Proposed law will make my haircut cost more!

You may have heard about the private member’s bill being proposed in the Ontario Legislature that would prohibit businesses from participating in “gender-based” pricing. 

A Liberal backbencher noticed that it cost a whole lot more for his partner to get her dry cleaning done.  Ditto for haircuts.  Surprise, surprise, her clothes cost more, too.

It seems that the population had resigned themselves to the fact that this was simply going to happen.  It’s not that people have not complained about the practice:  we just figured that there was nothing we could do about it.

Is it offensive that it costs three times as much for a woman to get a haircut?  Absolutely!  I don’t buy, not for a second, the argument that “their hair is longer – it takes more time”.  I don’t see women with short hair getting a cut for the $15 that men pay, so that argument is inaccurate.

My dry cleaner charges $5.95 for a blouse with shoulder pads, $3.95 for a blouse or casual shirt, and $2.50 for a man’s shirt.  Why is this OK?  You can’t convince me that a blouse takes 58% more effort than a man’s shirt.  Why do shoulder pads cost an extra two bucks?

The goal is to make it an offence to charge a different price for the same goods or services on the basis of gender.  The proposed Act permits price differences that are based upon the cost, difficulty or effort of providing the goods or services.  People who have a complaint may either sue or file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

Will this make a difference? 

I don’t think that it will have any effect on hairdressers that cater only to women.  How can a woman say that she is being charged more than a man when the place doesn’t serve men?

The proposed law does not seem to consider the notion of a competitive marketplace.  That is, you can charge as much as the market will bear.  People will pay lots of money for a “trendy” suit (e.g. , Hugo Boss), even though the cost of the suit may not be a reflection of the “cost, difficulty or effort” of producing and selling the suit, but rather a reflection of the desire of people to have one. 

“Premium” products or services are often distinguished from standard products.  All a clothier has to do is claim that the women’s suit is a premium product and cannot be compared to the men’s suit for the purposes of the Act.  In order for a complainant to be successful, the judge (or Human Rights Commission) will have to analyze the goods or services and decide whether they are approximately equivalent.

In the end, I think the purpose of the proposed legislation is laudable.  What worries me is that it may be hard to make it work in practice.  I suspect that, if the legislation comes to pass, it will have to be made a little more complicated to deal with those problems.