Oprah Winfrey is termed as the world’s most influential woman and a great black philanthropist. Oprah is a producer, an actress, a media proprietor and a talk show host having her television show “Oprah Winfrey Show” aired in most the countries of the world on TV stations. The show has granted her a name “multi-award winning talk show”. Winfrey has undergone some hardships in her childhood, being raped at a tender age of nine, pregnant at fourteen and experiencing the death of her son. This has been quite painful for her. Winfrey was born in rural town near Mississippi, USA in a very humble family raised by a single mother and later they moved to the inner-city neighborhood called Milwaukee. Winfrey has various stages in life before getting in to the TV show. Being in high school she got the first job co-anchoring local evening news. She was later transferred to the day-time talk show arena and she also boosted a third-ranked local Chicago talk show to the first place. Oprah became globally syndicated after she launched her own invention. Women in South Arabia face many challenges and are treated like properties rather than human beings. There is no freedom for socialization, economic freedom and political freedom, which means that they are bond by past cultural practices that have no influence in the modern lifestyle.
However, Oprah is said to give a free rein to the affirmation customs, promoting person- centered approach, divisive ideas, though she has triumph over harsh conditions to become a backer to others. Having been credited with coming up friendly confessional structure of media statement, Oprah is thought to have been revolutionized and popularized. In the mid 1990s, Winfrey reinvented her show largely focusing on holiness, self-improvement and on text. By stimulating people to deal with or to get acquainted with the real truths of the world, Oprah is extensively known for bringing certainty to people. The Saudi women have been revealed to emerge as captives and being scrupulously controlled by the men as women have no rights, opinions and roles in their own country. One cannot easily compare Oprah Winfrey and a Saudi woman as their lifestyles are different as well as their characters (“Saudi Arabia and Its Women”, NYTimes 2010). Oprah is well-known individual and culture does not dictate on her popularity. While Saudi women are not permitted to leave their homes without enclosing their faces round, and obscuring their body in a shroud. In the New York Times, there is an article about Oprah’s devotion of Saudis fan base. Winfrey is enamored with economics unlike Saudi women who ignore the dog-eared copies of O: the Oprah Magazine. Oprah serves as a brainwave of hope and inspiration for most women who feel spellbound. She is popular in the United States and in Saudi Arabia. Through her sexual abuse in her childhood, Oprah is trying to break the Saudi Arabia’s rules and strike their authorities, moreover, she gives the advice for the Saudi women about various issues of coping with marital strife as well as the issues involving childhood sexual abuse. In Saudi, some topics are rarely or privately discussed like sex and race and there is a strict code of public mortality which is enforced by the religious police who are termed as hai’a. Also in Saudi the sexes are strictly divided to avoid any relations between themselves.
Oprah is so much idolized by the women in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi princess by the name Reema bint Bandar al- Saud explains that Oprah dresses so conservatively, as she had struggled with her weight. Oprah had overcome the depression that she was brought up in poverty and abuse. They consider Oprah as a direct example of themselves. Winfrey’s dog-eared copies of her official magazine O, which is not sold in the kingdom, women pass around them when they go for trips abroad. The largest women’s magazine that is in circulation in Saudi is the Sayidaty. Oprah’s assured the Saudi Arabian women that no matter how abusive or restrictive their circumstances may be they can all take their lives under the control in very small steps. The creation of values in their life will result into the ability to find the real importance in their covered and confined survival. Her lifestyle is admired by the women of Saudi Arabia. Her change of style, h clothes and hairstyles are enthusiastically analyzed by the ladies who have different social backgrounds and income. The women also talk about Winfrey’s show and the show’s guest which is aired twice each day on MBC4 and has incorporated some self-improvement tips and family relationships advice. The Saudi Arabian women see Oprah Winfrey as a source of hope for them and a person that will bring change to them. Sometimes the women there wait that the President George Bush or someone else will come to their country and they will unburden their hearts. The Saudi woman is not allowed to vote and was not allowed to travel without permission from their husbands or a male guardian. Moreover, it is a taboo for a Saudi woman to drive or ride a bicycle and they have to dress according to the Islamic religion and the males should not shake hands with the females. The females have to cover themselves from head to toes and leave only the eyes to be seen. A Saudi woman by the name Ms. Muhammad describes Oprah as a magical word for women who want to be heard and who also want to scream out loud. She further says that Saudi needs more Oprahs of itself who will help the women to set up working as social workers or judges. She related this with the case of Qatif girl who had received a royal pardon after she had become an international media cause célèbre and her cry for help was heard by someone from outside the country.
There is a Saudi saying that “it is the culture not the religion” this explains that the culture is what encloses the Saudi women’s empowerment and not the Islamic religion. This has led to the depression of women in Saudi. Oprah’s influence has stimulated many of them to split up with their spouses in the male-dominated society. Saudi Arabia just degrades the women instead of developing and revolutionizing the government in order keep up with the evolving world. Women in Saudi Arabia do not have the right to make even a simple decision on their own as they are treated by the country’s law like children who cannot even be trusted with authority over their very own well-being. This also challenges them from involving themselves in politics as no woman is believed to make contributions or changes in the country. There has been an unlikely role model that has been unveiled by Oprah Winfrey according to a recent New York Times Story. In this story, Oprah is said to have exposed the petition of Americas Iconic talk-show host for the marginalized women of the Arabian Peninsula. The Saudi Women’s devotion has made the Oprah Winfrey’s show to be aired twice a day in the common station in the kingdom.
Summary
Oprah Winfrey has the message against women degradation. No one would ever think that such woman as she could be independent. It was her teenage life that made her toil hard for her success and say no to women molestation. The Saudi woman lives in a culture that torments them both mentally and physically. This is what Winfrey is calling upon all women should be independent and push away the thoughtless men. Oprah’s show has the strand of acquisitiveness which is acutely challenging. Winfrey has got the key to her every success as she escaped from the background she was from. She owns her own plane and nothing keeps her off from flying it. The plane she owns came from nothing material but from her owns determination and faith.
The Saudi women should accept the fact that they live in a male-dominated society which is very difficult to control or to have a say on them unless they unite and stop the culture depression. Most of the women as they watch or after watching Oprah Winfrey’s show do hope and aim at having the responsibility of what Oprah has done so as to liberate themselves from the shackling state of affairs in which they were born and going as far as their talents can take them in the future.