LISTEN: One Young Saudi Woman Speaks Out

“As a Saudi woman, you have to get permission to go to university or get married. It’s one of the things we have to deal with.”

This is how Majd Abdulghani describes her experiences as a woman in Saudi Arabia in an exclusive interview for Radio Diaries, a nonprofit project which provides individuals with audio recorders and enables them to document their lives and experiences in their own words. For two years—from age 19 to 21—Abdulghani recorded her days with a microphone.

In the segment, released on NPR earlier this month, her recordings give us a rare glimpse into the life of a young woman from Saudi Arabia—a country where women were just recently granted the right to vote and the struggle for women’s autonomy is still being fought each day. We follow her from karate practice to time in the science lab to discussions of arranged marriages.

Tune in!

 

About

Juliette Faraone studied digital media and film at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College before earning her BA in comparative literature from the University of Evansville. In addition to being an editorial intern at Ms., she is a staff writer for Screen Queens. Her work has also appeared at Lesbians Over Everything, Slant and The Zusterschap Collective. In her spare time, Juliette watches Netflix via Skype with her girlfriend and three cats.