Uber has apologised for its offensive campaign that told fathers to order a takeaway, so their wives could have a break from working in the kitchen.
The company were hugely criticised when they posted the sexist promotion for their food delivery service uberEATS. They wrote, “Dear husbands, a gentle reminder - today is Wife Appreciation Day. Order from uberEATS and let your wife take a day off from the kitchen."
Uber quickly apologised for their mistake, stating they understood that it was a very inappropriate thing to do. They tweeted, “We’ve removed it, and we apologise.”
Numerous Twitter users took to the social media platform to speak out about the campaign. One member wrote, “#UberEATS ran a promo for husbands to order takeaway and 'let' their wives take a day off from the kitchen. @Uber, fire your neanderthal PR team.”
Another user wrote, “Glad they removed it, but something's REALLY broken when they have to be told that that's wrong.”
Uber’s Chief Brand Ambassador, Bozoma Saint John, was horrified by the campaign and tweeted that she would resolve the issue as soon as possible.
She said, “Oh hell no. This is completely unacceptable. Will take care of this”, when she was informed about the offensive campaign.
According to the BBC, the story did not make it into local mainstream media. BBC journalist Ayesha Perera said, “Most people on Monday did not seem to know about the promo or even the negative impression it is said to have created.”
This isn’t the first time Uber has been under fire for sexism. The company is often criticised for their lack of gender equality.
Ex-employees have revealed that there is an issue with sexual harassment at Uber. Susan Fowler, who worked as an engineer at Uber, discussed her own personal experience in a blog post.
She wrote about how her new manager started messaging her, “He was in an open relationship... He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, but he couldn't help getting in trouble because he was looking for women to have sex with.”
Susan took screen shots of the inappropriate messages straight away and reported her manager to HR.
She also revealed that the number of female employees at Uber fell from 25 percent to 6 percent whilst she was working there, “On my last day at Uber, I calculated the percentage of women who were still in the org. Out of over 150 engineers in the SRE teams, only 3% were women.”
This is one of many controversies Uber have been involved with over the past few years. The company have announced that US Attorney General Eric Holder sent them a 47-step report that will improve the company’s culture.
