Canadians React to the Ludicrous 'Pink Tax' in Campaign from BBDO Toronto

When it comes to equality, the ways in which men and women are treated differently often go unnoticed. It’s not until inequalities are brought into the open do people realise how unjust they are. 

With a pair of recent projects, GirlTalk HQ, a website dedicated to sharing daily news about global female empowerment topics, has sought to bring to light the everyday practices by people and company alike that undermine equality for women. 

First, GirlTalk HQ illuminated the Pink Tax – the fact that women pay on average 43 percent more for goods and services than men pay for comparable items. Working with BBDO Toronto, GirlTalk HQ partnered with a Toronto coffee shop to starkly highlight such biased pricing policies by offering the same coffee at different prices for men and women. 

Following the stunt last fall, GirlTalk HQ launched a petition asking Canadians to support a ban of the Pink Tax. With the goal of 2,000 supporters reached, GirlTalk HQ presented a formal appeal to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Minister of Status of Women, Patty Hajdu asking for the Pink Tax be banned.

Now, the organisation is calling attention to the fact that men interrupt women three times more than they do other men with a new radio spot.

“Uninterrupted,” which was also created by BBDO Toronto, features a woman breathlessly relating all the ways in which women’s voices go unheard, like statistics citing that men dominate 75% of the conversation during business meetings and that patients interrupt female doctors twice as often. 

“The idea of men interrupting women, or ‘manterrupting’, has been a topic of conversation for a while now. Studies about this date back as far as the early 1970s,” say Denise Rossetto, Chief Creative Officer at BBDO “It’s only been in recent years,that more and more people are speaking up about it and trying to address not just this issue, but the root causes behind it. Which is why it’s so crucial that places, platforms and experiences like GirlTalkHQ.com exists, and why messages like this one are necessary.”