British grocery store Tesco is facing a boycott after its chairman described white men as “an endangered species” in the corporate world, speaking one day after International Women’s Day.
“If you are female and from an ethnic background, and preferably both, then you are in an extremely propitious period,” chairman John Allan said during a speech at Retail Week Live. “For a thousand years, men have got most of these jobs. The pendulum has swung very significantly the other way now and will do so for the foreseeable future, I think. If you are white male, tough. You are an endangered species and are going to have to work twice as hard.”
In response to the controversial comments, Sophie Walker of the Women’s Equality Party called for a boycott, as did organizers of the Women’s March London.
In a slightly more eccentric act of protest, a letter denouncing Allan’s comments is seeking signatures by at least 100 men named John, claiming that “more men called John run FTSE 100 companies than women.” It’s unclear who authored the original letter, wrote the Independent, but it had gained nearly 50 signatures from men named John across the globe.
Tesco’s chairman has insisted his comments were meant to be humorous, saying he used “that rather colorful turn of speech” to encourage women in his audience. He walked back his comments further on Saturday, saying, “In all the organizations I have been involved in I have been a committed advocate of greater diversity and very much regret if my remarks have given the opposite impression.”