From The Local, a newspaper covering Swedish news in English.
Protests from female soldiers have led to the Swedish military removing the penis of a heraldic lion depicted on the Nordic Battlegroup’s coat of arms.
The armed forces agreed to emasculate the lion after a group of women from the rapid reaction force lodged a complaint to the European Court of Justice, Göteborgs-Posten reports.
But although the army was eventually happy to make the changes in the interests of gender equality, the artist who designed the insignia was less than pleased.
“A heraldic lion is a powerful and stately figure with its genitalia intact and I cannot approve an edited image,” Vladimir A Sagerlund from the National Archives told Göteborgs-Posten.
Sagerlund blasted the army for making changes to the coat of arms without his permission.
“The army lacks knowledge about heraldry. Once upon a time coats of arms containing lions without genitalia were given to those who betrayed the Crown,” said Sagerlund.
But the castrated lion has already won the day and is now worn on the arms of all soldiers in the battle group’s Swedish battalions.
“We were given the task of making sure the willy disappeared,” Christian Braunstein from the army’s ‘tradition commission’ told Göteborgs-Posten.
“We were forced to cut the lion’s willy off with the aid of a computer,” he added.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:15PM
Tough for the king of the jungle.
Louis XVI might have gone with that, though.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:19PM
Um, don’t lions also have other indicators of sexual dimorphism, like the male’s mane? That’s still a pretty male-looking lion to me. How about a more Swedish animal, like a reindeer — both male and female reindeer have antlers.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:32AM
Antlers are far too phallic, whether appearing on a male or female… I think the easier thing to do is turn the lion into a kitty.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:27AM
How about a lemming? They have many there.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:13PM
I think what’s important is the symbolism of the lion rampant, without the penis:
"Once upon a time coats of arms containing lions without genitalia were given to those who betrayed the Crown," said Sagerlund.
I can only just barely believe the Swedish Army is so devoid of tradition that it would indicate, at least to those with a smattering of history, that it was composed of traitors. I mean, sheesh.
December 15th, 2007 at 6:41PM
Guys, The next time you send your nude pictures through he internet, don’t forget to remove your "willy" with a computer. The lion’s a male with a penis. "David" is a beautiful sculpture with a penis.
Come on, ladies … if it weren’t penises, there wouldn’t be LADIES!
December 16th, 2007 at 4:20AM
Is this surprising to anyone? Women probably have daily fantasies about castrating men. Here, since they couldn’t castrate a guy, they picked on a poor lion.
December 16th, 2007 at 9:13AM
Ridiculous; sounds like a hoax to me.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:12AM
Shall we remove the breasts from images of female icons? I should hope not!
December 20th, 2009 at 5:08PM
[...] the Swedes, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a [...]