So I’m shocked – shocked I say – by the blatant sexism displayed on this Fourth of July at Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.
While the news media of America focused its cameras on male wiener-eating legends such as Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi cramming hot dogs and soggy buns into their mouths, hardly any attention was focused on the event that preceded it – women stuffing hot dogs and soggy buns into THEIR mouths.
Sure, it was inspiring to watch Joey Chestnut swallow 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes. How could we not share the bitter disappointment of defending champion Matt Stonie, who this year could cram only 53?
But what of the women’s competition? Did you even know there was a women’s competition, you sexist pig?
Well, there was, and it was won by 30-year-old Miki Sudo of Las Vegas, who forced 38.5 hot dogs and soggy buns down her throat to hold off the challenge of Sonya Thomas's 35.
After downing all those doggies, though, Ms. Sudo also had to swallow some regret.
“To be dismissed as an opening act is disappointing,” she told The New York Times. “It would be nice to be given equal coverage. There are competitors that are just as dominant as the men.”
“For a woman to step on that stage in front of all those people is a huge accomplishment,” agreed another contestant, Mary “I Love Em HOT” Bowers, who competed while dressed as a hot dog stand.
“If you ask people about this competition, they’ll be like ‘Joey Chestnut’; they won’t be like ‘Sonya Thomas, Miki Sudo,’” a 19-year-old spectator who said she has been following the event since she was a child.
But perhaps 2017 — a year in which there could be a woman in the White House — will change all that and the spectacle of women cramming hot dogs and soggy buns into their mouths will receive the attention it deserves.
Even if it takes an Equal Revulsion Amendment.
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