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Grace Swift

Prof. Kane

English 115TTh1

24 September 2019

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Malala Yousafzai was born in 1997 within Mingora, Pakistan. At the time, girls were

allowed to attend school in Pakistan and her father ran a girls’ school so Malala had the

opportunity to attend school and get an education. However, in 2008, the Taliban took control

and announced that they would no longer allow girls to attend school. Malala decided to fight for

her right to attend school and began speaking out against these new policies. Due to the fact that

she spoke out against the Taliban and brought attention to the violation of rights in that area, she

became a target and was shot in the head in 2012. For her own protection and treatment, she was

moved to England and once she finally recovered she remained in the United Kingdom. She has

continued to speak and advocate for womens’ rights to education and won the Nobel Peace Prize

in 2014, created a charity to help young girls get important opportunities, and currently attends

the University of Oxford, studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Although Malala still

would have been successful in other ways if these incidents and decisions had happened

differently, she wouldn’t have succeeded in becoming a women’s education activist if she hadn’t

spoken out against these unfair laws and if she had given up after being targeted and shot by the

Taliban.

The first choice that Malala had was whether or not she wanted to speak out against what

she and others believed was wrong even though there was a large Taliban presence. She likely
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knew that she would be a target of the group and their violent actions if she publicly denounced

their decisions, however, she still chose to do it. Malala’s first speech began to circulate, shortly

before the girls’ schools were officially shut down in Pakistan and as time went on, she began

blogging for BBC and appearing on television, so many began to follow her efforts for

education. However, if Malala had decided that fighting for women’s right to education had been

too dangerous her life would be very different. When asked, “What would your life be like right

now if you were living in Pakistan without an education?” in an interview with National

Geographic, Malala responded, “I would have two or three children. I’m fortunate that I’m 18

and I’m still not married.When you don’t get an education, your life is very much controlled by

others,” (Yousafzai). Within this quote, Malala gives a glimpse of what her life would be like had

she not advocated for women’s rights to education and eventually moved to the UK.

Unfortunately, this is the reality of life for many girls and women in some parts of the world who

are unable to get an education and, as a result, they are unable or disallowed from getting a job

so they get married and have children. A major factor of this problem is the culture within those

countries because some cultures stress marriage and childbearing for women rather than

education and work, however, some women strive for a different life.

Many people would easily give up their activism if it meant life or death, Malala on the

other hand faced it and fought it. After she was shot in the head in 2012, she went through many

major surgeries and after many months of recovery she spoke at the United Nations. By this

point, Malala had already made an impact and inspired many to protest and fight for girls’

education. Even after an exhausting recovery and life and death situation, Malala still moved

onward and continued speaking about the topic to a broader audience. In 2014, Malala went on
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to win a Nobel Peace Prize at age seventeen, making her the youngest person to have won the

prize. Within her Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Malala said, “I had two options. One was to

remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose

the second one. I decided to speak up,” (Yousafzai). Malala explains that she felt as if she only

had two options to choose from and both ended with death. She, unlike others, decided to try to

make a difference and fight for something she believed in before she was killed. The difference

is, Malala, like other famous activists, faced death and still continued to fight and speak for what

is important.

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