Women Take Home $15K Less Than Men At Hot Dog Eating Contest

Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest on Coney Island is finally giving women their own division.

However, since they are women and are probably watching their figures/their appetites are akin to that of tiny, fragile birds/additional cliche, they will be offered four times less in prize money:

The argument is that women are physically smaller than men, that the new division might draw more female competitors, and all of the other reasons commonly given for putting women in a separate category in any field.

Even if that were true (and not some sort of “pulled out of someone’s ass” theorem), the difference in pay would be nominal, right?:

The first place winner in the men’s division gets $10,000, and the winner of the women’s division gets a mere $2,500.

Wow. Okay. Well, at least this story has hit the apex of ridiculousness at this point.

Just kidding. No it did not. Yet:

The men’s division splits $20,000 between its first through fifth place winners, while the women’s division only splits $5,000. In fact, Eatfeats, the blog that tracks all things competitive eating, crunched the numbers and discovered that the women’s first place prize of $2,500 is actually equal to the mens’ third-place prize.

The hits just keep on coming. So gals, you’re tiny, you hardly eat anything anyway, it’s nice that you tried, we’ll even give you your own division and a little bit of money, too! Sure, it’s a little bit less and then if you really think about it, it’s almost nothing but just think about how famous you’ll be! And what’s more valuable than that???:

George Shea, chairman of the event’s sponsor Major League Eating, told CNN “although the money is meaningful, the instant celebrity for the first female hot dog-eating champion will make up for the shortfall.”

So if any of you are reading this and thinking about how you’ve never needed money because someone’s always pampered you, AND you have a “strangely” large appetite for a girl (which, judging by the prize money, still won’t be nearly as big as a man’s anyway), go out there and take your best shot at winning that (women’s) first place prize*!!!

(*See: Men’s third-place prize.)

Women to Take Home $15K Less Than Men At Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest [Eater]