Saudi IKEA's Misogynistic Madness

I might have gotten out of bed with the wrong foot as we say in Finland, but I noticed something so disturbing today that I just HAD to rant a little bit about it. I mean this is complete and utter madness. So Dumb. Disturbs me what kind of sickos and women haters are out there.

This is the source of my headache, an article in the Swedish Metro magazine this morning: http://www.metro.se/nyheter/kvinnor-gar-inte-att-retuschera-bort/EVHlja!2mPseJ6LPTrK2/
So the new IKEA catalogs are out and can be viewed online at their site www.ikea.com.
All the countries have pretty much the same stuff on offer and the catalogs look the same. Except for of course Saudi-Arabia, the so called model country of Islam.

What's different in the Saudi IKEA catalog then? Can anyone take a wild guess?
They censored it. ALL THE IMAGES OF WOMEN have magically disappeared from the Saudi version. A misogynistic airbrusher has vandalized the entire catalog.

You might have seen how they censor stuff in Saudi-Arabia before, like blacking out half clad women from the swimming pool packages or placing white tape on celebrity decolletages, drawing imaginary black leggings and T-shirts on women in the women's magazines or spray painting the bare skin parts black. Heck they even black out the word PORK from food items.

I can understand why some of the censoring is done in Saudi-Arabia if I really really try hard to block most of my brain activity while at the same placing my head in a very narrow tunnel. But people, this is a furniture catalog, OK? Who the hell needs to censor a furniture catalog anyways?

Take a tour of the Saudisized IKEA here: http://imagesofsaudi.blogspot.com/2012/02/saudi-ikea-experience.html
The censorship at the actual Riyadh IKEA store has always creeped me out. Check this out:

 What on earth was going on in their minds when they decided to do that? It's just the babies mother for God's sake!

How about this? The woman is fully covered! Looks like someone has some serious issues with women.

As a woman I find this highly offensive and insulting. This must also be the height of hypocrisy. I wonder how many of the men responsible for this stupidity have maids (as in unrelated females) living in their houses? I would guess 99%.

What is the point to remove all the women from the Saudi catalog? Women do exist. What are these misogynist men trying to accomplish by this, trying to imagine women don't exist? Do they not watch the news or TV at all? Do they not go to malls or grocery stores? Images of women are everywhere in Saudi-Arabia! Heck there is even REAL uncovered women out there on the streets of the conservative capital Riyadh. Should they be blocked from public view too? Even the women's magazines that are allowed in the Magic Kingdom are not censored like this. So why IKEA?

I wonder how IKEA as a Scandinavian company is even agreeing to this. Sweden is one of the most gender equal countries in the world. What a mockery this is to equality of women. This is oppression of women. What an absolute shame and disgrace that is going on with Saudi IKEA. I feel insulted as a Scandinavian. As if the women are indecent or shameful and thus needed to be removed. These are normal everyday images of women, of mothers with children in their homes, not of women posing in sexy positions in bikinis or miniskirts.

What do these people think, that Saudi men can't handle a few images of mostly fully clad women? Are Saudi men expected to be so sex deprived they would go crazy to see these tempting Swedish women? Do these perverted minds assume all men think like them and would take the magazine into the bathroom for some "private viewing"? How disgusting. Is someone out there really this sick? For the life of me I can't understand what is wrong with this picture of a family brushing their teeth together:

And in the Saudi version the mother has disappeared. I find this very sad that someone thought she needed to be removed. What kind sick minds are these?

This is the scene from the normal catalog kitchen section, the screen shot taken from the UAE catalog. How are the UAE men able to handle the images of women btw?

You would think that women naturally appear in the kitchens right? Not in Saudi! They also removed the man though. But hey, by taking a closer look we can see the woman looks Asian. Wouldn't this be a scene from a typical Saudi home then? An unrelated, uncovered Asian woman working in the kitchen, mixing with the Saudi males of the family. Why is it totally fine in the home but not in the catalog? Can anyone say double standards?
Maybe they removed the guy too so that Saudi women don't get any ideas of hiring male maids! God forbid an unrelated male mixing with Saudi women. What would the world turn into.

