Burger King Gets Grilled By The Internet For ‘Women Belong In The Kitchen’ Tweet
Image via Savvapanf Photo / Shutterstock.com
Burger King UK has apologized for a tone-deaf tweet in an attempt to honor International Women’s Day ironically.
“Women belong in the kitchen,” @BurgerKingUK account first tweeted on Monday morning, with the intention to empower more women to become chefs with a scholarship. It then added in a subsequent tweet, “If they want to, of course.”
The seemingly mysogynistic post exploded on Twitter, even inciting some sexist remarks. Some thought the tweet on International Women’s Day could have easily been avoided.
“[The reply] could have even fit in one tweet,” a user wrote, typing out text from both tweets in a draft to show that it can indeed fit within Twitter’s character limit.
“Sometimes I’m scared that I’m bad at my job,” one person tweeted along with the initial statement. “But at least I didn’t think this was a good idea.” KFC’s video game-focused account also weighed in the tweet, writing, “The best time to delete this post was immediately after posting it. The second best time is now.”
Burger King fired back at the tweet, replying, “Why would we delete a tweet that’s drawing attention to a huge lack of female representation in our industry, we thought you’d be on board with this as well? We’ve launched a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.”
According to the Washington Post, the tweet was not the work of a rogue Burger King intern.
The Burger King Foundation posted an advertisement with the same message in the New York Times. The “Women belong in the kitchen” text is displayed in large letters on the newspaper, followed by a message about empowerment.
Some social media users assumed that Burger King would be quick to tweet out an apology within minutes of the backlash. However, it came almost 12 hours later, after the first tweet was posted.
“We hear you. We got our initial tweet wrong and we’re sorry,” Burger King’s account tweeted. It explained that it was only drawing attention to its scholarship program. “We will do better next time,” it tweeted.
Burger King’s actual goal was to announce its pledge to set aside money for female employees to pursue culinary education programs. Each scholarship is worth US$25,000 in the US, and similar programs will be established in the UK and Mexico, its spokesperson Adrianna Lauricella told the Washington Post.
“Our tweet in the UK today was designed to draw attention to the fact that only a small percentage of chefs and head chefs are women. It was our mistake to not include the full explanation in our initial tweet and have adjusted our activity moving forward because we’re sure that when people read the entirety of our commitment, they will share our belief in this important opportunity,” Lauricella continued.
Burger King UK falling on their sword to distract for the royals pic.twitter.com/tZIumd0p38
— Will Fulton (@thewillennium) March 8, 2021
We decided to delete the original tweet after our apology. It was brought to our attention that there were abusive comments in the thread and we don't want to leave the space open for that.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
The funniest thing about the Burger King "tweet" is that it clearly wasn't just a tweet. This was a whole international campaign that the UK timezone just got first. They can decide against tweeting it from the US account but they couldn't pull the New York Times ad fast enough🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/i4EvOCdFDF
— Thomas ‘TomSka’ Ridgewell (@thetomska) March 8, 2021
Proof this could have even fit in one tweet
— Becca (@BeccaBeckery) March 8, 2021
Please don't use sexism as clickbait. The men in my mentions proves the damage you're causing by doing this. pic.twitter.com/G0VKGgiZQp
Sometimes I’m scared that I’m bad at my job. But at least I didn’t think this was a good idea. https://t.co/DWiuQkop7d
— Madison | suop | Tomato Bisque Sucks (@suuuoppp) March 8, 2021
Why would we delete a tweet that’s drawing attention to a huge lack of female representation in our industry, we thought you’d be on board with this as well? We've launched a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
Burger King also placed a full-page ad in today’s print edition of @nytimes pic.twitter.com/TldtbCOlcN
— Hannah Denham (@hannah_denham1) March 8, 2021
The age of the Burger King is over. The time of the Burger Queen has come.
— Elyse Willems (@ElyseWillems) March 8, 2021
And it only took you 12 hours and 666k likes pic.twitter.com/rnIxZsklrU
— Mohamed Enieb (@its_menieb) March 8, 2021
[via Creative Bloq, cover image via Savvapanf Photo / Shutterstock.com]
