International Women’s Day is celebrated among many, globally every year on March 8 to show appreciation toward women. However, Twitter users were greeted to an unwelcomed tweet as they saw that ‘BugerKingUK’, had tweeted out “Women belong in the kitchen.” Many individuals were ashamed and outraged at this tweet, stating their thoughts and feelings in the replies.

Due to past society, some would observe that traditional gender roles are still being in place. As Burger King’s tweet entailed that they believe, “women belong in the kitchen”. 

Burger King’s tweet has only expressed toward females, that it was either a poorly written joke or an insult. 

As the tweet was directed to females, they have different views on how the situation felt toward them. Females have taken the tweet different ways, as if it was a joke in their view or just an insult. 

“Personally, I thought it was hilarious,” Lillian Barley (‘23) said. “I totally saw it as the joke it is and didn’t take any offense to it. It’s just their way of advertising because they are definitely getting attention.” 

The massive attention Burger King’s tweet got, it eventually got onto the Trending tab at rank three.

A few minutes after ‘BurgerKingUK’ made their controversial tweet, they followed up a response to explain their original intention. 

“They did a horrible job conveying what point they had and even tried defending it,” Emma Golz (‘22) said. “They could have said, “We appreciate women and all that they do for us. For #IWD we are launching a new scholarship.” This sad attempt at using an overused misogynistic joke was absolutely unnecessary.” 

‘BurgerKingUK’ believes that they want to change the gender ratio in restaurant industries, as they stated, only 20 percent of Burger King’s chefs, are women. 

The tweet was public for more than 13 hours, within this time, many were discussing their thoughts on the tweet in the comments. The original tweet was then deleted, and ‘BurgerKingUK’ made a public apology. 

“I do not feel like they need to apologize for trying to get more women to work in the culinary field,” Bria Jefferson (‘22) said. “I do think it was a good idea to take down the tweet since people were commenting bad things on it.” 

In the apology, ‘BurgerKingUK’ stated that the tweet was deleted due to abusive comments that were stated in the original tweet, and that they did not want to leave it open.

Burger King’s apology was directed that they wanted to help award culinary scholarships to women. As the tweet has portrayed negative effects, individuals who go to the restaurant will most likely not want to go to the restaurant anymore.

“I think it will affect their business because who wants to eat at a place with those kinds of opinions?” Nevaeh Barrett (‘23) said. “Even if that isn’t what their aim was, they still said it, and took too long to clarify. They let people get mad before saying, “Surprise! We’re not actually bad, we didn’t mean that.” 

Through the tweet, the business has portrayed that females working in the food industry might quit their jobs. 

As COVID-19 has taken many jobs, due to Burger King’s tweet, it might make more lose their job due to inactivity. For example, women may consider quitting their jobs after viewing the tweet. 

“I feel like it will not affect their business much since it wasn’t a detrimental issue and got apologized for pretty quickly,” Amber Miller (‘22) said. “I think it’ll just be a memory for people to reminisce on when thinking about Burger King.” 

The business could lack customers due to the tweet, however, many could ignore the tweet and still go to the restaurant.

As women are still faced with gender style roles, through jokes or insults, females can be seen as allowed to be more attacked. Although, work places, especially in the food industry are trying to fix this.

“I think it is disgusting to see a major company tweet that,” Grace Bancroft (‘21) said. “Women face things like this and when a company tweets something like that it only isolates women more and gives people who abuse women the ‘ok’ to keep doing it because, “Burger King also thinks it, so why can’t I”.” 

Females working in the restaurant could discuss why the tweet was portrayed to insult females.

As Burger King is now considered ‘canceled’ due to their tweet, individuals can look upon that ‘BurgerKingUK’ should have been more careful with their tweet. In the future, many should consider what they tweet, even on International Women’s Day.