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Toronto Coffee Shop Charges Women More Than Men, Highlights Sexist Pink Tax

Being a woman is more expensive than being a man.

It's common knowledge that women get paid less than men.

According to a Statistics Canada, women who work full-time in this country only earn 73.5 cents for every dollar men make — these numbers are even lower for women of colour and Indigenous women.

And not only do women get paid less than men, but they actually pay more for the same goods and services, known as the "pink tax" or gender-based pricing, for items such as razors, deodorant, haircuts and even dry cleaning. According to GirlTalk HQ, the pink tax costs women almost $2,000 more a year, or close to $100,000 over their lifetime.

The temporary pricing sign at Tokyo Smoke cafe shows how much men and women have to pay for coffee.

And to demonstrate just how unfair and sexist the pink tax is, GirlTalk HQ created a video as part of their #FightPinkTax campaign to spread awareness and to fight to end the pink tax in Canada.

The video shows Toronto's Tokyo Smoke cafe serving customers and charging women more than men for a cup of coffee.

As you'd expect, most of the customers (mainly the women) reacted with astonishment and then anger over being asked to pay more for coffee just because they're female. Even the male customers couldn't believe that they got to pay less for a cup of joe than women. All agreed that it was unfair and sexist.

A study published in December 2015 by New York City's department of consumer affairs examined the prices of 800 products with male and female versions from 90 brands. It found that on average, products for women cost 7 per cent more than similar products for men and that women's products across the entire sample were priced higher 42 per cent of the time.

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