Want to read something sad? And at the same time infuriating?
In Saudi Arabia, a lot of people are fascinated by Ivanka Trump. Especially the women, because some of them see themselves in her...
Because
****“Ivanka Trump is an aspirational icon for many Saudi women: traditional wife and mother of three, balancing not just a career but also a family business many women here relate to because the only way for them to get ahead was to rely on a support network, chiefly their fathers.
In Saudi Arabia, the culture is stacked against you to become a successful woman with a long career. A lot of these women have successful fathers who mentor them, give them jobs in their businesses,” said Muna AbuSulayman, host of the popular Saudi talk show “Softly Speaking.” “There’s a lot of similarities between her and successful women in Saudi Arabia.”
The kingdom has women in leadership roles at the stock exchange, banks, newspapers and ministries. Most come from powerful families that helped them flourish. AbuSulayman said many here see Ivanka Trump working with her father in the White House as chipping in, “providing support.”
“She’s like us,” AbuSulayman said." ****
So "Abu Ivanka" is a role model to them. Not women who have made it on their own - because that isn't an experience they can relate to - because the women in S.A. need a powerful male relative to allow them the opportunity to achieve a measure of success.
They are excited. I'm sickened.
Ivanka Trump is probably flattered. Probably thinks she is empowering women.
It's sad and infuriating all at the same time.
= new reply since forum marked as read
in their own right...it's all a reflection of some man. Usually, their father.
was in Saudi Arabia. You could hardly find two more different women to admire, as Oprah is a self-made success, rose from a background of poverty and abuse, and worked smarter and harder to achieve her success.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/world/middleeast/19oprah.html
...."When “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was first broadcast in Saudi Arabia in November 2004 on a Dubai-based satellite channel, it became an immediate sensation among young Saudi women. Within months, it had become the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and younger, an age group that makes up about a third of Saudi Arabia’s population.
......
Some women here say Ms. Winfrey’s assurances to her viewers — that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value — help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence.
“Oprah dresses conservatively,” explained Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a co-owner of a women’s spa in Riyadh called Yibreen and a daughter of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. “She struggles with her weight. She overcame depression. She rose from poverty and from abuse. On all these levels she appeals to a Saudi woman. People really idolize her here.”
.......
“Many of us feel that the solutions for our problems have to come from outside,” Ms. Muhammad said. When President Bush visited Saudi Arabia in January, she continued, as an example, his presence briefly became a locus of hope for Saudi women. “A lot of women were saying that they wished they could talk to Bush about problems like forced marriage, about how our children are taken away if our husbands divorce us.”....
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