Malala Yousafzai and Her Grit
A story of strength showed through a 15 year old girl after inequalities became apart of her everyday life.
By Courtney Demuth | Finance and Spanish Major, Bethel University
Malala Yousafzai laughs with her friends about the school day when the loud school bus thunks on the brakes. Yousafzai screams with fright at the top of her lungs, as the Taliban Soldiers raid her school bus to shoot Yousafzai in the head because she spoke out about women needing education (Mascia). The gun goes off fiercely with the soldiers having no hesitation as if their action logically fit into her life. The rest of the riders on the long yellow school bus root themselves frozen like a tree. Red blood gushes down her saddened face as her cheek fills up with red paint like a portrait from the deep bullet wound in her forehead. Yousafzai creaks open her bloody mouth and screams with determination and motivation which fills her not matured, petite 15 year old body.
What did Yousafzai do to deserve something as cruel as being shot in the head as a little girl by a grown man? As a young girl, Yousafzai stood up for herself in anyway she could (Yousafzai, Ted Talk). So, when she started to notice that women didn’t have equal rights, she began to speak and protest that women needed equal rights and education. At age 12, she started to write a blog about equal rights behind the Taliban’s back, because people did that when they wanted to see a change in the world (Winfrey). Because Yousafzai protested repeatedly, the Pakistani people started to recognize her when she ventured out in public.
As Yousafzai’s fame in Pakistan started to grow, so did her name on the Taliban’s hit list (Baker). She inspired women to notice that they need to have equal rights, just like men. A newborn baby girl being seen as a curse to the mom or family may seem right in their culture, but a newborn baby girl needs to be a happy celebration (Yousafzai). With Gladwellian traits of grit, cultural legacy, and desirable disadvantages, Malala Yousafzai used her wit to become one of the most successful teenagers of this century.
Between Yousafzai and Joe Flom, they both faced difficult obstacles but had the ability to turn their lives around with grit. In the book, Outliers (The Story of Success) by Malcolm Gladwell, it speaks upon a Jewish lawyer growing up in a Jewish family during the Great Depression. Flom knew he had to do well in school in order to be successful, eventually he went to Harvard Law without a college degree and graduated as one of the very top in his class. At the end of his college career, he started to look for possible places he wanted to work; he then realized something. He suffered from discrimination because he labeled himself as a Jew so, he felt like he didn’t fit in at the major New York firms.
“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced” — Malala Yousafzai
Many other Jewish lawyers also had trouble finding jobs, so he joined a smaller firm. Flom and the other Jewish lawyers faced the same difficult cycle: they qualified for the job, they worked great as lawyers, however, they didn’t get hired, which relates back to Yousafzai’s life. She studied well and acted better than Pakistani men, but that wouldn’t be enough to change the status quo. Flom represented grit amazing because he had hatred towards his religion but used that hatred as an inspiration to become a successful business man, nobody stopped him. Flom directly correlates to Yousafzai because time and time again she received negative comments for speaking out about women wanting to have a right to educate themselves. Yousafzai felt the need to be selfless and help her fellow peers when she could’ve fallen back into the wickedness that happened during her childhood.
One of Yousafzai’s famous quotes says, “We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced” (Snyder). The realization of being prohibited to attend school and learn, created a girl with a high level of grit. Speaking in front of crowds as early as 12-years-old would often scare many people. Fears never defined her, they gave her grit, which made her excel in changing the look of females forever.
No matter which country you originate from, China or Pakistan, cultural legacies exists. The impact may be positive or negative on someone’s life depending on how the person interprets it. Yousafzai had many instances where cultural legacy impacted her life, but nothing compared to the legacy of women’s education in Pakistan. In the world, 3 million girls do not attend school and in some cities, which leaders agree with this (ABCNews). To top that off, by the ages of 10–12, 62% percent of Pakistani girls do not attend school anymore, with only 5% of boys not in school (ABCNews). Yousafzai said on her first day of school in the UK: “I think it is the happiest moment that I’m going back to school, this is what I dreamed, that all children should be able to go to school because it is their basic right. I am so proud to wear the uniform because it proves I am a student and that I am living my life and learning (ABCNews).” This cultural legacy impacted Yousafzai in a negative way but she turned a negative act into a positive outcome. As a young girl, she used the confidence that she had in herself and the courage to speak about wrong actions that the government placed on women.
Many of these instances could have stopped Yousafzai from achieving many of the things she achieved in her life, but the negative outcome of the Taliban’s bullet to her fragile forehead made her work harder than before; just like the people who worked on a rice field in China.
