 Click the image to view the Saudi Ikea brochure Women love it and men hate the sight of it. But in Saudi Arabia it seems that Ikea is strictly a male orientated world. The Swedish furniture giant seems to be in hot water after differences in their Saudi based catalogue were uncovered by Sweden's Metro newspaper. It seems the Saudi stores have decided to airbrush out any representation of women from the pages of their brochures. Apparently Ikea's stores in Saudi Arabia are run under a separate franchise and the parent company said that they were unaware of the differences in marketing and promotional materials, and they obviously support equal rights for men and women. The news story highlights a very interesting debate about morals and beliefs. How can people or business organisations say they respect the rights of a foreign land or religion, yet they get their knickers in a twist (no stereotyping or pun intended!) over the internal beliefs and ideologies that foreign land holds? Ikea's unlikely popularity in Saudi was highlighted previously when three MEN were killed in a stampede during a special promotion at Saudi Arabis Jeddah based store in 2004. Think about the following questions:
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