Women Belong In The Kitchen: Burger Kings International Womens Day Tweet Goes Down In Flames
b"\\u2018Women Belong In The Kitchen\\u2019: Burger King\\u2019s International Women\\u2019s Day Tweet Goes Down In Flames Women belong in the kitchen.\\u201d For Burger King\\u2019s United Kingdom division, those five words tweeted on International Women's Day prompted a day of flame-grilled outrage from social media users.\\n\\nThe tweet was meant to be a humorous tease for a campaign promoting a cooking scholarship for female employees, but it fell flat.\\n\\nFollow-up tweets put the first tweet in context: \\u201cIf they want to, of course. Yet only 20% of chefs are women. We're on a mission to change the gender ratio.\\u201d \\n\\nUnfortunately for Burger King, many Twitter users never got past that first tweet, which hung there for hours and attracted a litany of abusive comments. The ad offered immediate context through the copy: \\u201cFine dining kitchens, food truck kitchens, award-winning kitchens, casual dining kitchens, ghost kitchens, Burger King kitchens. If there\\u2019s a professional kitchen, women belong there.\\u201d\\n\\nThe ad continued: \\u201cBut can you guess who\\u2019s leading those kitchens these days? Exactly. Only 24% of chef positions in America are occupied by women. Want to talk head chefs? The number drops to fewer than 7%.\\u201d\\n\\nLike many fast-food brands, Burger King has enjoyed a boost in popularity during a pandemic when drive-through lanes became a socially distant solution for hungry travelers and hometown diners alike.\\n\\nThe Burger King Foundation\\u2019s H.E.R. (Helping Equalize Restaurants) Scholarship will give two female employees a grant of $25,000 each to be used toward culinary education.\\n\\nIt\\u2019s a worthy program, Fer Machado, the global chief marketing officer at Restaurant Brand International, Burger King\\u2019s parent company, told Fast Company.\\n\\n\\u201cIt\\u2019s a real shame that it\\u2019s getting lost on the U.K. conversation,\\u201d said Machado. \\u201cIn the end, the intention behind what we are doing here is really good. And the whole thing is more than just an \\u2018ad\\u2019 or a \\u2018tweet.\\u2019 But we are discussing here.\\u201d\\n\\nStill, the backlash against Burger King may turn out to be a storm in a teacup compared to a recent PR disaster for Hyatt. A Nazi symbol integrated into the stage design at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held earlier this month at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida, fueled a campaign to boycott the hospitality brand."