Making rice paddies has been a major source of work for Chinese people for years and a representation of the cultural legacy. Building them creates hard work for the people of China (Gladwell 225). Demanding, complicated, dedication, are some of the words that describe the hard work that rice workers go through. Rice farmers need to work stronger than other farmers, by the way they grow rice. Late nights and long hours didn’t stop rice farmers from making the perfect paddy. Does it matter if the rice farmers had to work harder than other farmers? No. Did that stop them from creating marvelous rice paddies? Not at all. Cultural legacies, not going to school as a woman or having to work extra hard to be a rice farmer, can make someone work harder than the rest of their peers. Someone can either choose to live with their cultural legacy (rice farmers) or break free from the stereotypical cultural legacy that creates a worse world to live in (Malala Yousafzai).
“Education is a pathway to opportunity but everyday women and girls face unspeakable challenges in their journeys to a better life. A school is a sacred place, an institution of growth and learning where no child should ever fear violence or retribution” — Ziauddin Yousafzai
Does the month of your birth have an impact on you becoming a successful athlete or another Albert Einstein in school? Do desirable disadvantages motivate people to become someone nobody thought they could be? Well, you have to decide that on your own. For hockey players, this cannot be any more correct. In Outliers (The Story of Success) by: Malcolm Gladwell, he catches the readers off guard by proving that the impact on the performance of hockey players born in January or February compared to November or December makes a big difference (Gladwell, 23). Repeatedly Gladwell shows the readers by different studies that numerous hockey players born in January succeed greater by no coincidence. A study done by Roger Branesly, looked at a 2007 roster of the Medicine Hat Tigers, an elite youth hockey team, and noticed a large number of players born in January, February, or March. Therefore, a hockey player born in October has a harder time being a professional hockey player because a a child born in January has almost a full year more of growth. However, with determination and using desirable disadvantages correctly, someone can be successful regardless of their birthdate. Just like the month of birth for the hockey players, being born a girl or boy creates a major desirable disadvantage for Yousafzai.
“Education is a pathway to opportunity but everyday women and girls face unspeakable challenges in their journeys to a better life. A school is a sacred place, an institution of growth and learning where no child should ever fear violence or retribution” spoken by Yousafzai’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, (Chang). Education makes pathways in the minds of everyone in the world which enables change, no matter how big or how small, it makes something great. Education gives confidence to girls who never had it. Yousafzai used her desirable disadvantage of being a woman to try to change Pakistan’s educational laws. The difficulty of being so young and her gender created a major barrier for Yousafzai, but with the help of her father and family to push her she pursued her dream.
In an article quoted by the reporter Mirren Gidda from Newsweek, “I have never met anybody so eloquent, so passionate, and determined to make a difference. It wouldn’t surprise me if she ended up being the Prime Minister of Pakistan or security-general of the UN (Gidda).” Clearly, she used the negative disadvantages and turned them into positive motivators to change laws and make life more enjoyable. Desirable disadvantages teach that they way you react to something you didn’t plan to happen means more than if it went your way in the first place; it makes people grow. The society that we live in today makes certain things hard for people to accomplish. Self-doubt, jealousy, and regrets are words that symbolize the wall that stops people from being successful (Kim). Selflessness creates something inside everyone which makes a positive dynamic in all aspects. Yousafzai mastered the art of caring about other people when her life seemed worse than anyone’s on the planet. If people like Yousafzai and hockey players born in November or December struggle multiple times, it makes the struggle worth it in the long run (Kost).
Yousafzai, most commonly known for being shot in the head by a Taliban, left a detrimental mark on her life. Not only did she not let that stop her, she chose to not let people define how she lived her life. Today, she attends Oxford University in London, England and studies philosophy, politics and government (Hammond). After she almost lost her life, she chose to stay determined to becoming a female advocate for the education for all women and girls.
At the age of 17 years old Yousafzai won a Nobel Peace Prize being the youngest person for receiving one for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people; the right of all children to have education (Satyarthi). She achieved a lot in her life when she lived for only 17 years, at that time. She achieved things that many people will never do in a lifetime. Selfless Yousafzai won the hearts of people all over the world when she offered to dedicate her life to helping women become something very special. From a little girl born in Pakistan, to winning a Nobel Peace Prize, then going to Oxford University; Yousafzai inspires people of both genders to follow their passions (Nobel Media AB 2014). She already made her mark on this world by helping people and realizing that nobody should go through what she did, as a woman.
Imagine you woke up and the United States government told all of the women that they could no longer go to school, doesn’t matter their race or age, they don’t deserve to be educated. What would you do, as a man or a woman, to help your sister, mother, friends, or anyone you know that identifies themselves as a woman? What would you do in order for women to have the same opportunities men have and be able to create something out of their life? Would you sit back and allow inequality to happen or would you show grit like Jacob Flom or cultivate cultural legacies like the rice paddy farmers or use your desirable disadvantages for other people like Malala Yousafzai? What would you do to make a positive difference in the world?
