work you're the subway man anyway I had to block him he started to message me like probably he probably messaged me like 20 times that week yeah and then then I could never get the subway again so I walked an hour to work every day good for fitness though I could have walked to the next subway and gotten on but I had this panic that maybe he'd get redirected to another subway but also isn't this a good lesson though right like I mean there is

such power in having confidence to say like oh sorry I'm not going to give you my number and then avoid the whole awkward situation of having to then try and get out of offense but like we do this as women we don't want to offend someone more often than not we would prefer to feel uncomfortable than to make someone else uncomfortable even a stranger which is crazy but what we don't understand is and I understand it now what we don't understand is that if I said to him I'm seeing someone and I'm not gonna give you my number it's not going to offend him he's not gonna be upset he probably won't care I'm probably the 30th person he's asked that day but we take it on as women to to be like oh my god I just don't want to upset the person yeah

And we want to care so much about their feelings. They couldn't care less, man. Couldn't care less. If a guy asks for your number and you don't give it to him, he's not going to go home and cry. Well, I did have a few very funny ones that were written in about places that people have been asked out. Some of them were a bit screwed up, messed up, but also great.

One girl wrote in and she said she got asked out at her granddad's funeral. Oh. A friend of my cousin walks up to me and says, we've got to stop meeting like this. You're like, no, no, this is my – What do you mean meeting like this? you had granddad's funeral it's so bad i think he meant well and he didn't think that through you say well i've got no more grandpas so we're gonna stop being like this

well that's what i would i would have that would have been my retort that was dark and yeah but i would have been like in the field i'd be like pissed i would have just been like boom but the reason why we got onto this was because man i were talking the other day about like the weirdest places that we had gotten picked up and i have a story which i hadn't shared on the pod yet and i was like, do I know this story? I don't think so. Tell me. So I was, I was traveling around India and you know, I got really sick, like proper, proper sick. I, um, I had some sort of stomach bug and I remember we were at the hotel and I had went down, like my friend had gone down to the reception to say like, we need a house doctor to come. And they were like, well, you know,

what's wrong with her? And she was like, basically she was shitting all over the floor. Yeah. It's a whole mess up there. So I had not gone off the toilet for a good six hours. And they were like, how many times have you gone to the toilet? And I was like, it's pretty much just doesn't stop. I just have a sip of water. It comes straight out. And they're like, no, no, no, you need to go to the hospital. So I was like, okay. So I got into a car, got to the hospital. Anyway, I get hooked up. I'm in a hospital gown and this doctor comes in and he was like, I need to get a stool sample. I was like, okay. So gave him a stool sample and he comes back and he goes sorry we need a number two not a number one and I was like that is it that's what we're

working with so rank so right we've all been there yeah and he was like oh okay I'm sorry you're like you're very sick anyway he walks out he comes back in with a drip and puts a drip in my arm and at the same time goes so uh when you're feeling better I'd really love to take you out for dinner sometime oh my god he did not and I was like you were just holding my poo in your hands You are holding my liquid poo in your hands. What part of this is sexy? Tell me. I was like, this is wildly unprofessional, but also you're kind of attractive.

I'll think about it. Yeah, but if he loves you at your worst, if he loves you looking like that, when you're like, if you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best. Live, laugh, love. Guys, so the topic we're talking about today is one that I found really interesting i know laura found it really interesting and it's something neither of us knew anything about one of you guys in the facebook group a couple of weeks ago you posted a post

about an australian skincare brand and essentially it's two products exactly the same one was targeted to men one was targeted to women the one that was targeted to women which had the same ingredients was priced at a higher point this led us to delve a little bit deeper into this topic and discover that there is something called pink tax. We're going to tell you about it because we had no idea about it and I feel like it's going to blow a lot of your minds. Laura, do you want to tell us?

So guys, if you're not sure if you're paying pink tax or if you don't know what pink tax is, because Britt and I, honestly, when we saw this come up and this conversation that was happening on the Facebook group, we were like, I don't even know about that. What is pink tax?

