People On Twitter React To Controversial ‘Women belong in the kitchen’ Burger King Ad

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And on International Women’s Day, wow.  

Burger King opted to take on gender disparity in the restaurant industry with a new culinary scholarship program and a tweet: “Women belong in the kitchen.” It did not go over well.

The fast-food chain’s United Kingdom division sparked an outcry Monday as critics accused the brand of using a sexist trope as clickbait.

The Burger King Foundation, the company’s United States-based nonprofit arm, meanwhile, published a full-page ad with similar language in Monday’s print edition of the New York Times. “Women belong in the kitchen” was bolded in large font that took up much of the ad’s above-the-fold space.

“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 ad continued. “But can you guess who’s leading those kitchens these days? Exactly. Only 24% of chef positions in America are occupied by women. Want to talk to head chefs? The number drops to fewer than 7%.”

https://twitter.com/BurgerKingUK/status/1368849338596745223?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1368849338596745223%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fbusiness%2F2021%2F03%2F08%2Fburger-king-tweet-women%2F

KFC Gaming tweeted a meme in response to Burger King UK with the caption: “The best time to delete this post was immediately after posting it. The second best time is now.”

But Burger King UK rejected the idea. “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?” it tweeted. “We’ve launched a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.”

A Kenyan Digital Marketer shared his thoughts on the tweet, saying that though he understood what the social media manager was doing, he felt that this wasn’t the right way to go by it.  

What do you think? 

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