SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- It started as a joke but ended in angry words -- lots of them.
“Some of them were hurtful. Some called for me to be fired,” said Springfield Brewing Company’s craft beer ambassador, Wendy Whelan.
Whelan posted it. She's in charge of the company's social media.
“We were all sitting around looking at beer jokes on the internet and I wrote this one up and asked everyone in the office, men and women, what they thought. Everyone liked it. It wasn’t meant to be offensive at all,” she said.
The joke talks about a fake study. It says female hormones are found in beer and, after drinking it, men gained weight, talked too much and became emotional.
By Monday night, it had more than 80 shares and almost 300 comments, many of them expressing disgust.
"Who thought this would be funny? How do you not get how offensive it is??" wrote Lanie Brewster.
“I thought it was humorous how people thought a man wrote it. That's when we posted that three women wrote it and approved it,” Whelan said.
Whelan posts jokes all the time. She says it creates the laid-back vibe for which they are going.
“One time we posted a photo that said ‘we have beer colder than your ex-girlfriend’s heart.’ Nobody got offended by that,” said Whelan.
We took the joke in question around the bar to see what men and women thought.
“Am I offended? No. Is it funny? No,” said one male bar patron.
“I think it's funny,” said a female patron as she bursts into laughter.
Dozens of people on Facebook disagree.
"This is blatant sexist disrespect," wrote Ginger Johnson.
Whelan apologized several times on Facebook, and even issued an official company apology. She says she never meant to offend anyone.
“We're just hanging out have a good time, trying to give you a chuckle,” she said.
Join the debate and read the joke in its entirety on KSPR's Facebook page.
Judge for yourself. Here is a link to the Spingfield Brewing Company's Facebook page with the original post.