Ask yourself, are you a woman? Yes. Do you buy women's clothing, women's razors, women's body wash, women's face products? are you a mom and do you buy toys for your little girl then yes you are paying pink tax and you may not even be aware of it firstly just so that there is no confusion pink tax the name pink tax it is not an actual tax there is no actual tax that that is you know enforced by the government that women have to pay but what pink tax is is the name given to the discrepancy in pricing between female

products and male products. And often you will find that the very same product that is marketed towards women is at a much higher price point, sometimes up to 20% higher than the exact same version that's been marketed or branded for men. However, the product, the ingredient, all the things inside, even the packaging, although the coloring may be different, everything else is the same. So that higher price is what is referred to as pink tax. for example the most common example that's used is razors so you guys know the the super cheap razor that you can get the one that doesn't have any sort of moisturizing strip or anything it's the like the plain pink one and then there's the plain blue one well if you go to your Woolworths

or you go to your local store and have a look more often than not the pink one is priced at a higher rate and that higher rate can be anywhere from seven percent up to 25 percent difference and a 25% increase. This happens across the board over so many different products. It's something that companies do because there is this belief that women are willing to pay more and therefore they should pay more for literally the exact same product. Well, it's because women are known to be the person that goes for the whole family. They shop for the family. And this is obviously a stereotype because it doesn't happen all the time, but women are high consumers of beauty products because we are a we want to we enjoy it but b we're also fed to believe that we have to

live by these beauty standards we have to maintain ourselves we have to groom and yeah we are the people that go out and buy things for our families we're the people that go out and buy things for our children for our grandparents generally speaking it's not a standard tax rate it's actually a rate that a company can decide to put on their products themselves so they make the the decision on themselves so not every single company does it in australia it is still really prevalent and like laura said this is things like kids toys it's clothing men's and women's clothing it could be exactly the same t-shirt one's put in the men's section and one's put in the women's section just say like a basic white cotton shirt not only does the men's shirt have more fabric

and it probably costs more to make but the woman's shirt will be at much at a much higher price so this is across so many different product ranges and then when we started to look into it it's even down to something as as silly as like buying a pen pens big pens if they're targeted to women and they have any sort of color on them you're immediately going to pay more so I was really mind blown by this and once we started getting into like specific products I am just going to dress look knack like a man from now on guys we're all going to be dousing ourselves in links deodorant by the end of this yeah it can seem innocent enough and I think that companies can get away with it if we're not woke to what we're buying and we're not making intentional purchases

I was really struck by this and I thought that this was such an interesting thing and something that we should all be way more aware of and be really cognizant to when we're buying products from companies so that we can hold companies accountable for price discrimination and gender discrimination in their pricing there's been a couple of conversations back and forth around why some companies do this. And I mean, I think it's a pretty weak excuse, but some companies have said and come out saying, you know, it's more expensive for us to market to women because that's a more competitive gender. And therefore we have to reflect that in our advertising. We have to reflect those advertising costs in our product range. The bigger and more robust

side to this argument is just essentially that women have been groomed to pay more and that, we value beauty products and we value clothing more than what men do and more than what they have traditionally in the past. And therefore brands can get away with doing it. And so they'll continue to do it. And it's this concept that women are literally paying for their own gender stereotype. And I read this really great article that put it into perspective because I'm sure there'll be some people who think, well, who aren't as outraged as what I personally was when I read about this. And I know that this topic is a little bit different and we usually have a bit more of a relationship slant but because we have such a huge female audience we also thought that this is a

really interesting conversation to cover. So I read a really great article which was on psychology today and I'll link the article in the show notes because it really perfectly explains why this is such a big issue but they gave the analogy of like an Indian restaurant and another analogy which I think you know it compares like why gender discriminant pricing is a problem just the same as if we were to do racial discriminant pricing, it would be a problem. So for example, imagine a hair company has created two different hairbrushes. The brushes are literally identical. The only difference between these two hairbrushes is the color. And let's also say maybe the bristles on the hairbrush are distributed slightly differently. However, they both had the same amount of bristles

