Burger King UK attempted to celebrate International Women’s Day in perhaps the worst way possible by tweeting “women belong in the kitchen.” Not a good look, chaps. The burger brand made a right mess of a misguided joke about inclusion and sexism.
After decades, maybe even centuries, of women’s rights activists fighting to get women out of the kitchen and for society to allow us to lead full, active lives, telling women that they belong in the kitchen is a bad look, even if it’s “well-intentioned” or a joke. Here it was technically an attempt at a joke, offered as part of a larger thread. Burger King seems to have been trying to highlight the fact that women make up an embarrassingly small percentage of actual chefs and their attempts to change that, but they said it in the worst way possible.
Here’s the rest of the thread.
We are proud to be launching a new scholarship programme which will help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams!
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
It is infuriating that in terms of the unpaid labor of cooking for families, women still do the bulk of that work, but when that same work is translated to a professional level, they are shut out. This happens in all sorts of industries and it’s a real problem. But it’s still not a good look to start out that your thread on that subject with maybe one of the most pernicious sexist sentiments of the last century.
Burger King was instantly and pretty rightly dragged for the bad tweet.
Burger King thought they were on Xbox live for a minute https://t.co/EYL18Tgnn5
— Charlie (@MoistCr1TiKaL) 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
(Side note did anyone else think that the Burger King and the Dairy Queen were married as a kid? Just me? Okay then.)
Burger King really doubling down on their social campaign instead of recognizing they’ve used misogyny as click bait. What a grill to die on.
— Maude Garrett (@maudegarrett) March 8, 2021
everyone: happy international women’s da—
burger king: —we have the PERFECT joke pic.twitter.com/ohqN7wqWDa
— slate (@PleaseBeGneiss) March 8, 2021
Even though BK is getting charbroiled over this tweet, they’re not apologizing. They’re even defending themselves, including in a response to the KFC Gaming twitter. (And yes, I know, you may be asking “the KFC what now” and … you can start here to begin to understand.)
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
And again, the issue that the King of Burgers is trying to bring attention to is an important one, but … this isn’t the way to do it. Now, who wants some tacos?
[UPDATE, 5:00 PM] Burger King UK has issued an apology for the tweet.
We hear you. We got our initial tweet wrong and we’re sorry. Our aim was to draw attention to the fact that only 20% of professional chefs in UK kitchens are women and to help change that by awarding culinary scholarships. We will do better next time.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
(images: Twitter)
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