"Women can not retouch away"
Original Swedish article (Google Translate)
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Published 2012-10-01 07:02 | Last updated 2012-10-01 16:36
"Women can not retouch away"
The dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, women are not welcome at Ikea. The company has been cleared away every woman from her pictures. Trade Ewa Björling (M) if the images: A sad example.
The 2013 Ikea catalog looks almost the same in all countries. Ingvar Kamprad's old armchair from 1951 adorns every cover. It is only the patterns on the cushions differ.
With one exception.
In Saudi Arabia, the armchair mirror, but the catalog also reflect the country's oppression of women. Not a single woman is there.
In the strictly Islamic Kingdom, women can not drive, vote or move out of home without the supervision of a male relative.
Ikea goes a step further and has made women invisible completely by systematically erase them from all images. Just as the Soviet censorship past airbrushed away "state enemies".
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. Designer Clara Gausch, which is one of four designers (all the other male) presenting PS collection in the Swedish catalog, remove deleted.
It is not forbidden to depict women in Saudi Arabia. But it is quite restrictive with showing skin in advertising. Ikea is however the most ultra-conservative forces to meet and have also picked a little girl from the directory that looks to study.
It is at odds with the messages that Ikea claims to stand for. On the website you can include read: "Women Changing the World" and "We want to create a better life for the many people. There are people and communities all over the world. "
Metro has repeatedly sought Ikea for comment.
Have censored for 20 years
Ikea has more than 20 years had a problem with the alignment of its directory to the Middle East market. That women are removed completely from the catalog is a new feature.
But back in the early 90's was censored a spread where a woman lay on a couch and read books by hand. According to Metro's data should markers simply have been used to cross out the picture in the catalog. Censorship should not have had to do with how the woman was dressed.
- She had long trousers and long shirt, but it was considered a portrayal of laziness. Women on the picture who performed chores was no problem. If they were standing at the stove or so, says Anne-Marie Colliander Lind, who co-translated the catalog to Ikea in Saudi Arabia in the early 90's.
She reacted because that Ikea has chosen to remove a picture of a woman brushing teeth in their children. Something that should be considered a chore. The local material adapted in many ways, except that women can not be portrayed in the same way as in other parts of the world.
- When we translated texts for Ikea so we do not write "wine glass" but "festive glass" because it would not be well received in a country where it is not allowed with alcohol, she said.
"Kvinnor gÃ¥r inte att retuschera bort" – Metro