shopping – Starshine Roshell

Pink Tax Got You Blue?

Published on August 9, 2019

For Many Products, Women Pay More than Men

What could I do with $64, 843?

I could buy an all-wheel-drive Performance Model 3 Tesla — it’s the cheap kind, but still. I could sponsor 133 kids at the border for a year through Save the Children. I could get a massage at a fancy spa every week for nearly a decade, or have PoopSenders.com mail 1,666 gallons of steaming elephant excrement to the White House — any of which would give me nearly pornographic pleasure.

I’m told $64,843 is about what I’ve handed over so far in my lifetime to the Pink Tax — the upcharge added onto goods and services that are marketed specifically to women. From toys to clothing to grooming products, a 2015 study by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs showed that women pay 7 percent more than men do for similar items.

For example, many hair salons charge more for “women’s haircuts” than for men’s — even when the woman’s hair is short or the man’s is long. Women’s jeans cost an average of 10 percent more than men’s, and personal-care products, from shampoo and deodorant to razors and shaving cream, cost a whopping 13 percent more! And if we weren’t already bleeding money, there’s the “tampon tax,” the (ahem) padded fee we pay in 39 states, including California, where feminine hygiene products are taxed as luxuries rather than necessities.

New Target Doesn’t Hit the Bull’s Eye

Published on April 15, 2019

But It Scratches an Itch I’ve Been Trying to Reach for 17 Years

At this point, it would be hard to calculate which is greater: the number of words I’ve written about Target over the years, the number of purchases I’ve made at Target, or the number of hours I’ve spent pining for a Target right here in my hometown.

I’ve hosted a Target haiku contest and investigated the freaky phenomenon that compels some shoppers to relieve themselves in Target loos. But it all started 17 years ago when I wrote a column professing the unwholesome addiction my friends and I have to the retailer.

“Under the guise of hunting for Midol and a greeting card, we have been known to absent-mindedly knock toile throw pillows, sleek travel mugs, chunky-heeled boots, ceramic dog bowls, quick-dry nail polish, and purse-sized cartons of goldfish crackers into our carts—and then double back around to have another go,” I confessed. “Some of us are wearing three Target items as you read this.”

Drunk Shopping: It's for the Kids!

Published on March 27, 2014

I have a rule against drunk shopping. But I didn’t always. The policy sprang from necessity after attending my first-ever school fundraising auction. Poured into an oxygen-inhibiting costume, plied with signature cocktails, and woozy from watching wealthy parents race to the bottom of bid sheets, I lost my shizz and wound up owing \$500 for a one-night chocolate fountain rental.

Five hundred dollars. For wet chocolate.

When sobriety surfaced, I literally wept with panic. What had I done?! I had a young kid, a new mortgage, a mediocre salary, and, like, six friends — none of whom were likely to pay $83 each to lap gurgling goo from a humming appliance atop my hand-me-down kitchen table. No, you know how this ends. I took a bath on that chocolate fountain. And possibly … also … in it, but that’s my business.

A dozen years and as many auctions later — at Cabarets and Carnivals, through the Enchanted Forest, and aboard the Orient Express — I’ve learned to sip my wine and hide my bid number. But I can’t say I’ve learned to love the annual campus clusterfund that is the school auction.

Your Child, Your Mouthpiece

Published on January 5, 2012

She went off. And then she went viral.

Little Riley Maida of Newburgh, New York, made news recently with a video clip known as Riley’s Rant. In it, the precocious 4-year-old stands in a toy store railing against toy makers for assuming that girls only want to play with pink princesses and boys only want to play with superheroes.

“The companies try to trick the girls into buying the pink stuff instead of the stuff the boys want to buy,” she asserts, smacking a packaged doll for emphasis as her dad asks leading questions from behind the camera.

On YouTube, then Facebook, then in the news media (and, no joke, at the table next to me at a burger joint today) this four-foot feminist’s invective made hundreds of thousands pump their fists and chant “Riley for president!” Diane Sawyer all but declared Riley a sage of the age.

But I had a different reaction to the clip. I thought it was icky. Also icky: the viral video of 8-year-old Elijah Cromer confronting gay-marriage opponent Michele Bachmann last month in South Carolina. The boy waited in line to whisper, “My mommy’s gay, but she doesn’t need fixing,” while said mommy stood behind him, filming it all.

Season’s Bleatings

Published on December 20, 2006

Dearest Friends and Family, We hope this holiday letter finds you merry, gay, and all the other pleasant emotions the season demands of you.Whew! What a whirlwind year it’s been for us. The baby is quite active these days. He likes to bang his head on things and spin around until he falls down. We assume this is because he’s so smart, and he’s trying to slow his poor little brilliant mind down to a more comfortable level.

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