Malala Yousafzai is one of the most well known education activists in the world. She has contributed so much for women’s education around the world, and was even the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at the age of 17 for her activism. Malala rose to notoriety after getting shot by a member of the Taliban in 2012 for being on a school bus. At 15, she was already outspoken against the Taliban’s crackdown on girls’ education in Pakistan, which made her a target for their violence. After surviving the attack, Malala left Pakistan for Britain, where she continued speaking out against the injustice.
Despite all of the amazing work that Malala Yousafzai has done, including helping 10 million girls continue their education during school closures due to her organization, Malala Fund, she remains the butt of a very cruel joke circulating on social media.
Women in the West, especially in the US, don’t know what it’s like to not have access to an education. Many girls in school take to social media to express their frustrations about school, but in a way that ignores the privilege they have of being in school in the first place. For example, a slew of tweets and TikTok posts have been made in the past four years that berate the work Malala Yousafzai has put in to ensure education for girls around the world. One example posted to X reads, “i f*cking hate school i’m sorry Malala”. The irony does not escape the reader, seeing all of the grammatical errors within the tweet.
It’s easy for girls and women in the US to forget their privilege. I, myself have made my fair share of jokes about wanting to drop out of school whenever I was particularly stressed out. Although there are many issues in the American education system, and it is important to call those out, we as American women have the advantage of mandatory public education. On top of that, being a woman pursuing higher education, puts us at an even greater advantage. Girls in Afghanistan are banned from pursuing education past the age of 12. Almost 500 million adult women are illiterate worldwide. To complain about something that so many girls and women don’t have access to is not only extremely tone deaf, but leads to this separation of the problem. It’s not likely women in the US would care about education on the other side of the world if they don’t even care about their own.
As a woman, it is a privilege to learn. To go to school, to read, to get a degree and a job and money of your own. Only two centuries ago, it was taboo for women to be educated in the US unless they were part of the wealthy elite. To crack jokes about a woman who almost died protecting the rights of girls in Pakistan just because you don’t like going to school is why we seem to be going backwards in this country. With the crackdown on DEI, educational programs that prioritize gender inclusion and diversity are being compromised. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we, as women, keep educating ourselves and fight for the education of women and girls everywhere.