Justice

Tweet Exposes the Sexist Way Companies Sell Products to Women vs. Men

December 19th 2016

Many brands create male and female versions of its products, but there's one visible difference between these gendered products that was recently pointed out in a viral Twitter video, which has many people questioning the companies' marketing methods.

Twitter user @estlucky filmed a series of products in a store in a video posted Sunday, showing the different ways companies tailor products for a specific gender. The regular Palmer's Cocoa Butter is in white packaging, but the male version is in a darker packaging. 

Palmer's Cocoa ButterTwitter - twitter.com

Palmer's Cocoa ButterTwitter - twitter.com

Similarly, Vaseline was shown in black packaging for men but green packaging for its generic form. 

VaselineTwitter - twitter.com

VaselineTwitter - twitter.com

Lubriderm lotion was also packaged in a dark-colored container for the male brand:

LubridermTwitter - twitter.com

The video has over 19,000 retweets and over 25,000 likes with several Twitter users criticizing these brands' seemingly gendered marketing practices:

Others have called out gender-specific marketing in the past.

In May, a Twitter user's viral photo of Colgate toothpaste tailored to men generated a heated discussion on the social media platform:

"Did the dentophiles at Colgate assume it's only men who strive for blindingly white teeth?" Mic writer Chris Riotta wrote of the toothpaste photo. "How will women ever be moved to smile more if they're not given every opportunity to achieve those picture-perfect pearly whites? And, let's be serious, how much more expensive would this toothpaste be were it not in red packaging but, say, pink?"

In December 2015, a survey from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs observed around 90 brands in New York City stores and found that products marketed to women tended to be more expensive than products marketed to men more than 40 percent of the time. For example, pink razors were more expensive than red ones, which were marketed to men.

"Though there may be legitimate drivers behind some portion of the price discrepancies unearthed in this study, these higher prices are mostly unavoidable for women," the study release stated. "Individual consumers do not have control over the textiles or ingredients used in the products marketed to them and must make purchasing choices based only on what is available in the marketplace. As such, choices made by manufacturers and retailers result in a greater financial burden for female consumers than for male consumers."

Check out the full video in the tweet below:

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