Burger King apologizes, deletes ‘women belong in the kitchen’ tweet
Burger King has issued an apology for its tweet on International Women’s Day that read, “Women belong in the kitchen,” which sought to bring attention to the lack of women in professional kitchens.
The company made the tweet on Monday as a way to bring attention to its scholarship program that aims to “help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams.”
Initially, Burger King U.K. defended its tweets, but the company has since apologized for its choice of words.
“We hear you. We got our initial tweet wrong and we’re sorry,” Burger King U.K. wrote on Twitter. “Our aim was to draw attention to the fact that only 20% of professional chefs in U.K. kitchens are women and to help change that by awarding culinary scholarships. We will do better next time.”
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
The company posted another tweet explaining that it had deleted the initial message that sparked the outrage.
“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,” the chain added.
A 2018 Heineken ad that used the phrase “lighter is better” received similar criticism: “I think some companies are purposely putting out noticeably racist ads so they can get more views,” Chance the Rapper tweeted in response.
Other critics pointed to previous sexist characterizations of women in Burger King advertisements; as well as the dissonance between this campaign and the serious complaints made by female Burger King employees.
