Mom is blatantly missing from several family photo scenes in the Saudi version of Ikea’s latest catalogue because the women in these pics “show too much skin,” according to the Islamic Kingdom’s laws. A woman enjoying dinner with her husband on an Ikea dinner table was replaced by an empty Ikea table. Similarly, a woman in plaid pajamas helping her son brush his teeth in one of Ikea’s pristine bathrooms was Photoshopped out of the Saudi catalogue, leaving the child alone at the sink while her presumed husband towels down another boy in the corner. The Swedish furniture company has said “excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalogue is in conflict with the Ikea Group values” and that it was reviewing “routines” in response to backlash over the issue.
Henrik Montgomery, Scanpix / Landov
Blogs and Twitter went alight Monday after a blog post on Failed Messiah pointed out that an ultra-Orthodox newspaper photoshopped the Secretary of State out of the Situation Room picture where leaders watched the Osama bin Laden raid. Editors at the Brooklyn-based paper, Der Tzitung, removed Clinton, as well as the “mystery woman” Audrey Tomason from the photo, in accordance with the “laws of modesty,” which suggest that pictures of women should not be published. "We should not have published the altered picture, and we have conveyed our regrets and apologies to the White House and to the State Department," the newspaper said in a statement Monday. This wasn’t the first time that the ultra-Orthodox have run into controversy over fun with Photoshop.
Seth Wenig / AP Photo
The glamorous Israeli actress Alma Zack was apparently too scandalous for this billboard for Poalim Bank in Bnei Brak, a city just East of Tel Aviv. So in order to make the sign a little more modest, the bank decided to replace her with a gnome. Ido Kenan, a culture and media blogger points it out on his site Room404.net.
Maoz Degani/Mako
In 2004, a billboard for Unilever Lux soap had a scantily-clad Sarah Jessica Parker plastered all over it. She was wearing a short, sequins dress that revealed her knees and shoulders. Just 24 hours after the ad went up, according to Haaretz, the ultra-Orthodox community protested. Unilever made a compromise and put the actress in a long skirt and covered her shoulders. “We dressed Sarah Jessica Parker for the winter," a spokesman said.
Yossi Aloni / AP Photo
There were two cabinet ministers conspicuously missing from a photo of new members posing with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres in 2009. Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver, the two women in the cabinet, were photoshopped out of the picture in the ultra-Orthodox newspaper, Yated Neeman, and replaced by men. The weekly paper, Shaa Tova, didn’t go so far as to remove them, but just blacked them out instead. All in the name of modesty. What did they do before Photoshop?
Menahem Kahana,Yated Neeman / AP Photo
The blog, The Society Pages, noticed a strange picture in an ultra-Orthodox paper in 2008. It seemed that there was a picture of little boys photoshopped into a group of kids at an event. They thought they just wanted to make the event look a little more crowded. But after looking a little closer at another picture of the same event, it turned out they hadn’t added children, but just replaced the girls with boys.
Back in 2008, when Tzipi Livni was about to be Israel’s first female prime minister since Golda Meir, there was an outcry after ultra-Orthodox newspapers refused to print photos of her. Modesty was the explanation of choice again. One paper went so far as to refuse to even print her full name. “We might write "Mrs. T. Livni" or just "Mrs. Livni," but the name Tzipi is too familiar. It is not acceptable to address a woman using her first name, especially when she goes by a nickname,’ said a senior editor at Hamodia, an ultra-orthodox daily.
But Golda Meir didn’t seem to encounter the same problem nearly four decades ago.
“To make a difference between Livni and Golda Meir is even more insulting,” said Professor Galia Golan of the Inter-Disciplinary Centre University and a founder of the Israel Women’s network. “It suggests they had no problem with Golda because she was so manly, whereas Livni has honesty, intelligence, integrity—a different kind of politician who represents the feminine side of politics.”
Peter Dejong / AP Photo
Even the former first lady was deemed too scandalous for print. In 2008, a photo in Mishpacha, in Israel scrubbed Laura Bush from this picture. Eerily, the reflection from her bright red blazer was still there.
