The role of men is crucial for female empowerment: Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai, who recently graduated from Oxford University, participated in an online interview with former Bollywood actor Twinkle Khanna. The conversation was part of a virtual Tweak India Summit that was organised to mark the actor-turned-author’s initiatives’ first anniversary.
The one-day summit featured women from various fields including Vidya Balan, Tahira Kashyap, Chetna Singh Gala, Sudha Murty, Revathi Roy among others.
Malala, who juggles multiple roles of an activist, student, and manages her own organisation, the Malala Fund, shared her empowering story and discussed what kept her motivated despite the criticism. “I was never a celebrity so I never took my fame like celebrities do,” said Malala. “If someone appreciates me I’m grateful, and if someone wants to take a picture with me, I’m like, ‘why not?’”
She then reiterated how for a woman, to be deprived of education meant that she’d be vulnerable to early marriage, sexual abuse, domestic violence and becoming a mother when she herself was a child. “It means her dreams would be taken away from her and that was the worst life I could imagine,” Malala exclaimed.
Malala also recalled the time she’d write blogs for the BBC, anonymously highlighting the situation. But why would she take that risk despite the death threats? “I never thought that I was taking a risk because we were already living in a risk, in a conflict. Every night I’d sleep in the fear of the Taliban, because they could just knock on your door and kill anyone,” she remarked.
Bewildered, Twinkle continued to reinstate how coming to that realisation, for an 11-year-old, had to be a quantum leap. “So there must’ve been someone in your life who guided you towards that space,” she asked. “My father was my inspiration,” responded Malala.
“He had five sisters and none of them could go to school. So he believed that education is empowerment for women. Like a feminist man in action, he would always pay full attention to what I said. He would tell all the elders to keep quiet when a child is speaking, instead of the other way around,” Malala recalled.