Kyle McCarthy

Blind is an anonymous community app for the workplace, allowing users to chat honestly with verified professionals in a truly anonymous and safe environment. 

The way we engage in conversations about career and work today is fundamentally broken. At Blind, we’re on a mission to flatten professional barriers and bring transparency to the workplace. Transparency results in voice and voice results in change - often for the better. 

Recently, we surveyed more than 3,000 users on Blind, asking them if they felt comfortable going to HR to report sexual harassment, and the results are quite eye-opening. Overall, a whopping 42.76% of employees responded that they do not feel comfortable going to HR to report sexual harassment.

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Now available in California, Washington, New York, and–as of today–Washington, D.C., Nurx is an up-and-coming birth control app that lets women select the pill, patch, or ring that suits their needs and get it delivered free to the doorstep of their choice–no doctor’s visits required, and no (non-medical) questions asked.

Like a growing number of telemedicine platforms, it harnesses expertise from a network of doctors who can remotely assess and approve prescription requests in patients’ home states, and even lets users link up their insurance to get medicines totally free of cost, or from $15 without insurance. In California and New York (and D.C. by month’s end), users can also order the groundbreaking HIV-preventative Truvada for PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, just as easily.

Recently, Boxed.com announced that the company has lowered the prices of goods targeted at women, which are often priced higher the same or very similar products marketed to men.

Last year, two major studies showed that often times, women pay more than men for many consumer goods. One, in Canada, showed that women pay on average 43 percent more for everyday consumer goods such as toiletries and personal care products than men do. Another report released by the New York Department of Consumer Affairs shows that women and girls pay about seven percent more for the same products sold to men, (as highlighted in the table below).

Data from A Study of Gender Pricing in New York City 

Now, another organization is also joining the fight to end unequal gender pricing. Asha Dahya, founder of GirlTalkHQ, recently launched a campaign to draw attention to the gender bias involving the prices of consumer goods.

Dahya told me, that she started the campaign in Canada first, because they are leading the world in gender equality measures through government.  “Our Fight Pink Tax campaign is highlighting this discrimination in the hope of getting 20,000 people to sign our petition. Once we reach that number, we plan to present the petition to Justin Trudeau himself as well as the Minister of the Status of Women to see if they will think about passing a law banning the "pink tax," says Dahya.

Last year, Canada got rid of it's federal tampon tax, and now Dahya wants to put pressure on Canada’s Prime Minister to Justin Trudeau pass a bill prohibiting brands from making women paying more than men. Dahya says that Trudeau “can set an example for the rest of the world.”

Though Canada eliminated the tax on tampons, most women in the United States still pay such a tax. Today, nearly 40 states still place a 4% and 9% “luxury goods” tax on tampons and feminine hygiene products. Earlier this year, Illinois, New York, and Connecticut voted to repeal this tax, joining 10 other states which do not tax tampons (five of which, simply do not have state sales tax).

Will Barack Obama follow his lead, as an unapologetic feminist himself? Dahya thinks so, and that if Trudeau passes a law in Canada banning the Pink Tax, it could very well set the standard for the rest of the world to follow suit. “With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claiming he is a feminist, making his cabinet half women, and joining UN Women's “He For She” movement, we hope that he will take notice of this campaign.”