PepsiCo Making Chips For Women

In case they (gasp!) dare take up space or make any noise, women will now get their own "low-crunch" snack, courtesy of PepsiCo.

Indra Nooyi—a real, actual woman—is CEO of the company, the snack giant behind Lay's, Tostitos, Fritos, Doritos and about 50 other crunchy items that end in os. She told Freakonomics that women "don't like to crunch too loudly in public" or "pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth." Let us translate: Women. Hate. Fun. So as a reward(?), the company is launching products engineered toward solving this problem we apparently have.

Can a chip even be called a chip if it doesn't make that onomatopoeic sound? Will we all just get limp discs of par-cooked potato, which surely won't be ridged for her pleasure? No, you're right, that would still be too loud. Give it a few months, and we'll all just be sipping green juice through straws and nibbling sad canned pears, The Handmaid's Tale-style.

Nooyi also wonders how we'll be able to fit a man's bag of chips in a purse ("because women love to carry a snack in their purse"), which raises many more questions than it answers. It also seems that the individual brands of this snack conglomerate don't quite have their cycles in sync with the higher-ups, Doritos included.

Let us now express concern by taking out a Bic for Her pen and writing a letter of discnotent. Oops, sorry for the typo: All that Doritos dust makes it really hard to type!

Update: PepsiCo has released a statement insisting that this is all a giant misunderstanding. As to what Nooyi meant then in the podcast? "I can't yet give any more details," a spokeswoman says.