Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

by Jean Sasson

All women learn at an early age to manipulate rather than to confront.

she had found no one who would marry her, so she chose a path of freedom and independence for herself. She smiled as she told us that her deformed foot was a gift from God to ensure that her mind did not become deformed too.

(it was and still is unthinkable for a single woman to live alone in Saudi Arabia),

Presumably, the intellectual achievements of her children were inherited solely from their father.

I

believe that the children of this generation have decayed with the ease of their lives, and that their great fortune has deprived them of any ambitions or real satisfactions.

As it turned out, my rowdy ways ensured that he would go from indifference to open dislike.

decided to attempt the “Saudi” way of manipulation instead of confrontation with my brother.

our land, brilliance in a woman assures her future misery, for there is nowhere to focus her genius.

Mother understood that the four remaining daughters would follow that darkness; there was no power on earth that could stop it.

Sara, in Father’s view, was doing what women are born to do: serve and pleasure the male and produce his children.

In Saudi Arabia, a man must write a letter granting permission for the females in his family to travel.

would be the master of my life, no matter what actions I would have to take or pain I would have to endure.

From this time, I began to live, breathe, and plot for the rights of women in my country so that we could live with the dignity and personal fulfillment that are the birthright of men.

It is never the fault of the man in the Middle East. Even if he murders his wife, the man will state “valid” reasons for his action, which will be accepted by other men without question.

We Saudis are too rich, too settled in our apathy for change.

His hypocrisy was to me the essence of the evil nature of men.

freedom for women in our land.

for no God would wish such grief on women, half of the world’s people.

realized that from that moment, outside my own home I would not experience life as it really is in all its color.

knowledge was the only solution to poverty,

Those who are free cannot fathom the value of small victories for those who live on a tether.