Dear Doritos…

It seems as if the universe is pulling some kind of April Fool’s joke. Well, Doritos – not the universe. And in February.

Doritos announced that they are to launch a version of their crisps for women. It will be specifically designed so that the packet can fit into a handbag and so the tortilla chips don’t crunch as loud as the ‘normal’, perhaps now ‘male’ Doritos, seeing as they will also be smaller than usual too.

No, you haven’t missed a Twitter trend. There was no hashtag, no social media outcry for #LadyDoritos. Women have been busy lately, contributing to the #MeToo sexual harassment movement, taking down Deputy Prime Ministers for unwanted sexual advances and inappropriate behaviour, marching on Washington against a sexist President and preparing to celebrate 100 years since some women in Britain were given the right to vote, thus being recognised as real citizens. Not once did we ask for female Doritos.

But, according to Indra Nooyi, the female CEO of PepsiCo, the company which owns Doritos, women “would love” to do the same as men while eating the crisps. Apparently, men “lick their fingers with great glee” while eating Doritos and “pour the little-broken pieces into their mouth” upon finishing a bag. Nooyi continued, saying: “It’s not a male and female as much as ‘are there snacks for women that can be designed and packaged differently?’ And yes, we are looking at it, and we’re getting ready to launch a bunch of them soon”.

Clearly, we women have our priorities wrong. I mean, let’s have a think about it: when we’re at work in the office, we have a break. On that break, we will have a little snack. And what could be better than some lady-friendly Doritos, eh? They’ll fit in that handbag of ours and, once we’re done, we can get back to typing on the computer with no orange dust on our fingers and get paid less than our male counterparts in the process. Sounds great to me.

Then again, lady-friendly Doritos just shows how much the movement of feminism has progressed. We’re making companies think about designing products for us. And a packet of crisps is exactly the product we want to have tailored to our needs. Our contraceptive pills may have some naff side-effects, the taxes on our tampons and pads may mean we’re paying a little extra for something that isn’t our fault and our dresses still don’t have pockets in them, but who cares! We’ve finally got some edible Doritos because the bags we’ve been eating are seriously atrocious and just awful to consume. It’s such a prevalent issue in our lives.

So, Dear Doritos, thank you for saving us poor women from the crunchy mayhem of your previously patriarchal crisps. I know I for one would much rather you invest so much money in making lady Doritos than donating that money to a charity helping some of the 31 million girls of primary school age who aren’t in school. Or the 900 women killed over six years by men, most of whom were their partners. But, you know, you get the point…