Shirine Ghazali

English 102
Professor Sara B.
3/13/2022

Response essay Draft 2 “Watching Oprah from Behind the Veil”

Jeff Jacoby, the author of “watching Oprah from behind the veil”, writes this text to demonstrate
to Americans, how most Arab women live in the Gulf, as the main purpose. Saudi women look
up to Oprah Winfrey as an idol because she endured, went through abuse, and was treated
unjustly. The author uses evidence, style, and structure to inform the reader of how the lives of
Saudi women differ from Oprah’s life.
The author Jacoby, 2008, uses examples and news reports to prove his point that Saudi women
are being treated badly and unfairly. The audience reading this text would be people interested in
how Arab women’s lives are different than Americans’ lives. The author starts his text by talking
about how Oprah is being called the most influential person to ever exist and has proven that
being a female does not stop you from being successful and overcoming the past. the author uses
expels from newspapers and magazines to help send out his ideas on women living in the Gulf, a
recent example he states in paragraph 13, is how a man was lashed 90 times because he hired a
woman to talk on the phone for his restaurant. The author uses this real-life example because it
helps the audience better grasp what’s actually going on in Saudi Arabia and how women are
oppressed into not even finding a decent job because of the religious police.
Furthermore, the author also mentions Oprah’s past, because it is was pushed her to become an
extremely successful person in the media. Oprah was a victim of abuse and neglect and was
raped multiple times by close family members. The author compares her past to the current lives
Saudi women face every day, the segregation and sexism these women have to endure all the
time.
Moreover, the author discusses challenges in women's life, beginning with Saudi women and
how they are treated unequally. Jacoby argues that Saudi women's lives are unpleasant because
they are denied fundamental human rights and therefore unable to make their own life choices,
decisions. Oprah Winfrey is a self-made billionaire whose self-assurance, self-improvement, and
devotion inspire others. However, this does not remove the fact that she has faced difficulties
throughout her life. “She was born to a single parent, a housemaid in pre-civil rights Mississippi,
grew up in poverty, was sexually molested, and eventually fled home as a teenager.” (Watching
Oprah from Behind the Veil, Jacoby, Jeff 2008) (Paragraph 10). The author uses a style of
compare and contrast and uses rhetorical questions to help make the audience understand better
the difference between the women. For example, a question he asks is in paragraph 12 “Could
Oprah herself have surmounted such pervasive repression?” (Watching Oprah from Behind the
Veil, Jacoby, Jeff 2008) (Paragraph 12). He compares the lives of Saudi women and the lives of
Oprah and then he states the differences, women in Saudi Arabia always need a man with them
like a legal guardian in everything even in a car where women are not even allowed to drive.
Arabian women are not permitted to make such a step to better their life since they lack basic
rights. Nonetheless, Arabian women admire Oprah because she brings fresh thinking to their
constricted and veiled society, and Oprah's support makes Arabian women feel better in a
gender-segregated culture, according to Jacoby.

The author uses compare and contrast and writes his essay in an arranged way and uses rhetorical
questions and methods to help the audience better understand his point of view on his topic, his
style of writing clearly explains how the lives of Saudi women differ and also relate to Oprah’s
Winfrey’s life.