WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE TO BE A WOMAN;

 

WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE TO BE A WOMAN;

FEMAIL

FOR countless women, shopping for a new jacket or a pair oflouboutin shoes is an enjoyable luxury to be indulged in as often as time and money allow. But for such straighforward pleasures we are being secretly penalised.

Everywhere, from the most exclusive boutiques down to the High Street chain stores, women are regularly paying up to a third more than men for items that are almost identical.

From the basics, like socks, shirts and christian louboutin shoes , to unisex classics like a white shirt, what men and women are buying can be virtually the same - except for the price tag. Such inequality is not just confined to the fashion industry. One of the worst offenders is the hairdressing salon, where the discrepancy in price is so great (on average women in Britain pay 30 per cent more for a cut and blow dry) that the ministry for women in one German region is urging female clients to boycott hairdressers until their 'sexist' pricing policy is changed.

Even in salons when both sexes are given equal lengths of time for appointments, men are still charged less.

Quite why women, the major consumers in the fashion and beauty industry, should be placed at a disadvantage defies logic. It is the shopping minority, men, who are enjoying a price advantage.

The problem is that although women happily shop and compare prices with each other, we rarely check between products on sale for women and men.

Yet the discrepancies are astounding; that wardrobe staple, the classic blazer, has in its basic form no extras to increase the price. But at Jaeger the woman's blazer costs £289, while a man would pay £100 less (£189) for an almost identical garment - even though the male version takes a good deal more fabric. And the more a man spends the more he saves; christian louboutin  woman's trousers cost around £375, the men's equivalent are about £295, a difference of £80.

Even in the highly competitive mail order market men get a better deal. Price-conscious women looking for a plain white cotton shirt from the Land's End catalogue would have to buy the man's version to get value for money and a saving of £6. In the High Street, Next are charging women £22.99 for a white cotton shirt, men only £19.99.

This discrimination also extends to the beauty counter and, amazingly, even to his and her louboutin products sold side by side.

But, unfair though this is, it is not illegal. 'It's like sexism, it's rife but not unlawful,' explains Fiona Fox of the Equal Opportunities Commission.