Burger King’s ‘sexist’ tweet spectacularly backfires
Burger King has been lambasted for using "sexism as clickbait" in a tweet celebrating International Women's Day.
The fast food giant was criticised for a "misogynistic" post after it wrote a tweet on Monday saying "women belong in the kitchen".
The official Burger King UK account then posted a separate tweet explaining that the majority of chefs are men, giving the original tweet more context.
"If they want to, of course. Yet only 20 per cent of chefs are women. We're on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career," the company wrote next to the International Women's Day hashtag.
Despite what was meant to be a well-intended tweet, the fast food giant was slammed on the social media platform with some suggesting they used sexism to draw attention to the tweet by creating a series of posts rather than putting it in one.
"Proof this could have even fit in one tweet," one woman commented alongside an example of the two tweets in the one post.
"Please don't use sexism as clickbait."
"I get that you were using this comment as bait for a larger conversation to actually empower women. But listen to all the women telling you that using a sexist comment as bait isn't cool," another said.
"This was the first tweet I saw on International Women's Day."
When a third replied to Burger King saying it was a "weird" tweet, Burger King commented it thought it was weird women only made up 20 per cent of chefs in the UK.
Proof this could have even fit in one tweet
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— Becca (@BeccaBeckery) March 8, 2021
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When others suggested the tweet should have been deleted, Burger King said, "Why would we delete a tweet that's drawing attention to a huge lack of female representation in our industry."
"We thought you'd get on board with this as well?" the chain added.
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
Burger King says tweet 'wrong', deletes it
Following the barrage of criticism, Burger King UK admitted its initial tweet about women in the kitchen was "wrong" and has since deleted it.
"We hear you. We got our initial tweet wrong and we're sorry," the chain said.
"Our aim was to draw attention to the fact that only 20 per cent of professional chefs in UK kitchens are woman and to help change that by awarding culinary scholarships. We'll do better next time."
Somebody suggested maybe next year they could rename itself Burger Queen for International Women's Day.
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