Were you aware that there used to something by the name of “Breast Tax”?! Legend has it that it was a tax, levied on women belonging to the ‘lower communities’ where they would have to pay taxes in order to be able to cover their breasts. This tax would vary in amount based off on the size of their breast. The aim behind this tax was to separate ‘lower class women’ from upper class women by gatekeeping modesty.
Citing this disparity, The Legend of Nangeli describes how a lower caste woman valiantly chopped off her breasts and offered them to the tax collectors in an act of defiance and lost her life as a result. However, since Breast Tax is a supposed fable, we bring to you some real life ways that society punishes women just for existing-
1. Pink Tax
Well not all things are “Pretty in Pink” and Pink tax is a proof of it. This tax is not visible but it is something that every woman pays just to exist and this is not even exaggeration. Daily day products that are important and basic for women come with an invisible charge attached known as the Pink Tax. It is a cost that women have to pay for designed and marketed specifically to cater to them.
Even at unisex salons, women’s haircut costs more than men’s haircut & this doesn’t even begin to cut it, products like razors, deodorants, etc. too cost much more for females when they are hardly any different except for the packaging.
2. Maintenance Costs A Limb
As if to conspire against us, on top of the pink tax, simple activities like waxing, threading, getting nails done costs a bomb and these are things that every woman needs to least look presentable. And don’t even get us started on the lengths women have to go through if they are anywhere below the line of socially acceptable standards. You think iPhone costs a kidney? Try buying women’s skin care or wellness products.
3. Public Places are Anti-Women
Okay that might be a little exaggeration but public places are not planned for the ease of women, they might be planned solely for women but they are still not upto usable standards. And it has everything to do with the infrastructure being chalked out by people who are not well informed or even aware about matters concerning the female race. If we truly wish for women to feel comfortable being in public spaces, we have to first make sure that they are accessible and planned according to the needs of women.
4. Labelled as Gossip Mongers
Let’s be honest, gossip saves lives, apart from being fun it truly saves people. In old English terms, ‘Gossip’ actually meant godparent or companions in childbirth not limited to midwives. It then became a term for women friends without any derogatory meaning attached to it. However, later on society started getting threatened by independent women who refused to obey the norms of the society and preferred to be in the company of their friends and that’s when this term was demonized out of proportions. It was done to prevent women from gathering at taverns and dishing out information about their lives with their friends.
5. For Having A Body
As if periods and pregnancies were not enough of nature’s big burden on women, our society does not leave out any opportunity to make women feel insecure about their bodies. Be it by restricting access to proper healthcare or by establishing unreal and equally unachievable beauty standards. And these beauty standards often leave women pondering and prodding about their bodies.
While one can argue that there must be some logic behind all these aspects, it still doesn’t justify the need to have them breathing down every woman’s shoulders. These points start creeping up their spines the minute they gain consciousness and it never goes away!
