insurance – Prawn of the Patriarchy

In two other posts within this blog I explore the concept of the gender wage gap:

How feminists misrepresent the gender ‘income gap’, and
That tired old feminist chestnut that is the ‘gender wage gap’ resurrected in Australia

Those posts found that the ‘wage gap’ is an issue that is persistently misrepresented by the feminist lobby, and that differentials in salary are generally reflective of personal choice rather than gender discrimination in the workplace.

This post explores the notion that there is a flip-side to the ‘wage gap’, that I label the gender ‘expense gap’. This concept is borne from the premise that men/boys incur significant additional expense, in comparison to women, to access or obtain various goods or services and/or to perform the role that western society demands of them.

The existence of a gender expense/cost gap is addressed in the media from time to time, but such discussions are limited to the gynocentric meme of a ‘pink tax’. Such articles, examples of which are provided below, focus on women paying more for retail products such as shavers, fashion, haircuts and sanitary products. The reality that men pay more than women for other goods/services is overlooked.

Tesco cuts price of women’s razors so they cost the same as men’s (2 January 2017) UK
NYC pharmacy introduces ‘man tax’ provoking protests which it labels ‘hate’ (14 October 2016) USA
The Pink Tax (25 August 2016) A video by ‘ShoeOnHead’ (a female MRA)
The ‘tampon tax’ is not a marginal issue – it’s the force of structural sexism at work (25 July 2016) USA
This Is How Much More It Costs To Be A Woman (2 April 2016)
Price discrimination isn’t only about pink razors (6 February 2016) UK
‘Pink tax’ angers women from New York to London (3 February 2016)
CBS News goes undercover to reveal gender price discrimination (25 January 2016)
Pink premium? There are greater problems (24 January 2016)
Britain’s ‘sexist’ high streets: How women are being charged TWICE as much as men for almost identical items (19 January 2016)
Ever heard of the ‘pink tax’? It’s real and cutting into women’s finances in a big way (30 December 2015)
Why you should always buy the men’s version of almost anything (22 December 2015)
So Who Is Responsible For The Gender Cost Gap? (23 December 2015)
Women Pay More for Everything From Birth to Death, Report Finds (23 December 2015)

‘Girl tax’: women call out being charged more by tradies, mechanics (23 March 2024)

The Gender Expense Gap is broader and more pervasive than simply retail pricing differentials, encompassing for example:

Men being required to pay more for a particular product or service than a woman for the same or similar product or service (i.e. gender discriminatory pricing). A broad range of examples can be identified including nightclub entry, membership of online dating sites, and insurance (health, life, auto, etc). Here is one such example.
Men being expected (via social convention) to meet the full cost of a given expense, e.g. a restaurant meal or a holiday, rather than the relevant expense/s being split 50/50 with their female companion
Men being forced, by law, to incur certain expenses that would either not be incurred by women, or would only rarely be incurred by them, e.g. payment of alimony or spousal support
Men being unable to avoid particular expenses (without a penalty being applied), that women in the same circumstances would or could avoid (e.g. in the US, women are less likely to meet their commitments to pay child support, and less likely to be penalised for doing so)
Men being denied compensation or financial support that would, in the case of women, offset costs incurred by them. Consider for example discounts or financial incentives or external funding support denied to men but available to women, e.g. scholarships and educational grants (example), sanitary products, superannuation top-up payments (here and here), maternity leave, and rebates or tax reductions for female-owned business start-ups.

How might we also, for example, assign a financial cost to factors such as workplace deaths (overwhelming affecting men), and the health impacts of reduced medical research/treatment (whereby the government spends a pittance on men/boys relative to women/girls).

This is a most challenging task as far as economic analysis goes, but nevertheless ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’. A related reddit discussion thread can be found here.

Let’s look now at some of the specific factors that might be considered:

Courtship expenses and celebratory days

Men are still expected to subsidise most of the costs associated with courtship. The issue of who pays for dates is addressed in another blog post. One of the articles listed there is ‘Why women should never go halves on a date’ (27 November 2014).

Men are also expected to spend more on celebratory days, for e.g. birthdays, Mothers Day and Valentines Day, than are women.

‘I told my husband not to buy me a Christmas present – I’m fuming that he actually isn’t’ (21 December 2022)

Men, if you’re guilty of this, your wife will probably leave you (4 December 2023) Gee, wouldn’t it be interesting to read the husband’s version of events? But you never will, of course.