and they both cost exactly the same price to manufacture. So this company who has created the two different hairbrushes. This hypothetical company who has created these two different hairbrushes markets the first hairbrush to people of African or indigenous descent and says you know this is going to be great for your type of hair and it's specifically marketed to them. However it is 22% higher than the other hairbrush which is marketed specifically to white Caucasian descent and their type of hair. Even though the hairbrushes do exactly the same thing there is nothing different about their purpose or their functionality and they cost exactly the same to make. We would be outraged if that happened because that's racial discriminant pricing and that's illegal. However,

gender discriminant pricing is not. The problem with gender discrimination in pricing is that, yes, sure, as women we can buy the men's version of things. However, when something says for men on the packaging, there is this exclusive advertising and exclusive nature and the fact that it's usually in a completely different part of the department store as well that means that women aren't even looking at those products or even realizing the price discrimination that's happening well it's actually really clever marketing when you think about it and i tried to put myself in this position when i was reading the article i was putting myself in the position thinking what i would think when i'm in the supermarket looking at these products i'm going to use an example of

deodorant when they specifically say for women for men the average woman that reads that automatically subconsciously thinks okay there's something in the men's one that's specific for men so i'm not going to use that and obviously this is made because i'm a woman and there's something in it that's going to benefit me as a woman that's that's the trickery of this marketing because you automatically think that because that says for men there's something in it that you're not allowed to be using which is completely false you could use that exact same deodorant it might have it might have a different smell like a more masculine smell for an example but the deodorant itself is still going to do the same thing it's still an antiperspirant deodorant but you're

going to pay more for the women's and it's basically the exact same ingredients and the exact same cost to make and often often more often than not what also happens is that the men's products are larger in size and so you're actually paying less for per volume so one of the things was the examples we came across was in Woolworths they have their home brand of deodorant the men's deodorant is slightly bigger and it's also priced cheaper per 100 grams than the women's deodorant even though they are literally the same packaging, the same product, the same ingredients. And this happened across the board. Another one was Haviana's. Haviana's men's black thongs were $24.99 and the women's black thongs were $29.99. And it's like, there's literally more

rubber in a man's black thong than in a woman's one. You've used more. It's bigger. Like how could it possibly be priced as less? So I kept on seeing these examples. And I think once you become woke to it and then you actually start realizing it, it's everywhere. And I think as women, we really need to be very aware of how we're spending our money, which also then lends itself into this idea of the gender pay gap. So I'm sure like you've all heard of the term, the gender pay gap before, but I'm, I reckon that there will be some people out there who maybe misunderstand or think that it's something different to what it is. And I say that because I myself actually used to think, I used to think the gender pay gap was like

the difference between what a man makes and a woman makes in the same job. So basically like if we're both working as sales reps and there's a guy working the same job and he's being paid more than me in my company, that's what I thought the gender pay gap was. That's not what it is. I was wrong. I think a lot of people think that. Yeah. I think that that's a really common misconceptions. So the gender pay gap, what it actually refers to is the average difference that men make more than women. And so the gender pay gap in Australia at the moment is around 14%. And that means like across the board, if you look at men's general income, and then you do that as a percentage, men make 14% more than women. And there are many, many contributing factors to this.

Some of the contributing factors are obviously gender bias, gender discrimination, whether that's conscious or unconscious but then there's also the impact of women having time out to have children which impacts our ability to progress our careers there's also the influence of women gravitating towards more service-based occupations and caring occupations which which those occupations often incur a lesser salary so there are so and there's more and more reasons than this as to what actually affects the gender pay gap but the reason why this becomes such a big deal is because if you look at the fact that women on average are earning several hundred dollars less a week than men but then we're actually spending more on products per week than men and and over a year's space

we're spending almost a thousand four hundred dollars on average more than a man is spending that that gap and that separation between the gender bias and what we actually are able to have in our wallets at the end of the day or the end of the year is huge and that divide is just getting bigger and bigger the one i've got oh like when i started reading this i and and researching it i started to become infuriated it makes you angry yeah i was like laura and i were just texting each other being like i'm so mad but one one tiny tiny little thing to take away from this is that in 2016 the workplace gender equality agency highlighted that the national wage gap was 16.2 percent so if there's something to take away from it is that in the last four years the gap has

