Recently, I’ve been wondering how in the world my husband can go to the store for t-shirts and spend $40 and get 5-6 shirts.  Whereas I go to the store and get 4 shirts and have to pay $65.  Am I just shopping wrong?  Do I get different brands?  Or, is there truly a difference in prices for men’s and women’s clothes?  Yes, there are times when he’ll shop clearance section and I shop regularly priced and vice versa.  But, more times than not, I spend way more than him on clothes and he still gets more items!

I decided to do some research for different stores including Kohl’s and American Eagle.  I chose these stores, because these are where my husband and I shop most that have both men’s and women’s clothes.  Boy, was I disappointed with the results.

First of all, it was really hard to find items that were easily comparable.  The women’s shirts had like 15 different styles where as the mens had v-neck and crew neck.  Due to this, I chose “t-shirts” under both men’s and women’s styles from the Kohl’s website and the American Eagle website.

When I first searched for shirts from AE, it was crazy the differences in price.  Every single shirt that first popped up for females was $24.95, whereas the men’s shirts were $11.99.  That is DOUBLE in price.  79% of t-shirts on the men’s site were $20 or below, whereas 50% of t-shirts on the women’s site were $20 or below.  Plus, many of the women’s shirts were crop tops, meaning less fabric!

With Kohl’s, I decided to focus on a specific shirt style, since we had both recently purchased t-shirts there.  Lo and behold, the men’s shirt were cheaper!  A similar shirt style, the female shirt was $8 and the male shirt was $7.50.  Not a huge difference, but still frustrating.  43% of shirts for men and 47% of shirts for women were under $25 on the site.  So, not as bad as AE, but still frustrating.

So, in conclusion, what does this all mean?  Do I feel like I wasted my time?  Not at all.  My hunches were correct in the thought process that my husband could find better deals on clothes, because they were offered for him.  There were less choices, less styles, and cheaper prices.  It is beyond frustrating knowing that women not only make less than men on average, but we also pay more for clothes (at least according to my quick research).  According to Business Insider, women make 80 cents for every $1 a man makes.  So, at least now I have an excuse to spend more when I shop for when my husband asks!