Recently i bought a book - Princess.
I was attracted by the book cover, it is the stories about a Saudi Royal Princess and stories that were hidden under the country. And it is a real stories happening out there!
I'm quite concern with the issue of gender equality that i always interested in knowing how this issue are happening in another culture?
Princess Sultana is one of the royal princess, the youngest among the ten children. Since young, she craves for her father's love, which whom only pay attention to his only son. She married Kareem, who is 28, at the age of 17 or 18. They are gifted with a son and two daughter. Her life is full of adventurous which i will further explain...
1. I was being installed with faulty ideas that Arab people are those close-minded, and some of my friends did teased about the way the women have their meal. The women are forbidden to expose their body parts in the public, except to their father, brothers, cousins, husband, and close relatives. They are not allowed to be together in open space, even in the wedding or house garden they are being separated. Arab women generally have a pretty face that the men think that it will cause the men to harass them. So it is better for women to veil their face all the time. However, didn't they think of the possibility that curiousity will be higher for men, and there is a high tendency for men for wanting to view the face behind the veil? And women's life also will be in danger and it is not as what the men claimed to be - to protect their safety.
2. Saudi men valued only their son, of course, there are some exception cases where there are equality of love distributed among sons and daughters, which is still rare. I roughly know about this, but was quite surprise the inequality can happen until to this extreme extend. Sons are pampered and his wishes will be fulfilled, daughters will only be notices and cared by their mother. Women's social status are that low that their whole life is waiting - waiting to get marry, waiting to bear children, and waiting for death.
3. 4 wives law is widely practised in Saudi. It is normal for little girl as young as 12 13, to marry men who aged as their father or even their grandfather. One thing that strike me is, men in Saudi, especially the high class men, and its common for them, to have sex with virgin girls, not only in Saudi, but to travel to other countries 3 times a year just to release their sexual desires!! They can simply buy a girl, like in the story, the mother bring two of her daughters to be slaved to the men! By handling the girls, the poor family can have money to continue their living, as the girls are not valued in the family. They believed that the more children they have, they will gain status and be proud of themselves.
4. Prior to the raping, one small girl is pregnant. She was raped by her brother's friends in a party, and the Friends accused her of attracting them and offered to provide them for sex! After the delivering of the baby, she was being sentenced to death. Her face was covered, and kneel to the ground, where a lorry loaded with stones are there, and the men throw the stones to the girl. In every hour, the doctor will examine the pulse to indicate whether the girl is still alive. After two hours of stone-attacked, the girl finally cant resist the pain and die.
5. Saudi women are not allowed to drive. Around the year 1990, there are some women who start to take off their veil, start standing up and fight for their rights. Of course, there is a case where the girl who drive on the road, are pushed to death by the father. In Saudi, there are one group of religious people who acted like religion police, that people even the royal families tried not to cause troubles to them. So this father, to ensure the family name and safety, in order to avoid all the difficulties, he agreed to exert the death punishment. How cruel is that.
6. Im impressed with Sultana braveness, and she is so different and obviously not those obedient typical Saudi women there. She is fortunate to marry Kareem, her royal cousin, who is more open-minded, but still he is filled with the typical Saudi men characteristics. First, Sultana dare to challenge her only brother, pull his hair and fight with him, without worrying about the consequences; she dared to crawl Kareem's face and kick her groin when he want to have a second wife due to the infertility of Sultana because of her breast cancer. She dare to create lies, and take plane and go to Dubai and pick up her childrens, and go to London for 5 to 6 months away from Saudi, just to take revenge to Kareem.
7. Women are circumcised, to prevent them from enjoying the sexual relationship. It is quite dangerous for the women health as when they will suffer great pain and bleed during intercourse, and when giving birth the scars are tear up again. Things got worse when the surgery is not conducted in hygiene place. The scar is difficult to be healed.
8. One thing that fascinated me is when Sultana is about to have her first child. Famous obstetrician and nurses are hired 3 weeks earlier from London to Saudi; the doctor are paid 50k pounds and a Jaguar, nurses with 5k and jewellery each; rooms in the hospital are renovated (3 rooms combined into one) as the labouring room; police are hired to guard their returning from hospital to the villa after the delivering.
9. Money is not an issue to the royal family. Millions and millions can be spent so easily....
The whole stories just widened my mind about Saudi Arabia. From being conformed to everything the male leader in the family asked, due to the evolution and education, women starts to realize that they have the rights to enjoy the opportunities of what the men have. Many have the misconception that all this is due to the Islamic teaching, but it is not. It is the Saudi men, they want to have full control over the women, to prevent them from crossing the line, to make them to be obedient. Saudi men are quite arrogant as what stated in the book. They do not valued women's effort of transforming, and even forbid them, because they are afraid once the women got their freedom, the men no longer in power. The concept of male and female are so deeply constructed since young, and the sons absorb all these teachings through how the male figure in the family treated the women.
However, i know, this will take ages for Saudi women to gain their independence. As a female born in Malaysia, i feel so lucky although the social inequality still exist, but it is not as strong as in Saudi and other countries. This is culture. This is society. How this two things that will cause differences among cultures, that differentiate us from the others. As the women starts to step out of their boundaries, i sincerely hope that women mistreatment can be reduced, one way is through education, because women deserved treatment which is not harmful to them.
*ps: Saudi is a very rich country that they can spend money like flowing water... Envy evny...