decreased meaning you know we're slowly moving in the right direction and there are so many contributing factors to why women do earn less and like Laura said one of them is because maternity leave and then years off work when you're at home this in turn means that we're putting less in our superannuation so we're getting less in our superannuation it also means women are more likely to just settle for a job and and I don't like to say this but we accept jobs that we know we are overqualified for we know we could earn more somewhere else but we're just so unsure that we're ever going to have that offer given to us that we just when we enter the workforce again after having years off we just take what we're given and I don't know if we could

delve right into this I don't know if this is a conscious factor that's playing from the CEOs and higher up if they're offering these jobs at a lower price at a lower salary knowing that women coming back into the workforce are more likely to accept them because they're just so grateful to have any job. Men, on the other hand, will fight for salary increases. They'll fight for better jobs. They'll constantly say they work more. And so that's a really big contributing factor as well. Well, I think it's really interesting in that also women who are coming back from having children, a lower paying salary job has the idea that there's going to be more flexibility so work-life flexibility so I do think that there are these huge sacrifices and I mean

obviously it's not just my thought like there is there is many many research that's been done and proof in the pudding that we make sacrifices because we are predominantly the carers but also women do the majority of the domestic housework and we do the the majority of the unpaid labor in this country so I know I said in last week's episode that like a clean house is the biggest aphrodisiac and to everyone who agreed, but like majority or not, like that labor still falls on us and it is unpaid domestic work and that divide isn't getting smaller. And so then to see that there is this bias on products and how product pricing happens just in our everyday supermarket on everyday products was really, really alarming to me. And something that I was like, women need

to know about this and we need to talk about this, Brittany. Can I talk to you about something that's like it's it's it's on brand but it's a bit off topic for right this second but I'm at me yeah so when I was reading about this I just wanted to share this because I was just so gobsmacked at the fact that this was even an issue at the fact of what our health minister his the statements that he made at the time so in the year 2000 the then health minister Dr Michael Wooldridge he basically came out and issued the first determination making various health goods GST free basically there were some health goods that he said people shouldn't have to pay tax on this because they're sort of like essential items that we need these items included condoms

lubricants folic acid and some sun creams that's it now this caused a huge uproar because something that is not a luxury item and that is tampons I mean I feel pretty luxurious when I'm bleeding every month shoving something up your vagina to stop it wait I guess that there was this um this and I remember I remember the massive debates that happened and and obviously there's been a lot of reform since then but there was this idea that tampons were considered not a necessity it was like well you know this is not a luxury item and and something I think I reckon you've got the quote there of what he actually said oh I do yeah come on out come at me bra well I just found it i found it amazing that when i started to read that was the year 2000 women i mean there

were men campaigning for it too women around the world have been saying all this time tampons should be on this list they should be gst exempt we shouldn't be paying a tax on an item that we physically we actually need it's not a luxury item we're not doing it by choice it doesn't feel good what year laura do you think i know the answer to this it was last year britney it was 2018 oh shit it's 2018 i mean 2020 hasn't even existed like so last year write this one off and it was last year 2018 yeah it took until 2018 for them to finally put tampons on the list of being gst exempt the quote of what dr waldridge was saying during this time where people were like tampons should be on the list he said well as a bloke i'd like shaving cream exempt but i'm not expecting

it to be then when questioned on why condoms were gst free but tampons weren't dr waldridge added quote condoms prevent illness i wasn't aware that menstruation was an illness it's such a man comment it is such a man's comment i was just gobsmacked and i remember actually i remember going to an event a cosmo cosmopolitan back when that old magazine was around and obviously cosmopolitan was it was a it was a magazine it was an editorial that was all around speaking for women and um they had lobbied and been part of the lobbying body that was trying to change the GST reform around using tampons. But the other thing I think is interesting, and I know that this question will probably bring up a little bit of debate among people. Adult nappies are exempt

from GST because adult nappies are deemed as a necessity, whereas baby nappies still have GST applied. And I would argue that I think a baby nappy is equally as much of a necessity as an adult nappy. And the thing that I guess kind of irks me on this is like, I understand that there are many different categories that are still have GST applied to them that we need to pay tax on and that are considered luxury or non-essential items however I think about nappies and you know I'm in a fortunate position where it's not a cost burden for me to buy nappies because financially I'm in a comfortable situation however there are many other single mums out there who don't have dual incomes who are completely funding the cost for their children and so once again another cost

