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."
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Posted by Muddy at March 10, 2005 12:40 PM | TrackBackOk, 1st off: Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik needs to get another hobby. Hey, I know! How about performing his actual duties that come with the position of being Prime Minister instead of whining and bitching about something so stupid and trivial.
2ndly: An instruction manual's function is NOT to promote equality. It exists simply for the purpose of...well, gee....giving you directions through a certain procedure. In this case, showing someone how to put together a piece of furniture.
3rdly: Just because the manual shows only men assembling this stuff (BTW, the article mentions that the *product assembly instructions* part does show both men and women....which makes this argument even MORE asinine) does not mean you have to abide by the pictures given and actually have a man do it for you! I mean, for pete sakes! There's a cookbook that I use quite often when I bake. It has a woman on the cover. So does this mean that I should raise a big stink and complain that since a man is not on the front that it is offensive towards my husband? Get real people, get a real life and find a *legitimate* complaint!
Next!
Posted by: mrs. muddy at March 11, 2005 12:37 AMUmm as far as *I* am concerned, IKEA should have the right to put any legal adult in it that they wish and who agrees to their picture being shown. The government shouldn't have ANY involvement in that choice.
Posted by: skywalker at March 12, 2005 09:50 AMAhh Yes, that is an excelent point as well (although, I do not know how the government works over there as far as how much "control" they have over things). I also agree with your point. It just personally never ceases to amaze me that with all the problems and real tragedies going on in this world every day that there are still people out there who will pick thee *dumbest* things to gripe about.
Posted by: mrs. muddy at March 12, 2005 01:58 PMI didn't mean that from a standpoint of how government works, I meant it from a moral standpoint. It also has far reaching economic effects, government interference == high costs of compliance == lower profits == fewer dollars with which to pay employees == fewer employees.
Posted by: skywalker at March 12, 2005 03:30 PM"... I meant it from a moral standpoint."
Actually, I realized that from the start....I just simply threw the government thing in as a "side thought". Hey, these side thoughts pop in my head quite often and since I have to do *something* with them, I just throw them anywhere. But it would be interresting to know the extent of government involvement in these things (if there's any at all), of course, I'm not going to go out of my way to find out either as I don't care all *that* much about it.
Posted by: mrs. muddy at March 12, 2005 05:58 PM