Research Paper On Malala Yousafzai

Malala: Standing Up Peacefully for the Rights of Women

Mathew Manglona

Women In The Muslim World

May 10, 2015

Imagine being threatened and denied to go to school when you are younger. Malala is a significant figure in history because she proved to the world that despite women’s position in Muslim society, she was able to voice her opinion and reveal the problems of oppression from the Taliban within her culture. Malala Yousafzai, an activist for women’s education, fought and continues to fight for freedom and her peers with peace and patience. Her right to a proper education was taken away from her at an early age. She harnessed the power of the internet to show the rest of the world the struggles she and many others of her homeland had to deal with. Malala inspired many people around the world to do the same and raise their voice.

Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997 in the Swat District of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She was born into a Sunni Muslim family of the Pashtun ethnicity. Her first name, Malala, means “grief-stricken” and she was named after Malalai of Maiwand, a famous Pashtun warrior woman and poet from southern Afghanistan. In her home of Mingora, she lived

Huma Yusuf, a columnist from the “Dawn” newspaper publication, summed up the most complaints of Malala’s critics. These complaints included the opinions that her fame highlighted Pakistan's infamous rampant militancy, that her campaign for education echoed agendas of Western society, and that the West’s admiration of her is hypocritical because they overlook the plight of other victims, that include casualties of United States drone strikes. These criticisms gloss over her actual accomplishments and paint her as a puppet of the west. Her critics fail to understand that her goals and ambitions seek to give strength to more than just the Western world, but to the whole world in