another GST another tax another product that is essentially very very essential that cost is often fronted by the mum and by a woman money runs the world money makes the world go around and this is what everyone says it doesn't mean that it should but just so you can get an idea of of why I've got some figures here just so you can get an idea of why they were so hesitant for the like 18 years why it took 18 years to put women's hygiene products on the tax-free threshold so just so you can understand the parliamentary budget office basically found that if they put feminine hygiene products on the exemption list it would reduce revenue by 35 million dollars in one year and 480 million dollars over 10 years so now that's those figures are from the parliament of australia

website but that is huge like no wonder it took them 20 years 480 million dollars over 10 years yeah but the hideous part of that is like okay i'm glad that that reform has happened now obviously we're talking about something that happened in 2018. But that's why we thought this whole idea of pink tax is something that we really need to be aware of as women, because there is no legislation against it. There is nothing that says that companies can't do it. And it is discriminatory pricing. And I think all discrimination should be illegal in that respect. So companies aren't being held accountable for it. And companies, this is what happened in the States. Basically, there was a lobbying government that wanted to change policy around

pink tax and make it illegal for companies to charge different pricing based on gender stereotypes and the companies themselves petitioned and put up massive lobbies because it would be such a massive part of their profit margin that they would be losing and I think that there needs to be some responsibility that falls back on companies to have gender neutral pricing something else that I wanted to bring to the conversation I think it's really relevant in regards to like how women and talk about money and obviously we've done a whole podcast on like show me the money honey it was a podcast it was all about being in relationships and how we should manage money without and finances with our partner but this is just a really interesting conversation around like how men

and women are conditioned socially to talk about money differently and this is kind of my own personal experience a little bit but I think it's relevant I also think that other people would have experienced this. So I'm going to throw it out there on the floor. I think that men and women talk about money quite differently. I think as women, we often talk about like the discounts that we have received, or we talk about like getting a bargain or our savings. We are kind of conditioned to talk about it on that level. Whereas men are more inclined to talk about investment, to talk about stocks. And I think that they have a lot more confidence to talk about it as though they're an authority, even if they aren't. And I say this because, so I've been

running my company for 10 years now I've worked in in the retail space with Tony May for literally 10 years I know a lot about retail and I know a lot about how to run a retail business and I cannot tell you the number of times in my life where men who have absolutely no experience but but some men in my life who have come in either boyfriends or friends of friends who have come in and felt the overwhelming need to give me advice on how to run my business or to give me advice on how I should be expanding or working within the retail space. And I find it so interesting that a guy who has absolutely no retail experience would feel that that conversation is acceptable or helpful or in any way going to benefit me. But I've never, ever, ever had a female come to me and tell me how I

should be spending my money, how I should be growing or investing my business. That's only ever come from a guy. And, and I think like the only time I've ever had a female try and mentor me it's because she's been more experienced than I am in my field and I find this really interesting I don't know if I'm the only person that's experienced it but I kind of this it just got me thinking this whole conversation around how men and women talk about money differently I wonder if that stems from just back in the day where men were the breadwinner and the women just stayed at home and were child bearers and they didn't we didn't even have bank accounts we didn't work we didn't do anything I wonder if that's just like trickled down through the

generations and ingrained in men that they just feel so opinionated and and like they have to give their two cents because they're the man and you're a woman yeah absolutely and obviously this is not everyone and this is not like I'm not saying that every single guy in my life has decided to give me business advice it's definitely not the thing but I just find it interesting that you know some people really do and and the thing that stalks and is kind of like just bizarre to me is that the lack of knowledge that they have on the industry that I work in but the the lack of reservation that they have to still offer advice on this um just next time just ask them be like how much did you earn in your retail business this year because I bet you in your

non-existent retail business it's not as much as I am and then I guess like that idea it kind of lends itself into imposter syndrome which is another thing that we've talked about but like sometimes I'll find myself listening to these conversations and actually going down the rabbit hole of these conversations and feeling like oh maybe they do know more than me and I'm like hold on hold on hold on they don't this is imposter syndrome this is me feeling like I need to listen to someone who has authority on something when they don't necessarily have that. So I know that this is very much a personal experience, but I just wanted to kind of throw that out there from a business perspective of something that I have experienced many, many, many times over the last