The Fathers Day spending deficit is addressed here, but some related articles include:

The Father’s Day spending gap: Why does mom always win? (10 May 2015)

Less spent of Father’s Day gifts than Mother’s Day gifts (6 September 2014)

Valentine’s Day spend twice as high for men: bank research (13 February 2017)

Valentine’s Day spending driven by single men in search for love (12 February 2015)

Valentines Day, by the numbers (14 February 2013)

Why Are Some Men Such Awkward Gift Givers? Let Them Explain (5 December 2016) USA. Talk about ‘look a gift horse in the mouth’! On that note see also “Men are also pretty useless at buying gifts in general”

Older men charged more for using Tinder’s premium service, Choice mystery shoppers find (12 August 2020) Five times more!

And on a lighter note, see If girls proposed to guys (Video)

Marriage and co-habitation

Although times are certainly changing, men typically remain the primary breadwinner in the family and are responsible for supporting most/all of the living expenses of their spouse and children. Men are also likely to bring considerably more assets into the marriage than are women. Woman however still typically remain in charge of making most of the decisions regarding the expenditure of household income.

WA de facto couples will be able to split super if relationship breaks down (25 October 2018) Men typically bring significantly more assets into a relationship, but the fact that they might take out more is “fundamentally unfair” … gynocentric much?

Is this the new normal? Women who live on a weekly ‘allowance’ from their husbands (7 May 2017)

New research reveals females control the household budget (27 November 2015)

‘I get a wife bonus — and I deserve it’ (29 May 2015)

Women who out-earn their husbands are also more likely to make money decisions for the family (17 March 2015)

New fathers must have same pay rights as mothers, says Nick Clegg, who vows to smash ‘Edwardian’ view on raising children (20 October 2014)

http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/diversity/17spending.pdf

Men make more, women decide how to spend it (11 May 2012)

I declare the gender pay gap to be a truly dead and gone issue (27 April 2014)

The following quote addresses the average differential between earning and spending in male/female households:

“Men earn 61.5% of all income but only account for 25% of domestic spending. Men only spend 40% of what they earn after tax. In contrast women make up 38.5% of all income but control 75% of domestic spending, women on average spend 90% more money that they earn. Men are exploited as cash machines and even with spending on children accounted for women still spend more money on themselves than the combined spending for men and children.” (Source)

Divorce/Separation, incl. spousal/partner/child support and alimony

Sources addressing the issue of spousal maintenance/alimony can be found in this other blog post, but some examples are provided below.

Paying child-support for a non-biological child (5 March 2018)

Rosenblum: As times change, should alimony change, too? (25 March 2016)

Afeni Shakur And Whether Or Not Men Deserve Alimony (18 March 2016) USA

Group pushes male-dominated S.C. Legislature to change permanent alimony law (1 March 2016) USA

Report: NJ woman sued for writing ‘bum’ and ‘loser’ on ex-spouse’s alimony checks (19 December 2015) More on this case in this discussion thread and linked article

Breadwinning Women Are Driving Alimony Reform (18 November 2015) and related reddit discussion thread

Even though 37% of women earn more money than their husbands, only 3% of divorced men receive alimony (30 June 2015) Reddit discussion thread

Retired farmer must pay more in alimony than monthly income, Nebraska Supreme Court rules (27 June 2015)

Are Moms Less Likely Than Dads To Pay Child Support? (26 February 2015)

Divorced wife told to get a job and stop living off her ex-husband (23 February 2015)

Deadbeat moms? Should mothers be required to pay child support? (20 April 2014) and related reddit mensrights discussion thread

Jail Becomes Home for Husband Stuck With Lifetime Alimony (27 August 2013)

Woman sues ex-husband for a share of wealth he made years after they divorced (9 December 2014)

Why Do So Few Men Get Alimony? (20 November 2014) USA

Working woman in /r/legaladvice divorcing and is horrified that she has to give part-time-working ex-husband half her assets (15 November 2014)

Ex-wife of US oil baron to appeal $1 billion divorce award (13 November 2014)

Halle Berry’s Child-Support Fight: Female Breadwinners Can’t Have It Both Ways (20 October 2014)

Businessman is ordered to pay £28,500 to ex-girlfriend in landmark court ruling because he led her to believe he would look after her for life (17 October 2014)

