Say what? Doritos made headlines on Monday, February 5 — and it’s probably not the press they were expecting.
PepsiCo chief executive Indra Nooyi told the Freakonomics podcast on January 31 that they’ll soon be unveiling a new lady-focused chip that will dull the “crunch” noise, and while some are excited about a quieter corn chip, others see it as a sexist move.
“As 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,” Nooyi said. “Women would love to do the same, but they don’t.”
Asked whether the company would look into selling separate gendered versions of the snack, Nooyi responded: “It’s not a male and female as much as ‘Are there snacks for women that can be designed and packaged differently?'”
She continued: “We are looking at it, and we’re getting ready to launch a bunch of them soon. 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? Because women love to carry a snack in their purse.”
Not surprisingly, there are a lot of Twitter users who aren’t so keen on the idea.
“I see your Lady Doritos and raise you my ‘Manpons’ ™. Tampons for men. Stick them in your mouth and shut the f—k up,” one angered commenter wrote.
Another added: Lady Doritos sums up sexism in one chemically-flavored, chewy package. Women are not to be heard. Men can be heard. Women are not to be messy. Men can get as messy as they like. Women are to settle for less. Men have no need to settle.”
And it didn’t stop there. Doritos trended on Twitter with more than 24,000 tweets and people didn’t hold back.
One tweet read: “Women would rather have affordable feminine hygiene products and contraception but instead we get Lady Doritos.”
“Only interested in these ‘Lady Doritos’ if they have the same exact chips but cost 76 cents on the dollar as compared to regular bags of Doritos,” another wrote referring to the pay gap between men and women.
