Why do women pay more for the same products?

Résumé du document

Women pay more than men for the same products. How can economic sociology explain such discrimination? To my mind, the most relevant theory to understand this issue is Bourdieu's one. The theory of the distinction developed by the French sociologist can apply to gender and explain the discrepancy by a differentiated socialization. Then, Zuckerman helps us to understand the issue through its concept of legitimacy and the idea that it determines the value of a product. Zelizer' theory, by focusing on the sacred on the profane, seems to be less relevant but presents some interesting points to understand the issue.

For Bourdieu, people in the society are, through their consumption, signaling to which group they belong. He explains, in his book La Distinction, that we consume products according to the social class to which we belong. This logic is, according to Bourdieu, mostly unconscious, due to what he calls our habitus, a word that designates the way of acting and behaving which results from our socialization. This habitus varies between social classes, because our parents do not teach us the same values, show us the same cultural stuffs, give us the same food to eat and so on whether they belong to the working class or to the dominant class. But Bourdieu's idea isn't just that an individual signals to which group he belongs through its consumption. It is also and maybe above all a way of establishing a distinction from the other social classes. In Bourdieu's theory it is the dominant class that creates, unconsciously, the distinction by making their behavior the distinguished one to achieve.

Extraits

[...] But the text goes even further with this idea by explaining that even for women who are prepared to bargain, it's hard to get a good deal because sellers are so accustomed to be able to charge women more that they won't curb, even if they have to lose a deal when facing a bargaining woman. This helps us understand the higher price women have to pay for products that aren't differentiated. Here, the reason why women pay more isn't that their differentiated products (towards which their socialization pushes them) cost more, but that those purchases are based on bargaining. This leads us to talk about a part of Bourdieu's theory that doesn't fit with gender discrimination. Bourdieu explains that the dominant class creates the distinction by consuming certain products and making them distinguished. [...]

[...] Why do women pay more for the same products? Women pay more than men for the same products. How can economic sociology explain such discrimination? To my mind, the most relevant theory to understand this issue is Bourdieu's one. The theory of the distinction developed by the French sociologist can apply to gender and explain the discrepancy by a differentiated socialization. Then, Zuckerman helps us to understand the issue through its concept of legitimacy and the idea that it determines the value of a product. [...]

[...] Here, the dominant group cannot be the women, who are admittedly paying more money, but for no reason, thus appearing as the powerless ones. It seems in fact that they are the ones dominated by a society that uses their lack of will of bargaining and competing. This idea of domination is the only link I found between Zelizer's theory about the profane and the sacred and the issue raised in the text. The fact that women are charged more for the same product could be a way of establishing, in a symbolist way, their dominated place in the society. [...]

[...] Women wouldn't pay more for deodorant if this product wasn't conforming to certain characteristics that women expect. If they accept to pay more it's because those products are especially made for them, with special scents or components. That could explain that the issue summons “little outrage” among women: the important thing for firms to meet women's expectations is to stay in the legitimate zone and to offer the right products, not to offer the same prices than for men products, because what women value are differentiated legitimate products. [...]

[...] Our identity is defined by our affiliation to a group, affiliation which we unconsciously reassert when buying certain products, differentiated ones: “shampoo, soap, and razors marketed to women” are, according to the text, “invariably packaged in pretty pastels”. How it is completed by Zuckerman's theory Those pretty pastels packages also help linking the issue to Zuckerman's theory. Zuckerman explains that actors are, on a market, constrained by preexisting models. They do not decide according to their own will. This applies to firms which, when not meeting institutionalized expectations, are viewed as illegitimate. [...]