A mom shopping for a Halloween costume for her daughter at Spirit Halloween noticed something that made her think about gender-based price discrimination.
In her TikTok video, which got over 258,400 views, creator Scarlett (@seememommin) compares kids’ Power Ranger Halloween costumes marketed toward girls and boys. There’s one key difference.
What’s different about the girls’ Spirit Halloween Power Ranger costume?
Scarlett films inside Spirit Halloween while shopping with her daughter.
“I was like looking at these, trying to convince my daughter to be a Pink Power Ranger,” she says. “And I’m like, huh?”
She holds up the pink costume, saying it’s $45.
The other Power Ranger costumes hanging beside it, however, cost $39.99.
“It’s the only one that’s more expensive,” she says.
The price wasn’t the only difference she noticed.
Scarlett points out that the other costumes in the store include full face masks. The Pink Ranger costume, meanwhile, only comes with glasses.
“And it’s the only one that doesn’t come with a whole face mask,” she says. “This is just a pair of glasses.”
She then compares the amount of material included in each costume.
“There’s actually less material in this one than any of the other ones,” she says. “These all have extra padding in them to make you look muscular.”
As she moves the camera across the other Power Ranger costumes, Scarlett points out extra pieces on the green and blue options.
She says the Pink Ranger costume doesn’t include the same extras.
“No extra padding, no face mask, less material,” she says. “This package is skinnier than any of the rest of them.”
Scarlett says the $5 price difference is an example of the “pink tax,” a term used to describe cases where retailers price products marketed toward women or girls at a higher cost than similar products marketed toward men or boys.
“Pink tax, just because it’s pink, it’s got to be $5 more expensive,” she says. “How wonderful.”
“I hate this,” she added in the caption.
Viewers think the price difference makes no sense
Commenters questioned why the Pink Ranger costume cost more while seemingly including fewer accessories.
“Thats…weird and gross it doesn’t include a mask when the pink power ranger infact had a mask like the rest of em,” one commenter wrote.
“It is that serious,” another said.
Others said most products marketed toward girls cost more, which makes raising a daughter more expensive.
“So when they say daughters are more expensive, they mean literally because they make it that way. They make all the girls stuff simply more expensive,” one viewer wrote.
Another commenter clarified that the phrase “pink tax” doesn’t literally refer to the color of the product.
“I believe the ‘pink tax’ is in reference to it being for women. Not necessarily cause it’s the color pink,” they wrote.
Are Spirit Halloween costumes for girls more expensive than boys?
There’s no evidence that Spirit Halloween has a pattern of charging more for girls’ costumes than boys’. While the girls’ costume does look simpler, Spirit Halloween lists more elements in the Pink Power Ranger costume than in the other ones.
For example, the boys’ version only has a bodysuit, belt, and mask, while the girls’ one includes boot covers and a skirt, plus the goggles. The fabric on the skirt also looks different, almost like a pleather material.
However, there is plenty of evidence that the pink tax is real. In 2010, Consumer Reports conducted a study that found women paid up to 50% more than men for similar products.
Then, in 2015, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs did a similar study and found that across 35 product categories, girls and women paid more in 30 of them.
@seememommin
Subplot News has reached out to Spirit Halloween via email and Scarlett via TikTok messages.
