The fast-food chain Burger King has found itself at the center of a storm after the company tweeted that “women belong in the kitchen” from one of its Twitter handles on Monday.
A tweet posted early Monday morning from the company’s U.K.-based Twitter account read, “Women belong in the kitchen.”
Subsequent tweets in the thread, posted at the same time, couched the phrase with language specifying “if they want to, of course,” and announcing a companywide scholarship program to “help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams” in the male-dominated professional cooking field.
The company also ran a full-page ad in Monday’s print edition of The New York Times, multiple Twitter users noted, which included the phrase in large, eye-catching text, while the company’s explanation followed in a less prominent fashion.
The tweets and advertisement spawned a firestorm on Twitter, with some users accusing the company of using sexist language for the sake of a joke. Celebrities and thousands of other Twitter users, including actress Chelsea Peretti, responded, tweeting that Burger King “belongs in a trashcan.”
Fellow fast-food chain KFC responded through a tweet from the company’s video game and esports account with a meme urging Burger King’s representatives to delete the posts.
In subsequent tweets posted Monday, the company questioned individual users about why the company would delete a thread it argued was supporting the empowerment of women. Monday is International Women’s Day.
“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?” the company wrote in response to KFC’s tweet. “We’ve launched a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.”
In a statement to The Hill, the company explained that it was a “mistake” to have not included an explanation in the initial tweet, but stood by the overall message.
“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,” said a company spokesperson.
“Our tweet in the UK today was designed to draw attention to the fact that only a small percentage of chefs and head chefs are women. It was our mistake to not include the full explanation in our initial tweet and have adjusted our activity moving forward because we’re sure that when people read the entirety of our commitment, they will share our belief in this important opportunity,” they added.
–Updated at 4:45 p.m.