10 years. And it's something to be aware of as a woman and maybe back yourself a little bit more if you find yourself second guessing or questioning whether you're doing the right thing because some guy is telling you, you're not. And it's also, that's not you saying you're not going to listen to a man that's you saying i'm not going to listen to a man that has no retail experience you're happy to take advice from someone that's a man that's nailed the the industry 100 but it's just like how we're socially conditioned to talk about money and how how as different genders there there is this like you know i think women are more scared and it's statistically true we're more scared to ask for pay rises we do not challenge our salary so when

we take a new job we are less inclined to challenge our salaries than what a guy is this is a really interesting topic and actually we're going to get somebody onto the pod to talk a little bit more about business the business perspective and also talk about how do you go about asking for a pay rise or how do you go about negotiating your salary when it's something when when talking about money is something that makes you feel uncomfortable yeah there's a whole I mean there's a whole lot we could talk about in business and but I guess guys we just wanted to highlight this today because a we didn't know about it so that made us think that probably so many of you don't know that this pink tax even exists. I guess what you can do about it is start to compare your

products that you're buying. So if you're in the supermarket and you're looking at razors or deodorants or whatever it is, just go and have a look at the men's section and compare it. They're probably identical. Start to buy the men's version when you can. The other thing you can do is just be a more conscious consumer. When you're purchasing a product, have a look at the company and see if they do put this pink tax on and then you can go as far as to email or contact the company and let them know how you feel about this because there's there's literally no other way than without us causing an uproar that this can be stopped companies are going to continue to charge it and make revenue if we continue to go about it happily i reckon go one step further i

reckon you name and bloody shame and put them on social media so what what the reason like brit said that this whole conversation came up was because of a post that was put in the Facebook group. And the thing I really love that the poster did is that it isn't just a post about price comparison. So it was, it was a beauty brand who had the, they had a bundled package, basically the exact same three products for the men and women's version. And it, one was said for men, one said for women, but the products were exactly the same. And the difference discrepancy, the difference of the discrepancy in price was around $30. So it was a very considerable price difference. And the person who posted this in the Facebook group actually reached out, emailed the company

and said, why is this price differently? The products are the same. Why is the female version priced more than the men's version? And good on her. Yeah. And I think that this is what we need to do. We need to keep companies accountable. We live in a time and a day and age where social media is so powerful. If you want to enact change, then making companies accountable on social media in a public forum is a very quick and swift way to tell the companies that you've spent your money with that you're not happy with their actions. Make conscious purchases, be intentional with where you spend your money and hold the companies that you do spend your money with accountable if they apply pink tax.

guys hope you learned something and enjoyed the episode we know that it's probably not a barrel of laughs this topic but nonetheless we think it's super important and we always want to be bringing you things that are going to help your life and we want to be educating you so we hope you got something from that now it's time to wrap up the episode and that involves suck and sweet the highlights and the lowlights of your week laura you're going first because i have to think of mine. My suck. My week has been actually so good. My suck is the fact that we are late with this episode. And I know that as soon as we finish, I'm going to have to sit down and edit whilst also trying to wrangle Marley. So that is, I'm preempting my suck being that, but apart from

that, my week has been actually amazing. So I have nothing to complain about my suite and I have a couple of suites. So lend me the microphone. My suite is that I got your own mate. You don't i'm gonna lend you one give me yours as well um my sweet was that it was my sister's birthday we ended up going out for a really really nice family lunch well family lunch i mean it was me matt my sister and her husband i saw that it looked fancy it was so fancy dressed up and stuff well i never go anywhere so you know they say you can't polish a turd but i will challenge that so we left the kids with my my mom my mom came up and was babysitting we left the kids with my mom we we literally stayed at the restaurant until we got kicked out that's so amazing just like i'm

