Doritos sent already-unstable Twitter users into a trigger tornado after the company announced plans to release a new “lady-friendly” snack that features a quieter crunch and a cleaner pickup.
“You watch a lot of the young guys eat the chips, they love their Doritos, and they lick their fingers with great glee, and when they reach the bottom of the bag they pour the little broken pieces into their mouth, because they don’t want to lose that taste of the flavor, and the broken chips in the bottom,” Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo said. “Women would love to do the same, but they don’t. They don’t like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don’t lick their fingers.”
And like clockwork, gender equality crusaders across the globe melted into a puddle of pink pussy hats.
A member for the Women’s Equality Party said “Companies that perpetuate these tired gender stereotypes will continue to lose out on the single biggest consumer group: women.”
She also warned that companies will likely take advantage of gender divides and market smaller packaging for female consumers.
But Nooyi, one of the wealthiest women CEOs in the world, insists the move isn’t about gender typing. “For women, low-crunch, the full taste profile, not have so much of the flavor stick on the fingers, and how can you put it in a purse?”
Yikes. I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and call this entire thing idiotic. I’ve never once heard a woman complain about how messy Doritos are. Typically, if a girl is going to have a bag of chips, she knows what she’s getting into.
Plus, we live in precariously triggered times. Any modern company that even hints at differences between women and men inevitably sets off an army of whiney feminists in combat boots, picketing outside said company’s headquarters. It’s a headache, it’s a PR crisis, and the only thing that benefits is the businesses that knit those stupid pink hats in the first place.
In other words, nobody wins here. If I’m going to have have a bag of Cheetos, I’m fully prepared to deal with the consequences of powdery orange fingers. And I typically choose not to eat this stuff, not because I’m a girl, but because I just don’t enjoy cool ranch corn chips.
PepsiCo did not need to create a lady-friendly snack. And the tsunami of third wave feminists did not need to go full-Terminator and basically threaten to crunch loudly in every innocent bystander’s face.
In response to Doritos lady friendly crisps I shall be eating the biggest crisps I can find crunching really loudly burping and carrying a packet of crisps as a handbag
— kate ford (@kateford76) February 5, 2018
Me, in response to the article about Doritos making “quiet” chips that are “lady-friendly” pic.twitter.com/8VQ3TEMw59
— Aureylian (@aureylian) February 5, 2018
Everyone, just settle down.
Follow Jena on Twitter.