Success By Jean Sasson Essay

PRINCESS by Jean Sasson

Jean Sasson, in her book ‘Princess’, narrates the real life accounts of a Princess of Saudi Arabia. Sasson narrates her story with the help of various journals handed to her by the princess herself. It has been said that the name of the princess has been changed in order to protect the princess as well as her children. This book revolves around the subject of the atrocities the women of the Islamic culture face. Princess Sultana reveals a place in which men take up unrelenting dominance over women. She reveals how the women of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world, royalty or lower class, are subject to the outrageous age-old restrictions against women. Various issues were raised in the book and I’m going to
She questions the existence of the female population in her surroundings. She says that nor the birth neither the death of a girl/woman is recorded and this makes her feel as though she does not exist, she has no importance or identity of her own. Sultana is aware that she lives in an unfair society, but that does not stop her from questioning what is right and what is wrong. According to the Quran, men and women should enjoy equal rights but have different duties and different paths. But the men in today’s world have chosen to follow the customs of the dark ages and misinterpreted what has been said in their holy book. Women in conservative societies are expected to bear with all the physical pain inflicted on them and not raise a voice in order to protect the men of the family. No heed was paid to the illegal activities of the men of the kingdom. It is infuriating how the men in these cultures get away with all their misdoings. Sultana mentions how her brother raped a girl as littles as 8 years and when she complained to the elders, they brushed it off as ‘boyish fun’. Is this fair? Is this what women are born for? To bear with the horrendous abuse that the power and dominance crazed men subject them to and not say a word? It boils my blood to only read about all of this, I can only imagine how horrifying it is for those people who go through this. For us it is
No matter how much we deny it, the truth remains that the women of our society experience the same problems that the women in the Arab world do. One may argue and say that India is developing and moving forward and women are no longer treated as inferiors but is this really the case? Aren’t we forming our opinion based on how we, as individuals, are treated? Look at the millions of women in the villages. Those women face the cruelty of the male dominance till date. Female feticide, infanticide, premature marriages, honor killings, the practice of ‘sati’ are common sights in the villages of our country. One of the increasing atrocities against women is that of rape. Every single day tens of women in our country are raped and there is very little that the system is doing to protect the women against these crimes. It is nauseating to read about how brutally the women are treated for no fault of