Fast-food giant Burger King came under the grill due to a sexist tweet on International Women’s Day. The company in its efforts to mark its presence on the digital world on such an important day tried to draw people’s attention to the lack of female representations in the food and beverage industry. However, the company was soon under the grill of netizens (some pun intended) and had to soon initiate damage control.

“Women belong in the kitchen”, was tweeted by Burger King UK, which can only be considered ironic since the fast-food chain had plans to promote a scholarship fund created for the female chefs and restauranters on International Women’s Day. But the execution of the plan backfired immediately and the company faced severe backlash from Twitteratis who labelled their tweets as “sexist”. The ad was an accompaniment of a print ad the company marketed where a reader would realize the company’s intent of being sarcastic. However, the tweet from the company, the biggest sexist remark known to mankind, saw an immediate backlash.

After the social media justice warriors started waving their flags to boycott Burger King, the company deleted the original tweet and apologized saying “We will do better next time.” The company also deleted the original tweet as several abusive comments were mushrooming and the company didn’t want to “leave the space open for that.

The Global Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King’s parent company Restaurant Brands International, Fernando Machado, issued a statement saying, “That did draw some negative feedback from people who only read the headline. But hopefully, it will continue to shift to positive as people realize the real intent behind it.”

So what was Burger King’s real intent? Burger King was going to launch its H.E.R (Helping Equalize Restaurants) Scholarship on International Women’s Day. The scholarship was to assist women who work at the franchise and want to get an academic degree in the arts of culinary.

The print ad of the campaign said, “Fine dining kitchens, food truck kitchens, award-winning kitchens, casual dining kitchens, ghost kitchens, Burger King kitchens. If there’s a professional kitchen, women belong there.”

The company in its damage control phased explained to the netizens how their initiative is an effort to equalise the skewed gender ratio in the restaurant industry. “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. We are proud to be launching a new scholarship programme which will help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams!” said the brand’s tweet.

According to a Burger King post, the new scholarship program HER will grant $25,000 to two current female employees of the fast-food retail chain. As for who could get the scholarship, the employees who want to attain the scholarship need to be a Burger King employee, have a plan to enrol in an accredited culinary program in the US during the upcoming 2022-23 academic year, have a high school diploma, and can give evidence as to their need of a financial need.

According to the franchise’s spokesperson Adrianna Lauricella, Burger King will be establishing similar programs in the United Kingdom and Mexico in the coming time. In her email, she also added, “We are committed to helping women break through a male-dominated culinary culture in the world’s fine dining restaurants — and sometimes that requires drawing attention to the problem we’re trying to help fix.”

However, the damage was already done and no amount of politically correct damage control could manage to deflate the people’s anger on the Internet. While some people called the company out for its bad marketing implementation, others simply trolled the company and shared memes.

 

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