Malala, others on front lines in fight for women
updated 8:37 AM EST, Thu January 10, 2013
Malala Yousafzai leaves a hospital Friday in Birmingham, England. She was treated there after the Taliban shot her in the head.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Gayle Lemmon: Taliban failed to stop education advocate Malala Yousafzai by shooting her
- Lemmon: Similar attacks on other women and girls trying to reach their goals were fatal
- Attacks are efforts to stamp out women's progress, rights and potential, she says
- She says potential of half the population will not be realized if violence is tolerated
Editor's note: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
is a fellow and deputy director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program
at the Council of Foreign Relations. She wrote "The Dressmaker of Khair
Khana," a book that tells the story of an Afghan girl whose business
created jobs and hope during the Taliban years.
(CNN) -- The girl the Taliban wanted dead has not
only survived but was able to walk out of the hospital last week. But
other highly publicized, vicious attacks on women and girls have not had
such triumphant outcomes.
Malala Yousafzai's ordeal
is not over yet: Doctors say the 15-year-old campaigner for girls'
education, whom gunmen shot in the head as she rode a school bus in
Pakistan, will be readmitted in late January or early February for more
cranial reconstructive surgery.
She left the hospital
just days after gunmen attacked a van in Pakistan's Swabi District, less
than an hour from the capital, and killed six women and one man who worked at a children's community center.
Five of the dead were teachers; two were health care workers. The
center, a charity, offered a school for girls and vaccinations for
polio, among other diseases, along with maternal health treatment.
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Yet another attack
unfolded around the time of Malala's release. India is reeling from the
death of a woman who dreamed of becoming a doctor. Brutally gang raped,
mutilated and thrown from a bus, the physiotherapy student later died in
a Singapore hospital. Her name was not made public in India, but her
cause electrified the nation. Her father, who sold family land to move
his family to Delhi from rural India to help his daughter realize her
education dreams, is left heartbroken.
"She wanted to be a
doctor and said it was only a matter of a few years and that when she
was a doctor (all our suffering), it will end,'" her father told the BBC. "I remember asking her once, 'Who are all your friends?' She replied, 'Dad, it's only my books I am friends with.'"
Malala's next phase of recovery
Malala Yousafzai walks from hospital
Gang-rape case unleashes fury in India
Discrimination begins in the womb
What all of these attacks
have in common, along with their brutality, is that they are attempts
at extinguishing the talent and potential of women -- or half of the
population. In a world that needs every doctor it can find, every
educator and politician who is willing to tackle the status quo, these
young women offered a glimpse at a brighter future in which all can
contribute.
No less than investment
oracle Warren Buffett made that very case recently, referring to the
United States, which has seen its share of less brutal attempts to hold
women back.
"What a waste of human
talent; 50% of the talent of the country we pushed off in a corner for
almost 200 years," he said in an interview with Melinda Gates. "It is
one of the things that makes me optimistic about the future -- we are
getting to the point we are starting to realize we need to use 100% of
our talent -- it makes me very optimistic, but we still have a way to
go."
His words echoed those of the World Economic Forum in its annual Gender Gap Report.
"The key for the future
of any country and any institution is the capability to develop, retain
and attract the best talent," the report said. "Empowering and educating
girls and women and leveraging their talent and leadership fully in the
global economy, politics and society are thus fundamental elements of
succeeding and prospering in an ever more competitive world."
Until now these horrific
attacks on women and girls, attacks I have written about concerning
Afghanistan, have been seen as shameful and isolated incidents. But they
are a shared loss in a globalized world.
These young women and
their legacies -- Malala, who will continue her fight, and the others,
who will not -- are on the front lines of deciding what our world looks
like. Will young women who speak out on the need for education be
stopped or celebrated? Will girls who dream of becoming doctors stay
alive long enough to do so? And when will we realize that their battle
is one shared by everyone who dreams of a safer, more stable, more
prosperous world in which more people have a stake? Perhaps Buffett's
words will help enlist more fighters in the cause. Because the economic
and human rights stakes are high.
Increasingly the world
is recognizing the value and the contributions of girls and women. But
progress is slow while violence is tolerated. And as the attacks in
Pakistan show, educating girls remains a potentially deadly line of
work.
"They wanted to kill
her," said her father not long after gunmen shot his daughter. "But she
fell temporarily. She will rise again. She will stand again." He was
right.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
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RockyRetired • 19 hours ago
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