Newspaper erases Angela Merkel, other women from Paris march photos

(Image credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

If you ask the readers of HaMevaser newspaper, they'll tell you that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo weren't at Sunday's anti-terrorism march in Paris. That's because, citing modesty, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish publication as a standard of practice removes images of women from its pages, even those who are among the most powerful leaders in the world.

Merkel and Hidalgo were completely removed from a published photo of the march while Thorning-Schmidt was cropped out, although — avert your gaze! — her left hand remains in the picture. The same thing happened to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, The Sydney Morning Herald reports, as she was digitally erased from photos taken inside the White House Situation Room during the Osama bin Laden raid.

The Forward says this is all par for the course, with conservative newspapers also routinely removing women from ads and blurring the faces of women and girls pictured in obituaries. In one case, a paper even edited out a pair of women's shoes that were photographed inside of a family's dresser.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.