Malala Yousafzai's Prejudice Against Women

The courageous woman and youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai, once said, “We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.” This thoughtful statement is one that is hard for people everywhere to relate to their everyday lives and the current state of the world because they are unaware of its sheer importance. While many groups of people have been discriminated in the world, one of the most prevalent lingering discriminations is that against women. Many people, specifically in the United States, refuse to believe that this type of prejudice still exists since, legally, rights have been given to women. However, there still seems to be unfair opportunities and overlooked injustice on this subject. Similar to what

One case in particular that has an extreme need for progress is the women of Afghanistan. The traditional treatment of women in Afghanistan is nothing less than that of livestock. They live their lives knowing that their parents would have preferred them to have been born a boy rather than a girl, then they get sold into a marriage from their fathers to their new husbands. For the rest of their lives beaten and abused whilst trying their hardest to conceive a boy (though it’s physically impossible to determine gender based on will, their society believes otherwise). Because of this injustice, some young girls in Afghanistan are given the decision by their parents to live their childhood as a boy, what’s known as a bacha posh. This uncommon display was explained by author Jenny Nordberg in her novel, The Underground Girls of Kabul, “officially…do not exist, but one degree beyond the foreign-educated Kabul elite, many Afghans can indeed recall a former neighbor, a relative, a colleague, or someone in their extended family with a daughter growing up as a boy”. (Nordberg 66) It is astounding that these little girls’ futures are so dim, that they would rather spend their lives up until puberty as males instead of females. However, no one would blame them or their parents for that decision because they all know the reality of the situation. Parents would not want to face the shame of bearing a girl and the girls would obviously want to have more privileges and freedoms. It makes sense, but it should never have to come to that point. This inequality is also explained in a Pakistan Daily Times article titled, Afghan Women: sold like a goat, treated like a dog. The text told of a young girl who was married off by her father at the age of 13, tried to run away from her husband at one point. The woman ended up seeking refuge at the police