Another image from the real world. A family cooking happily together, father, grandfather, mother, children all joyfully together. What is so wrong with this image that Saudi-Arabia can't handle it?

First of all scenes like this just don't exist in Saudi homes. Better to remove the grandpa (although he looks culturally acceptable with his muttawa-look) and the father so that Saudi women won't get any ideas in their heads that men do actually cook in countries like Sweden and thus become too demanding on the Saudi men. The woman is dressed so indecently that she needs to be removed straight away. The kids `re helping to set up the table. What! Helping?? Where is the maid? Totally unacceptable to make children to do housework. This is what it should look like:

Except that the magic deleting wand forgot the wine bottle on the table. What a horrific mistake! Someone might some bad ideas from that!
How about this image. Honestly I can't even tell which one is the woman immediately. She seems to be dressed just like the male counterparts. But because she's a woman..DELETE.

How ridiculous can this get really? The entire catalog is full of examples like this. Why does the IKEA censor hate women so much they need to be completely deleted from the catalog? Above all how could IKEA, which is a company based on family values and comes from a country once chosen as the best country for women to live in, accept this misogynistic madness? Are women not welcome into the Saudi-Arabian IKEA stores?


Edit: IKEA has issued a statement saying it regrets its decision saying "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." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444592404578030274200387136.html?mod=WSJUK_hps_LEFTTopWhatNews

National Day Celebrations In Riyadh

The Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia celebrated its 82nd birthday on Sunday the 23rd of September. As usual, the streets were full of Saudis celebrating the National Day. In addition to everyone having Sunday off, King Abdullah had given an extra day off for government employees meaning many people got to enjoy a four day weekend which in Saudi-Arabia is normally Thursday and Friday.

 All the main streets and road were lined with Saudi flags. There must be literally tens of thousands of them. Wonder where they store them?

This year people had already began celebrating on Saturday and the streets flooded with cars flying Saudi flags and people hanging out of them. Tahlia street was fully packed with cars and young men ressed in the most creative outfits. Radio stations were playing patriotic songs and songs praising King Abdullah. Everything seemed to have turned green, including the Faisaliyah and Kingdom towers.

We went out on both evenings to see the celebrations. According to this Arab News article there would be celebrations in Kindy plaza at the Diplomatic Quarters where thousands of Saudi flags would be distributed and there would be a special program there. We live nearby and went to check it out, there was nothing there to our disappointment! Strangely the article also said malls such as Panorama and Hayat would have programs for kid, but in reality the malls remained closed on Sunday. I wonder how many people went all the way to these locations only to find out there was nothing there.

There were many other events around town though and we headed to check them out. There was a small festival area set up in the historical Diriyah area. We drove around the Wadi Hanifa and saw many families had set up fires and BBQ's around the wadi. The weather is finally cooling down and evenings in the wadi are very pleasant.

The Diriyah festival had some traditional dancing and music, poetry recitals, small handicraft market and camel rides.

I love how so many Saudi women relax and let go of their cultural restrictions in public on occasions such as National day. 

 A Saudi baba was showing how to make Arabic coffee by the fire.

Everyone was in high spirits and donning at least a Saudi flag or something green!

 At the festival area I was busy taking pictures of all the people who were requesting to be photographed. I could have stood there all night because people were literally lining up.

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My friend likes camels! I'm still too scared to get this close.

I love you! This is what some children came up to say :)

Please please take my picture too!

My daughter was scared of the coffee making baba. The first thing she said when he took her in his lap was "aiti!" which means mommy.

Meanwhile on the streets kids were hanging out of car windows, doors, roof tops and even sitting on top of the cars!

Older men enjoyed the fun in pimped up rides.

These boys better hurry before muttawa catches them!

And what would National Day be without a muttawa patrol? Here they are supervising on Tahlia street. 

My daughter was in on the fun too!

It was a very HABBY Saudi National Day!