Taking Gender Discrimination to the Cleaners

Love / Shove post by Kelsey Wallace, February 5, 2009 - 8:37pm; tagged dry cleaning, gender equity, new york times.

Sure, this New York Times story about gender discrepancy in men's and women's dry cleaning prices may seem a little frivolous (especially considering that most of us can't pay $8.75 to get our shirts cleaned), but props are still in order. Another blow struck in the name of gender equality!

The story (for those of you who don't feel like reading the whole thing) focuses on Janet Floyd, a 44-year old New Yorker who noticed that she was paying more to have her shirts laundered than her husband was paying for comparable garments (even though his shirts are larger). Turns out, this is a fairly common practice among cleaners, because most of their machines were made for men's shirts. A pretty lame excuse, if you ask me.

So good job to you, Janet Floyd, for standing up for yourself and for women everywhere who shouldn't have to pay extra to have their shirts cleaned. Keep up the good work!

Does anyone else have a similar story to share?

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Comments

4 comments have been made. Post a comment.

hair

Posted by al oof (not verified) on February 7, 2009 - 3:30am

well, it's talked about constantly, but the haircut pricing discrepancy being gender based instead of being about the texture or length of your hair, or how much time it takes, is pretty fucking annoying. and i mean, it's something that was pointed out as ridiculous 30 years ago, but it's still the norm.

damn i need a haircut.

Actually, some places do

Posted by Esme (not verified) on February 9, 2009 - 2:24am

Actually, some places do charge extra for "textured" or "ethnic" hair, though it's blatantly racist to do so.

While I agree that this is

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on February 9, 2009 - 12:31am

While I agree that this is unfair, I think it's also pretty "lame" of a progressive, feminist organization to use ableist terms to express dissatisfaction.

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