Burger King Tweeted “Women Belong In The Kitchen” And The Joke Did Not Land

Shutterstock/James R. Martin

March 8, 2021, 11:15 am

The U.K. Twitter account for fast-food chain Burger King missed the mark on International Women’s Day with a tweet using a sexist talking point to support increasing the number of female chefs in the restaurant industry.

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Their initial tweet, which was immediately followed up with an explanation, reads like something a right-wing Christian talk show host would tweet when he felt he wasn’t getting enough attention.

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“Women belong in the kitchen,” the account tweeted. “If they want to, of course. Yet only 20% 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.”

If they want to, of course. Yet only 20% 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. #IWD

— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021

This was the company’s way of announcing a “new scholarship programme” for their female employees, since obviously Burger King does not employs chefs of any kind.

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While it’s clear that the point of the initial tweet was not to be 50s-style sexist but just to provoke people into paying attention, few women appreciated the reminder that this kind of misogyny still exists today. Hundreds of comments from women have expressed that they’re not fans of seeing the exact tweet they get from sexist trolls used as “bait” by a corporation that exploits all of its restaurant workers.

It’s also not encouraging to see accounts like the one for Gab, a social media platform popular with right-wing extremists, share that first tweet without the rest of the context.

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Instead of listening to the criticism coming from many of the actual women they claim to want to help, the Burger King account has been tweeting whiny responses claiming that it’s all fine because they’re going to help us ungrateful females.

To bring attention to the huge lack of female representation in the restaurant industry? Yeah we think it’s a good idea, that’s why we’ve created a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.

— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021

What belongs in the trash is lack of female representation in our industry, that’s why we’ve created a scholarship to do something about it.

— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021

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And now, thanks to this, the women trying to explain to Burger King why this tweet was a miss have to deal with actual sexist men telling them that women don’t understand humor.

This just in:
Woman doesn’t understand how jokes work

— Nikolai Vavilov (@NikolaiVavilov1) March 8, 2021

As Burger King continues to dig itself a deeper grave in the municipal dump where most of their food and plastic toys end up, the Twitter public is fast outpacing them with tweets dunking on this disaster.

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Because its not good food.

— Chelsea Peretti (@chelseaperetti) March 8, 2021

As of today we will no longer be hiring Italian people or allowing them to dine in our restaurants.

— McDonald’s UK (@notviking) March 8, 2021

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this is not how you make women want to work in the restaurant business—this is how to turn them away. women already face enough sexism and we are told daily to get into the kitchen, stay home, and treated as inferior. how did you think this was a good idea… https://t.co/lTilZ2WXJq

— emily⁶⁹ misses fundy (@fundybear) March 8, 2021

Good morning to the incredibly nervous intern who fired off this tweet while under the supervision of a dozen analysts and PR consultants and nobody else https://t.co/2JrJBd24Jl

— Vaush (@VaushV) March 8, 2021

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Maybe instead of using sexist jokes to promote a program that’s basically just a virtue-signaling PR campaign for Burger King, the company could do something useful like address the harassment and sexual violence their female employees endure at work.https://t.co/zBQRQqEOl8

— Kelly Ellis (@justkelly_ok) March 8, 2021

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*First Published: March 8, 2021, 11:15 am