Uber Slammed for Sexist Promotional Campaign in Bengaluru, Apologizes

By | September 19, 2017

After being lambasted on social media for being sexist in its promotional message sent to customers in Bengaluru, Uber has apologized, conceding that the message was “totally inappropriate”.

The message urged husbands to “let your wife take a day off from the kitchen” and offered a discount offer on Uber Eats food delivery service. The message stated: “Dear husbands, a gentle reminder- today is Wife Appreciation Day.”

The cab-hailing company later withdrew the campaign, and tweeted: “We’ve removed it and we apologise”.

This was totally inappropriate. We’ve removed it and we apologize.

— Uber Comms (@Uber_Comms) September 17, 2017

Bozoma Saint John, Uber’s chief brand ambassador, also tweeted that the message was “completely unacceptable”. She responded to the online criticism, saying she will take care of this.

Oh hell no. This is completely unacceptable. Will take care of this.

— Bozoma Saint John (@badassboz) September 17, 2017

The campaign was slammed widely on social media.

Sorry @uber but why do you think that only the “wife” needs to be at the kitchen! 😐 pic.twitter.com/HzjlBsdT34

— Hemanth.HM (@GNUmanth) September 16, 2017

Thank you @Uber for defining gender roles in India. Of course women are meant to slog it out in the kitchen & the men need to BUY us freedom https://t.co/EW57ZyXdnG

— Rashi Kakkar (@rashi_kakkar) September 17, 2017

hi @dkhos, @badassboz, would be great if your $69 billion company stopped perpetrating regressive gender stereotypes in India. https://t.co/jr2UXxsBGn

— ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@PranavDixit) September 17, 2017

However, the campaign did not cause much of a stir on ground. Most people were not aware about the promotional campaign, or the commotion it caused, BBC reported, adding that the company will have to be careful in future to avoid potentially controversial language.

Swiggy and Zomato are Uber’s competitors in the food delivery service.

This is not the first time the company has come under fire for sexism. In June, the cab-for-hire app company’s co-founder Travis Kalanick resigned following a sexual harassment charge leveled by former Uber engineer Susan J Fowler in February this year. The company fired more than 20 people following a review after the blogpost by Fowler went viral.

The investigation uncovered over 200 reports of inappropriate conduct, like harassment, bias, bullying, discrimination, and retaliation, Bloomberg had reported earlier. Half of the reported incidents were dismissed with no action taken, while 31 employees are in training or counseling, and seven were handed written warnings. Fifty seven cases are still being investigated. Kalanick had called the engineer’s experience “abhorrent” and “against the company values”.

The reputation of the firm took another hit with sexist comments made by one of the app’s investors in June. David Bonderman, a member of Uber’s board, was reported to have said, according to a leaked audio obtained by Yahoo Finance, that having more women on board would lead to more talking. Bonderman later resigned, calling his statement “careless, inappropriate and inexcusable.”