Soon enough, a gaping void in every woman’s life will be filled. That thing we’ve all been missing out on will finally be within our grasp.

That’s right, I’m talking about Doritos.

No longer will we live in fear of messy fingers and loud crunchy chips whenever we want a snack. Soon, Doritos promises to release a version of their popular snack specifically “for women.” The plan is to make them less messy and less crunchy and packaged small enough to fit inside a purse.

Are you scratching your head yet on how dumb this all sounds? I am too.

Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo (parent company of Doritos), gave an interview recently where she explained how women were missing out on enjoying the popular snack food because it’s just so darn messy.

NPR quotes her explanation: “Men 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 at the bottom.”

She continued: “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 generously and they don’t like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth.”

The company’s solution here is to make a women-only snack, no matter how ridiculous it sounds to market food, which can be consumed by literally everyone, solely to a single gender.

Do you see the glaring flaw in this argument? If not, maybe let me rephrase what Nooyi is really trying to say:

“People without manners lick their fingers with great glee, and when they reach the bottom of the bag they pour the little broken pieces into their mouth. Everyone else would love to do the same, but they don’t. Because they know how to eat with manners in public.”

See the difference? The developers at Doritos apparently think the problem is that men are mannerless slobs and women are always prim and proper. But in reality, people of both genders are guilty of either being messy when they eat or avoiding a messy food because they don’t care for the hassle. Being a man or a woman doesn’t really matter in this kind of situation, right?

It’s kind of demeaning to just slap the “for women” label onto a food which everyone can eat. I mean, a less messy Dorito snack sounds like a decent idea. Why limit the market? There’s no need to play into dumb gender stereotypes here at all.

After Nooyi’s interview talking about the potential new product, the internet got wind of it and the backlash was predictable. Like me, most people were scratching their heads and wondering who thought any of that was a good idea. So perhaps, Doritos will rethink their new marketing plan.

Maybe then we can focus on things women actually need.

 

Holly Taylor is a Staff Writer for Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact her at holly.taylor@r-cnews.com or by phone at 252-332-7206.