Translator: Bassel Almehman Reviewer: Hélène Vernet
When you look at women in Saudi Arabia,
this is what you see:
black covers,
just like the black cover of a little black book.
But don't they say,
"Don't judge a book by its cover?"
My name is Sofana Dahlan.
I'm all for cat-eye glasses, ice-cream and the color purple,
but mostly, I'm proud to be a Saudi.
In March 2010,
hours after my second daughter was born,
while holding her in my arms,
my three-years-old daughter looked at me and said, "Mommy."
She asked me a question,
and this question made me think about my life,
my experiences, and my identity as a Saudi.
She said, "Mommy, what will Huda be when she grows up?"
At that moment, my new-born opened her eyes for the first time in her life.
She's looking at me as if she's anticipating my answer.
Naturally, my answer would be: "Whatever she sets her mind to be."
But, a more realistic answer would be, "Whatever she's permitted to be."
Tears were filling my eyes.
I was feeling breathless, thinking of what would my answer be.
What are her perspectives? What obstacles will she encounter?
In her case, she'll be a Saudi woman.
Will I tell her if she wants to travel,
or take a job, or study,
she needs a male guardian consent first?
Will I tell her that her choices of education and career are limited?
And will I tell her that she will grow up having limitation on her mobility?
And will I tell her that no matter how successful she is,
the world will still view her as oppressed and marginalized
and look at her with pity
rather than recognizing her achievement?
Well,
we cannot pretend that being a Saudi girl
does not come with limitations and expectations.
But,
wouldn't it be tempting
that she encounters no problems, no obstacles,
no injustice and no frustration?
If we had the power in our hands, wouldn't we grant this wish to our child?
But it's also unwise to disregard
that most of our character is formed by the obstacles,
problems and injustice that we face and overcome.
If anything, the obstacles faced by my mother and my grandmother
are perhaps the reason why I'm here today.
And if anything, I hope that what I've gone through
would actually help my daughters reach further.
The path to achievement has not been an easy one for me.
Throughout the course of my life, I've encountered many problems,
many obstacles and many social barriers.
But, it was precisely this that made me adapt,
made me learn how to be flexible,
and made me reshape my path.
I grew up in Saudi.
I went to a local school. Arabic was the main language.
But my parents invested in enrichment programs after school.
I was a very, very curious child,
asking questions all the time.
The more they were answered, the more questions I generated.
"But why?" was a phrase I continuously used.
By the age of twelve, I was a rebel,
my mother's worst nightmare.
I sat her down one day and said,
"Mom, listen, this needs to stop.
All my friends don't have classes after school."
Her response was:
"The school you go to in the morning is for you to belong
and then understand your society,
and the education you get at home is mandatory for you
to build and develop a personality.
We will negotiate this no further when you're seventeen."
And of course I argued, and got punished.
And it was long past seventeen that I realized that she was right.
When I was in high school, I wanted to study architecture,
because it was not allowed in Saudi and was not provided there.
It was a ticket for me out of there.
Until one day,
I heard the story of a woman
who grew up as an orphan,
married off to a wealthy man.
When he passed away, his children from a previous marriage
forced her out of her house and deprived her from her inheritance.
When she sought help from a male lawyer,
it was used against her.
She was accused that she was having an affair with him,
a sinful act in my country.
At that moment,
I realized
that having a female legal representation is a necessity in my country.
Hence, my reason to study law,
something I really wanted and believed in.
And so, of course,
law was not permitted in Saudi.
I was taking a big risk.
But my father had a vision
that things will eventually evolve in Saudi,
and that women will eventually have the right to be taken in judicial realm.
And so,
I applied for a request to the Ministry of Higher Education,
requesting to study law.
And I was granted.
So, I set off to Egypt.
I enrolled in Cairo University,
one of the first legal schools in the Arab world.
And after that, I completed a master in Islamic studies.
This was such a pivotal point in my life.
I was introduced to many schools of thoughts, philosophical and religious.
And I was exploring women's rights in different religions and sects.
It helped me understand
the framework of where social justice and value operate in my society.