never fucking leaving that's amazing and then do you know what and then maybe this can be my suck so my mom matt matt posted a video yesterday on his instagram about like you know being a rad dad anyway he posted this silly video and matt and i and marley we were all in it my mom leaves this message like a comment on the video and she's like hey guys just another day in the johnson burn household this is public on instagram as well guys just another day in the johnson burn household like love you and matt but don't worry i love marley more or something like this and i was like i'm your daughter like what you gave birth to me you can't publicly say that you love your granddaughter more that's just common she does no yeah no that's a real thing um grandparents

end up loving i mean like i'm i'm sort of joking but not grandparents end up loving their grandkids more because they can love them without the responsibility they can just shower them with goods get the love from them give them kisses and presents get the kisses back and then they can leave I was like you literally birthed me and raised me for 34 years and you loved my daughter I was like I mean am I am I jealous of my one-year-old daughter probably anyway so that's another stuff that I'm going to add to it but my last sweet I know I really am going to get the rules like you every week you make the rules I don't even care we make the rules so we can bend them bend them break them rules are made for breaking okay my other sweet and it's like the

best sweet ever and that is that we made three million dollars yeah we did it blows my freaking mind that three million of you have listened to us talk about our crap and also that i share way too much about my sex life it's insane like i'm that's i mean i'll get to that in a minute but that your sex life what what sex life guys right my sucks easy like i'm sick as a dog i i actually wonder can you hear it in my voice Laura yeah okay when you said that you were like I'm okay to record today when you called me I was like babe you sound like absolute shit so hopefully I'm not too bad for you guys um I've really tried to like articulate and speak well but I can hear in myself that I'm sick and also bring the energy she was like I can bring it I can suck it like

did you just snort it into the microphone she was like I'm sick okay I walked in and I actually look like death I even tried to put makeup on to look better I'm I'm death and I walked in and Laura's like babe you better fucking bring it like she's like we can't record like this and I was like oh you don't even know what I'm capable of I'm gonna bring it like snorting into the microphone um so my that's my suck I don't often get sick guys once or twice a year but when I do it like knocks me so that's it my sweets would have to be a I guess like we hit three million just knowing how many of you guys support us um unconditionally because we do and say some pretty crazy shit but also you guys have started your own meetups in your cities

and it's blowing my mind so someone put on the Facebook that you know let's let's meet up in Brisbane it started in Brisbane so now some other cities are saying we want to do it they literally just said like let's get a group of people make it social and and meet up specifically to talk about life uncut and like what we're talking about and that just I'm blown away like I'm so chuffed it's not another word and for me chuffed is like the epitome of elated like chuffed is the best word i could use if i've ever it is if i if i ever say chuffed i'm so pleased like guys i'm just so no chuffed is like chuffed is my word if if i say chuffed to you you know like you're in the good books mate it's the bees knees but no pajamas i'm just like it's so good and and laura

and i have spoken for a long time that we will do meetups and we want to do meetups we want to do like a kind of a live show I guess we're still trying to nut that out especially with COVID it's really hard but you guys have made us realize we were like are people going to want to meet us are people going to want to meet up and hear us talk are people ever going to listen to the podcast yeah we we started this podcast and I remember releasing the first one and I was like do you reckon anyone's going to listen that's actually what I said and Laura's like I hope so but yeah so you guys have made us realize that you might actually want to do this so yeah there's there'll be some stuff in the work and jump onto the facebook group which is life

uncut podcast if you are like looking to make new friends who are super like-minded who want to discuss the different issues and topics that we talk about on the podcast we highly recommend we are going to do something a little bit more formal but obviously like britt said there's so many limitations around covid at the moment but yeah stay tuned and watch the space and if you are doing meetups take photos for us take videos send them in please zoom us just come on like get us involved come on guys well mate hang on a minute heaps of free time she can't wait schedule us in pencil me down my spare time i had four hours sleep before work the other night i was like this is ludicrous i remember setting my alarm and i was like i literally have four hours

that's it and i woke up before my alarm all right guys that is it from us today hope you enjoyed you know the drill find us on instagram life uncut podcast find us on facebook life uncut podcast join the discussion group tell your mom tell your dad tell your friends tell your cousin tell your dog tell everyone and share the love because we love love and i'll try not to be snorty sick next we'll be back to our regular scheduling on thursday