quote:Gender bias in IKEA instructions? Norway's prime minister says company should alter brochures that show only men assembling furniture. March 10, 2005: 1:46 PM EST
OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - Swedish home furnishings giant IKEA is guilty of sex discrimination by showing only men putting together furniture in its instruction manuals, Norway's prime minister says.
IKEA, which has more than 200 stores in 32 nations, fears it might offend Muslims by depicting women assembling everything from cupboards to beds. Its manuals show only men or cartoon figures whose sex is unclear.
"This isn't good enough," Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was quoted Thursday as telling the daily Verdens Gang. "It's important to promote attitudes for sexual equality, not least in Muslim nations."
"They should change this," he said. "There's no justification for it."
IKEA stores are visited by 365 million people a year around the world. Many products have to be assembled by the buyer -- the "flat pack" concept saves the company huge amounts in transport, storage and sales space.
Bondevik added: "I myself have great problems with screwing together such furniture."
Verdens Gang quoted an IKEA spokeswoman as saying: "We have to take account of cultural factors. In Muslim countries it's problematic to use women in instruction manuals."
The company, however, is taking issue with the report.
"Both men and women are featured in our product assembly instructions," the spokeswoman told CNN/Money. "We were sorry to see this report."
Now, I'm as much in favour of a bit of Swede-bashing once in a while as the next Norwegian. But this is just silly. OK, he probably needs to take a bit of heat off the Defense Minister, what with the several tens of million of kroner the Army overspent this year, but come on. Couldn't he have changed football clubs, or installed that controversial bishop in Oslo, or something?
Please note, I didn't vote for the guy. With any luck he'll be out on his ear come the fall.
*Contacts embassy to find out how to vote from exile.*
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quote:IKEA, which has more than 200 stores in 32 nations, fears it might offend Muslims by depicting women assembling everything from cupboards to beds. Its manuals show only men or cartoon figures whose sex is unclear.
I'm glad somebody is drawing attention to it. It's not something to go to war over, but I think it's worth a healthy discussion, and if we press hard enough, will probably expose some truly awful views.
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Holy crap, there has got to be SOMEthing else in the world that is more worth getting upset over.
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