Flatbusher: “Isn’t that the underlying reason why women’s pictures are not published in frum publications?”
No! The underlying reason is it serves as a shtemple of faltche frumkeit. It has become the norm that charedi publications dont have pictures of women, therefore to be considered a Torah-True TM publication you cant have pictures of women. It has zero to do with tznius as DY points out ” the type of picture a frum publication would print is highly unlikely to be an issue.” And in Merkel’s case it is completely unlikely.
This is why people get upset over this. Of course they can exclude women or anybody they deem objectionable in a any way. That isnt the real issue. However when it becomes an international story, if it was based on halacha, who cares what the international community says! But when it is based on faltche frumkeit, it is upsetting