(Sighing)
And of course, after graduation,
the devastation happened.
After graduation, I applied to credit my Egyptian certificate in Saudi.
All my Saudi legal schoolmates received it.
I didn't,
because I didn't have a proof of a male guardian companionship
throughout university.
And I worked as a legal consultant in the back offices.
The frustration started building
because all the people around me got ahead in their careers
and I was still there, useless.
I started feeling more and more devastated,
because I realized that these limitations stopped me
from defending a very dear person to my heart
who was convicted falsely for a crime he had never committed
and sentenced to jail.
And so, I moved on with my life.
I moved on with my life, and I decided to get married,
and on the age of 25, I moved to Kuwait.
And I also started thinking of opportunities.
I wanted to go back to legal practice.
All the legal firms I applied to needed a legal license.
And, I didn't have one,
except for one legal firm.
I was granted, you know, an opportunity to work in corporate law,
only to learn that I was pregnant with a child
that had health complications and needed special care and attention.
So, I decided to put my dream on hold and focus on my child.
The more I tried to make my marriage work, the worse it became.
And,
you know, the hardest moment in life
is not when people don't understand you.
It's when you don't understand yourself.
Who are you?
Who am I? What am I doing? What do I want?
And how will I make a difference?
But the answers to these questions help me identify doors of opportunity.
The trick was in building the steps to reaching these doors.
For me, they consist of having faith,
knowing my strength and ability,
identifying my weaknesses and finding motivation and inspiration,
and mastering creativity.
What is creativity?
Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns
in order to look at things in a different way.
Creativity is redesigning your dream and redefining your mission.
Today, I'm on a mission of innovation, of newness,
of multi-faceted dimension.
I'm engaged in building bridges
and facilitating the path to achievement and fulfillment.
In promoting creativity and innovation
and preserving our artistically rich heritage,
my goal is to contribute to the social development of my region.
In 2010, the same year my second daughter was born,
I decided to be a single mom
and pursue my dream.
I opened a legal and business consulting company
to promote creative entrepreneurs:
Tashkeil, the first platform in the Middle East
that promotes creatives by incubating, facilitating and promoting them.
Tashkeil aims towards reintroducing designers in the Middle East
as an active stakeholder in the global arena.
With that said, I never stopped seeking my right to be recognized as a lawyer.
In 2012, I applied
and on November 24, 2013,
I'm proud to say that I am one of the ten female lawyers
that have ever been granted the right to practice law
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
(Cheers and applause)
Because...
Because I believed in my dream,
because I believed in my choices,
and because I never gave up on my rights.
I believe that this is what my parents saw when they looked at my eyes.
It was reflected on the name they chose for me,
Sofana, which means "the rare pearl."
It's also an attribute to a daughter of a famous fable character in Arabia,
Hatim al-Ta'i,
who is known for his generosity.
Long after his death, she was among the first captives in Islam.
She was held a hostage.
But because of her keen sense of negotiation,
she managed with dialogue to free herself and her people
and submit to Islam willingly.
You see, my culture is embodied in every aspect of me.
And so is resilience, perseverance and challenge.
This is my story,
the story of many other Saudi women who are not recognized
because of the general wrong perception and judgment people have about them.
Today, women in Saudia are leading change.
They're making choices.
There, you see breakthrough in medicine, in science, in art,
in finance and in entrepreneurship.
And today,
looking at my daughters' eyes,
those curious big eyes looking straight back at me,
asking me to make the right choices for them,
until, one day, they can make their choices.
I can say that it was all worth it.
Do you think I grew out of my habit of asking questions?
Of course not.
(Laughter)
What about you?
Do you have the strength?
Do you have the perseverance, the challenge?
And do you have the resilience of the spirit of a Saudi woman?
What do you do to fight injustice?
How do you change laws in your country?
What obstacles are on your path today?
If we can outsmart
the tight rules of a country like Saudia Arabia,
if we can function in a male-dominant system,
work with it and challenge it,
I think you can do it here.
Thank you.
(Cheers) (Applause)