Sweden's Metro news outlet has learned that The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been Photoshopping women out of its version of the Ikea catalog, at once bungling Sweden's proudest national export and promoting the gender inequality so pervasive in Saudi culture. In a catalog that prints 208M copies over 43 countries and should otherwise be considered greatest text on Earth, "The mother who brushes his teeth with his son is away deleted from a bathroom picture and women who have male dinner around the dinner table has completely been removed and replaced by an empty table. Even Ikea's own employees are gone." Although this particular catalog was published by a franchise, the Swedish furnishings chain "regrets" this disaster and has publicly apologized: "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." Retaliation for Manland, perhaps?
· "Kvinnor går inte att retuschera bort" [Metro via Gawker]
· All Ikea coverage [Curbed National]