Nothing sadder than a "What do you all think?", followed by zero comments. I guess I can chip in, if no one else is interested.
There are plenty of layers to the woman tax, but there's good evidence that it isn't (exclusively) guy-related. The original post was about a boyfriend/girlfriend, after all. Seems like the tax should decrease, the moment her boyfriend mentions that he prefers the extra dough to the prettier hairdo.
Which means that this is probably more about women viewing themselves as attractive, and the money investment needed to keep that consistent. So, a self-esteem tax? Some ladies have a low tax, some have a high one. Some should probably have a lower tax than they do, if they're living paycheck to paycheck. I can't be too harsh though. It's nice to feel expensive!
Might be worth pointing out that the idea of a self-esteem tax isn't exclusively female. Most guys just tend to blow their self-esteem money on expensive items, not month to month appearance upkeep. 'Judge a man's worth by his possessions. A woman's, by her beauty.' Both statements are pretty silly when you dig down to the core, but I don't know... Everyone needs some path towards value. Don't overdo it, and a little self-esteem tax seems fine, honestly.
The problem with 'woman tax' discourse is that it conflates being incentivized to do something with being mandated to do something. There might be some benefits to spending a lot of money on your appearance. That doesn't mean you have to take the incentive if it doesn't align with your values.
I think three things are being conflated here:
1. Pressure on women in corporate environments to be very very polished (make-up, expensive hair, manicures etc).
This is real and its a subtle form of sex-based discrimination. Particularly for women of colour who may be under a lot of pressure to not wear their hair naturally or who are under even greater burdens regarding pressure on their appearance. I'm in the legal field but frankly, I wouldn't want to work for a firm that would require me to show up in full glam every day just to do non-client facing work.
2. The cost of being a "baddie"/being extremely conventionally "hot".
As far as I'm concerned, being an instagram baddie is a subculture that you can freely opt out of. I'm sure it's very expensive to look like that, which is why most women don't.
3. The need to massively invest in beauty to get a boyfriend.
This is just not reality. I think my boyfriend would find it strange if I started spending all my disposable income on looksmaxxing. He likes me already! And any man who expected that look just wouldn't be a good fit. I don't need to be appeal to everyone in the world.
I guess my question is which "highly paid professions" require thousands of dollars a year on hair styling? My wife (Borat voice, naturally) is a banker and works in the headquarters of a major Wall Street firm and gets like two sub-$200 haircuts a year and has a gym membership and that's it. I think my monthly barber visits probably cost more. Part of that is that she's comfortable having salt and pepper hair, but that doesn't actually seem to be that weird? I guess her wardrobe is pricy, but the causation there runs the other way (she has a bunch of Theory pants because they're nice and she can afford them but the more junior people in her group wear plenty of Zara). Like, other than literal Fox News hosts where are these offices that are more formal than the bulge bracket.
Nothing sadder than a "What do you all think?", followed by zero comments. I guess I can chip in, if no one else is interested.
There are plenty of layers to the woman tax, but there's good evidence that it isn't (exclusively) guy-related. The original post was about a boyfriend/girlfriend, after all. Seems like the tax should decrease, the moment her boyfriend mentions that he prefers the extra dough to the prettier hairdo.
Which means that this is probably more about women viewing themselves as attractive, and the money investment needed to keep that consistent. So, a self-esteem tax? Some ladies have a low tax, some have a high one. Some should probably have a lower tax than they do, if they're living paycheck to paycheck. I can't be too harsh though. It's nice to feel expensive!
Might be worth pointing out that the idea of a self-esteem tax isn't exclusively female. Most guys just tend to blow their self-esteem money on expensive items, not month to month appearance upkeep. 'Judge a man's worth by his possessions. A woman's, by her beauty.' Both statements are pretty silly when you dig down to the core, but I don't know... Everyone needs some path towards value. Don't overdo it, and a little self-esteem tax seems fine, honestly.
The problem with 'woman tax' discourse is that it conflates being incentivized to do something with being mandated to do something. There might be some benefits to spending a lot of money on your appearance. That doesn't mean you have to take the incentive if it doesn't align with your values.
I think three things are being conflated here:
1. Pressure on women in corporate environments to be very very polished (make-up, expensive hair, manicures etc).
This is real and its a subtle form of sex-based discrimination. Particularly for women of colour who may be under a lot of pressure to not wear their hair naturally or who are under even greater burdens regarding pressure on their appearance. I'm in the legal field but frankly, I wouldn't want to work for a firm that would require me to show up in full glam every day just to do non-client facing work.
2. The cost of being a "baddie"/being extremely conventionally "hot".
As far as I'm concerned, being an instagram baddie is a subculture that you can freely opt out of. I'm sure it's very expensive to look like that, which is why most women don't.
3. The need to massively invest in beauty to get a boyfriend.
This is just not reality. I think my boyfriend would find it strange if I started spending all my disposable income on looksmaxxing. He likes me already! And any man who expected that look just wouldn't be a good fit. I don't need to be appeal to everyone in the world.
I guess my question is which "highly paid professions" require thousands of dollars a year on hair styling? My wife (Borat voice, naturally) is a banker and works in the headquarters of a major Wall Street firm and gets like two sub-$200 haircuts a year and has a gym membership and that's it. I think my monthly barber visits probably cost more. Part of that is that she's comfortable having salt and pepper hair, but that doesn't actually seem to be that weird? I guess her wardrobe is pricy, but the causation there runs the other way (she has a bunch of Theory pants because they're nice and she can afford them but the more junior people in her group wear plenty of Zara). Like, other than literal Fox News hosts where are these offices that are more formal than the bulge bracket.