Ikea, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ikea, the furniture retail giant, has issued an apology after a Swedish newspaper reported Monday that the company had removed women from some photographs for its catalog in Saudi Arabia.

Images of women that appear in versions of the catalog, published in 27 languages in 37 other countries, were erased in the edition for customers in Saudi Arabia. This prompted an outcry over the company’s approach to gender inequality that began in Sweden and then spread around the world on social media platforms with thousands of mentions on Twitter alone in the last day.

Birgitta Ohlsson, the Swedish Minister for European Union Affairs who describes herself as a feminist in her Twitter profile, tweeted in Swedish the move was “medieval.”

Conversations about whether Ikea was bowing to pressure from the conservative Islamic state or adapting to the country’s cultural sensibilities took place around the world on social media platforms, including this exchange on Twitter between a journalist and a teenager in Canada.

Ikea has made a disturbing move to “erase” all women from its catalogue that gets distributed in Saudi Arabia: //t.co/VhugWSy6 #cdnpoli — Andrea Houston (@dreahouston) 1 Oct 12

@dreahouston Ikea is not violating any laws or women’s rights by removing women from their catalogues. — Leevan Aden (@Aden401) 2 Oct 12

.@Aden401 Wrong. It is a deliberate effort silence women and make them invisible. That leads to the normalization of violence against women. — Andrea Houston (@dreahouston) 2 Oct 12

In Saudi Arabia, women are not currently allowed to vote, hold high political office or drive. The country’s treatment of women is widely criticized, which is why supporters of women’s rights were troubled by Ikea’s move.

In its statement, a company spokesman said that it regretted the decision. And it noted that the decision to edit the women out of the images was not made by the local franchise owner in Saudi Arabia, where there are three Ikea stores.

“It is not the local franchisee that has requested the retouch of the discussed pictures,” according to the statement issued by Inter Ikea Group. “We will naturally review our routines and working process to ensure that this will not happen again.”

On Tumblr, the incident inspired a meme of photos with women airbrushed out, including an image of Disney’s Seven Dwarfs without Snow White.