Veteran chooses jail over giving his disability money to ex-wife (17 September 2014)

Alimony is broken – But let’s not fix it (1 September 2014)

Cost of education (esp. regarding the availability of financial support via government or university grants or discounts for example)

Critics Tell Young Men that Their Penises are NOT Golden (But They Are) (15 September 2022) by Janice Fiamengo. Recommended reading

Biden touts freeze on collections of $1.14m student loans (30 March 2021) USA. But let’s not say what percentage of those loans were to women, because that might seem like more #GenderEqualityWhenItSuits

According this female MRA posting on Twitter, 92% of all sex-specific scholarships are reserved for women (December 2020) USA

145 universities under federal investigation for sex discrimination against male students (27 May 2020) USA

Growing debate whether Title IX should help male students excluded by female-only programs (7 May 2020) USA

UN Women Australia MBA scholarship (May 2020) Each scholarship is worth $60,000 – available at the University of Sydney Business School. I have since written to relevant agencies about this matter, details regarding which can be found in this post.

Pell’s 6-Billion Dollar Gender Gap (1 March 2020)

Male Title IX activist expelled after “feminist witch-hunt” (12 November 2019) USA

Veteran of anti-male discrimination lawsuits SOUNDS OFF after study shows disproportionate female-only scholarships (26 August 2019)

ICRAR Visiting Fellowship for senior women in Astronomy (July 2019) Some previous fellowship recipients here.

Widespread sex discrimination found in college scholarship programs (18 May 2019) USA

Among 1,161 sex-specific scholarships, 91.6% were reserved for female students, with only 8.4% designated for male students.

Sydney University partners with UN Women Australia to offer women-only scholarships (March 2019)

Jordan Peterson, dozens of academics attack Ivy League anti-male bias (8 February 2019)

New data shows women now surpassing men in STEM fields (3 December 2018) USA. And then read this paper (2 March 2019)

The Science Ambassador Scholarship (December 2018) USA

Anti-male discrimination complaint gets UMN to change scholarship rules (2 November 2018)

Scholarship funding available for women working in the horticulture sector (28 September 2018)

Scholarships for Women in Male-Dominated Industries (12 September 2018)

Scholarships for ‘Board Ready’ Women in the Disability Sector (30 June 2017)

Sydney University defends new scholarship that favours men as ‘consistent with diversity’ (8 February 2017) Feminists lose it when a university faculty applies the same logic to attract more male students, and cry ‘sexism!’

Storm over Shami’s £500,000 to help girls get degrees … (4 January 2017) UK

Women in MBA Scholarship: 30 full rides. There are no men in biology or men in elementary education scholarships (23 September 2016) Australia

VCAT green light will let Ivanhoe Grammar School offer more places to girls (11 August 2016) Australia

“The decision [to escape provisions of sex discrimination legislation] will allow Ivanhoe Grammar to target female students in its advertising and to offer sweeteners to attract girls, including “scholarship and bursary assistance”.”

UN Women National Committee Australia MBA Scholarship (April 2016) Just one example – how many more like this?

There are four times as many scholarships for females as there are for males (28 February 2016) Reddit discussion thread and linked article

“It would be bad enough that men are continuously shamed for earning more than women, and told that because women get better grades in easier subjects, that women are more intelligent (SourceFed, 2014) or motivated (Lewin, 2006). However, women are also given disproportionate financial aid to attend college, even though they are now a sizeable majority of college students compared to men. While data is difficult to find, using the University of Oklahoma as an anecdotal example, in 2007 women received 78% of scholarships, and between the years of 2008 -2013 women received 89%, 77%, 68%, 94%, 92%, and 100% respectively (OU SLIS, 2013).

Government grants are another major source of funding for women wishing to attend college. There are numerous resources available created specifically for women (Scholarships for Women), but none specifically for men, unless you count athletic scholarships, which are a sticking point with Feminist activists who resent that female athletics lose money while male athletics make money for colleges (Bloomberg News, 2011). It seems fans aren’t interested in paying to watch female athletes perform at the level of a male high school junior varsity team. However, if you put athletics aside, and focus only on the resources available to help men obtain college degrees, those resources are sorely lacking, while money is being thrown at women who are wasting it on Liberal Arts degrees instead of STEM.” (Source)