What does a woman represent to all of us? For some, a woman is an association with a mother, with care and support, for some a woman is an association with good food, while for some a woman represents a hero. For me, every woman is a hero. Unlike men, we are born with a burden and expectations.
We have to be beautiful, we have to be educated and have a career, but we also have to be housewives, good mothers and good wives. In all these “musts”, it seems as if no one asks what it is that we really want to be? What is it that brings a smile to our face and what fulfills us?
Breaking Free from Stereotypes
Different upbringings, religions and environments in which we live test women in different ways. I believe that there should be a unique model for everyone – we must dare and be able to live the way we want. We must not allow men to decide how we will dress, whether or not we will cover our body parts. We must not allow them to prevent us from being educated.
Women have given their lives so that we can have the right to live better today, but unfortunately we have not yet tasted all of it. Therefore, we need to be together regardless of where and how we live, we need to encourage each other and work for each other. We must believe that we can do everything we set our minds to and that we are good enough for everything.
We are good enough to be engineers, astronauts, doctors. We are all that, and after that we are mothers too. Our bodies create new lives and that makes us heroes. However, if someone is not a mother, she is no less a hero, she is just a hero in some other segment of her life.
Celebrating the Heroines Among Us
I believe we need to give more space to women who are brave and represent the heroes of our time. One of them is Malala Yousafzai – an education activist and the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Malala was born in 1997 in Pakistan, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She became known as a young woman because she advocated for education rights, especially for girls.
She began her journey into activism in 2008 when, as a ten-year-old girl, she wrote for the BBC under the pseudonym Gul Makai. She described life under Taliban rule and at a time when they banned girls from being educated. Her bravery was evident even then, and most of all in the moments when she was attacked by the Taliban and shot. Although seriously injured, she managed to recover and continue her activism. Her courage found its way to global support, and she became an icon of education and courage.
Malala was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, making her the youngest laureate in Nobel Prize history.
Malala is just one of us. Malala has paved the way for many girls and women not to give up on their dreams. We can be anything we want in this world, as long as we have each other and as long as we believe in each other.