Family in Bathroom
Photo courtesy of IKEA
Click here to view this gallery.
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IKEA made women disappear from its furniture catalog in Saudi Arabia. Looking at the Swedish and the Saudi versions of the catalog, the Swedish free newspaper Metro noticed that IKEA photoshopped women out of identical pictures showcasing its furniture.
In the picture showing a family preparing in the bathroom, in which a woman is brushing her teeth along with her son, the woman was completely removed for the Saudi version. In another example, an IKEA woman designer appears with three other furniture designers -- all male. In the Saudi version only the male ones are present. (You can see both pictures, and more, in the gallery below.)
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These decisions were probably made to appease Saudi laws which prohibit woman from showing too much of their body in public.
After facing criticism for the photoshopping, IKEA Group -- a separate branch of the company, which manages the catalog -- issued an apology. "We should have reacted and realized that excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalog is in conflict with the IKEA Group values," said the statement.
Check out the gallery below to see some pictures where IKEA made women disappear.
Photo by Wikimedia Commons
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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