Saudi women airbrushed from IKEA catologue

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Tuesday, October 02, 2012

In the rest of the world, the IKEA catalog stays pretty much the same, except the language, of course. However, in Saudi Arabia, it was decided no women are allowed.

All the women, and most of the young girls, have been carefully airbrushed from the pages of the IKEA catalog in Saudi Arabia. The catalog of the world's largest furniture retailer displays exactly the same interiors and products, leaves in the boys and men, but women have no part.

On top of this, while international versions of the same catalog feature all four of IKEA's designers on the cover, the Saudi version only shows three, as they have airbrushed the female designer from the page.

You won't find ladies on the Saudi version of IKEA's website either. In the image above, the original shows a mother in front of the bathroom mirror, surrounded by her family. In the Saudi version, the mother is gone. Another image originally had a barefoot woman with earrings, the Saudi version has a man wearing black socks.

According to IKEA spokesperson, Ylva Magnusson, the catalog was designed by an external franchise owner that operates the IKEA stores in Saudi Arabia.

In a statement another spokesperson for IKEA said, “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.” “We are now reviewing our routines to safeguard a correct content presentation from a values point-of-view in the different versions of the IKEA Catalog worldwide,”