Work Cited
Baker, Aryn, and Gibson, Megan, and Cooke, Sonia Van Gilder, and Ali, Mehboob. The Fighter Malala Yousafzai. Time International. 2012 Dec. Accessed 3 Apr. 2018.
Chang, Lulu. “Malala’s Father’s Open Letter Is Inspiring.” Bustle, Bustle, 25 Apr. 2018, www.bustle.com/articles/63041-5-powerful-quotes-from-malalas-fathers-open-letter-to-the-parents-of-the-missing-girls-kidnapped. Accessed 06 May 2018.
Gidda, Mirren. “Exclusive: Malala Yousafzai Talks Career Choices and How She Can Still Inspire as an Adult.” Newsweek, 24 Mar. 2017, www.newsweek.com/2017/01/20/exclusive-malala-yousafzai-interview-davos-540978.html. Accessed 09 May 2018.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers. Back Bay Books, 2008. Print.
Kim, Larry. “7 Things That Will Keep You from Being Successful.” Inc.com, Inc., 12 Jan. 2015, www.inc.com/larry-kim/these-7-things-will-keep-you-from-being-successful.html.
Kost, Dominique, and Fieseler, Christian, and Wong, Sut. Finding meaning in a hopeless place? The construction of meaningfulness in digital microwork. Elsevier, 04 Jan. 2018. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.
“If You’re a Girl in Pakistan, What Are Your Chances of Going to School?” ABC News, ABC News Network, 7 Oct. 2013, abcnews.go.com/International/girl-pakistan-chances-school/story?id=20475108. Accessed 04 May 2018.
“Malala Yousafzai — Facts”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 29 Apr 2018, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2014/yousafzai-facts.html. Accessed 29 Apr. 2018.
Mascia, Kristen. “Malala Yousafzai: Girl of Courage.” PEOPLE.com, 19 Oct. 2012, 12:00PM, people.com/archive/malala-yousafzai-girl-of-courage-vol-78-no-18/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2018.
Satyarhi, Kailash. “Malala Yousafzai — Facts.” Nobelprize.org, www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2014/yousafzai-facts.html.Accessed 6 May 2018.
Snyder, Natalie. “I Am Malala: How One Young Girl Changed the World.” Salty Souls Experience, 26 July 2016, saltysoulsexperience.com/i-am-malala-book-review/. Accessed 14 May 2018.
Winfrey, Oprah. “Malala Yousafzai’s Greatest Source of Inspiration.” Oprah.com, 11 Oct. 2015, www.oprah.com/steepyoursoul/malala-yousafzais-greatest-source-of-inspiration. Accessed 29 Apr. 2018.
Yousafzai, Ziauddin. “My daughter, Malala.” TedTalk, March 2014, https://www.ted.com/talks/ziauddin_yousafzai_my_daughter_malala. 04/08/2018. Accessed 12 Apr. 2018.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Courtney Demuth
Courtney Demuth: a freshman at Bethel University from Grand Forks, N.D., seeks an internship at a Finance company, anywhere in the United States, to potentially become a Financial Manager or a CFO. Demuth likes to push herself to run a 5k most days, help people get through difficult situations, and adventure to various countries in Europe by train.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
I learned from Susan Cain’s Book: Quiet to speak up even if you identify as an introvert.
I learned from the movie: Moneyball, that you will only be successful if you truly love what you do.
I learned from Malcolm Gladwell’s: The Story of Success that your birth month does impact if you want to become a hockey player.
Scott Winter taught me that embarrassing yourself creates a more enjoyable life.
I learned from Malcolm Gladwell’s: The Story of Success that where you grew up can give you the power to become a leader one day.
I learned from Malala Yousafzai that you can pursue your dreams, even if everyone seems to doubt you; you need to have faith in yourself.
Scott Winter taught me that the more you incorporate your audience in a speech, the more they will be intrigued by it.
I learned that by giving speeches in front of Scott Winter’s class that the more you prepare yourself, the more confident you will be in front of an audience.
From being in a book club, I learned that everyone reads at a different pace; which makes caring for the club members more prevalent.
I learned from taking an Inquiry Seminar class that you will never be able to know what the next moment in your life will be.
At 3am on an early Wednesday morning, with my black laptop on my lap, tall grey cylinder water bottle in my shaky right hand, and my black/ white headphones blasting Kanye West’s Graduation Album in my ears to keep me awake. I learned that going to a Bethel University baseball game at the U.S. Bank Stadium is worth staying up late to finish Scott Winter’s outrageously long homework to-do list.
