From waxing to dry-cleaning: Why women are perpetually getting screwed over.

This week I had the unfortunate experience of clicking on this article: Dry-Clean Your Clothes The Feminist Way, which really got my goat. Not because I have anything against New York City dry cleaners but because as vagina-possessors we are perpetually getting screwed over when it comes to consumption of retail goods.

As far as us women have come in the last 75, 50, 20 years there is still plenty of gender-based price discrimination that exist today and we’re LETTING it happen, you guys.

You’ve heard that Aussie women make 83 cents for every dollar that men make many times before, but if we make less money then why are we getting taken to the cleaners on everything from dry cleaning to hair removal?

Many women begrudgingly accept that their haircut will cost up to five times more than a men’s cut. Even if you go to a cheaper salon, have short hair and are just getting a trim, you will still pay more than a man.

(You will also be there for five times as long, but that’s another rant entirely.)

A fancy pants men’s razor will set a guy back around $11 whereas the equivalent women’s razor from the same company will have added moisturizing strips and suction cups that never stick and cost around $14.

And don’t even get me started on waxing, how is it that men have coarser hair and more surface area yet are paying less? The same goes for nails; a men’s manicure at my local salon costs $50 (inc polish) while manicures for women are sold as ‘Deluxe’ or ‘Indulgent’ and cost $10 and $20 more respectively.

These lady houses should be our safe place, yet instead we’re giving men a discount?  What the…what, what?

One woman is going on a feminist crusade after being charged more for dry cleaning an almost identical blue Brooks Brothers oxford shirt to the one her husband owns. She took them to be laundered at Best Cleaners in Chelsea (NY) and the shirts came back clean, but Ms. Floyd discovered that hers cost $8.75, her husband’s $7.

I know, we’re talking about an outrageous $1.75 but it’s the principle of the thing.

“We had the same shirts — I paid more and his was larger,” recalled Ms. Floyd, who wears a size 4 petite (her husband, Joe, wears a 15.5-inch neck and 33-inch sleeve). “That’s what was so infuriating.”

When she quizzed several other dry cleaners in her area she discovered that laundering (not dry-cleaning) women’s shirts cost almost double than men’s shirts.

“I was so amazed by this,” Ms. Floyd said. “What is confusing is that the market wouldn’t correct itself, with women saying ‘I’m not going to pay for this.’ ”

And herein lies the problem, we’re not speaking up. We’re shelling out cash because we’re so terrified of a dodgy haircut or a therapist who’ll rip our labias to shreds if we don’t pay the equivalent of a 1983 Holden for their services.

Columnist Caitlin Moran says it best in her book How To Be A Woman: “I can’t believe we’ve got to a point where it’s basically costing us MONEY to have a fanny.”

“They’re making us pay for maintenance and upkeep of our lulus, like they’re a communal garden. It’s a stealth tax. A fanny GST. This is money we should be spending on THE ELECTRICITY BILL and CHEESE.”

So this Christmas, I encourage you to rise up ladies.

Tell your beautician/dry cleaner/hairdresser/Government that you’re sick of paying more just to be a chick. Bargain The Man down, ask for the price as the bloke’s are paying, demand a cheaper service.

After all, you need that money for shoes.