--- title: Pharmacy Creates Man Tax to Combat Gender Pricing description: The Manhattan pharmacy instituted a policy where it gave women a 7% discount on products—and there have been strong reactions against it. canonical: https://time.com/4528451/pharmacy-man-tax/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-12T20:15:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:37:35.329Z og:title: A Pharmacy Created a 7% "Man Tax" to Combat Gender Pricing og:description: The Manhattan store gives women a "pink tax" discount, but not everyone's happy. og:url: https://time.com/4528451/pharmacy-man-tax/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Pharmacy Created a 7% "Man Tax" to Combat Gender Pricing twitter:description: The Manhattan store gives women a "pink tax" discount, but not everyone's happy. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Pharmacy Instituted a Controversial 7% 'Man Tax' to Call Out Price Discrimination  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 12, 2016 8:15 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 12, 2016 8:15 PM UTC When an independent Manhattan pharmacy posted signs on their storefront earlier this week advertising a 7% “man tax” on products, the business intended to raise awareness about the [so-called “pink tax” that women implicitly pay](http://time.com/4159973/women-pay-more-everything/?iid=sr-link1) on pharmacy products, according to [a recent NYC Department of Consumer Affairs report.](http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Study-of-Gender-Pricing-in-NYC.pdf) They did not necessarily expect a wave of [vitriolic Internet backlash.](https://www.facebook.com/ThompsonChemists/?fref=ts) In an [interview with _Gothamist_](http://gothamist.com/2016/10/10/pharmacy%5Fcharging%5Fman%5Ftax%5Fraise%5Fawa.php), the Thompson Chemists owner, Jolie Alony, noted that the 7% “man tax” sign is actually rather misleading: instead of increasing certain prices, Alony was simply applying a 7% discount on women’s products and making up the difference out of pocket. Locals don’t seem to have been all that bothered by the changed policy, according to Alony who told [DNA Info](https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161012/soho/thompson-chemists-man-tax), “the men customers were actually good…some of them approved of it,” the shop has been targeted online with plenty of hate, others pointing out that the store could consider [alternate, less discriminatory](http://motto.time.com/4245619/pink-tax-study/?iid=sr-link2) approaches to evening out gendered pricing. “We wanted to share that women deserve to get a break, and men deserve to be charged 7 percent more. Women are spending more in general and we make less, so we deserve to have a break,” Alony told[ The Daily Dot.](http://www.dailydot.com/irl/nyc-pharmacy-man-tax/?tw=dd) It’s not clear how long the promotion will last. As for their response to the displeased comments on their Facebook page? “Please, avoid locker room banter,” Thompson Chemists wrote. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4528451/pharmacy-man-tax/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4528451/pharmacy-man-tax/"},"headline":"This Pharmacy Instituted a Controversial 7% 'Man Tax' to Call Out Price Discrimination","datePublished":"2016-10-12T20:15:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:37:35.329Z","description":"\"Women are spending more in general and we make less, so we deserve to have a break.\"","url":"https://time.com/4528451/pharmacy-man-tax/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Retail","viral","Business topic","Taxes"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4528451/pharmacy-man-tax/","name":"This Pharmacy Instituted a Controversial 7% 'Man Tax' to Call Out Price Discrimination"}}]}] ```