Thank Heaven for Little Girls

Now, I am an old school feminist, so the way Democrats are carrying on one would think that we were still living in some 1950’s alternate universe. I could tell you stories, my friends, about my experiences as a young woman starting out in the world but I won’t bore with my tales of the ‘60s and ‘70’s and the way women were treated “way back when”. As we fight our faux “War on Women” this election cycle, there are women fighting real wars for their lives. There are real wars on women going on in other parts of the world that should make every woman in America get down on her knees and thank God that she was born here and to feel ashamed at how whiny we have become.

No doubt you have heard about Malala Yousafzai. She is the bravest woman I know. Well, actually not quite a woman, but a 14 year-old child who had the unfortunate luck to be born a girl in an Islamic country, more specifically Pakistan. She has been very vocal about her desire to get an education. This is what she said in a CNN interview last year:

I have the right to an education. I have the right to play. I have the right to sing. I have the right to talk. I have the right to go to the market. I have the right to speak up. I shall raise my voice. If I didn’t, who would?”

She did speak out. She spoke out loudly and strongly. And because she fearlessly spoke out, this brave 14 year-old woman-child has become such a threat to the Taliban in Pakistan, that last week, Taliban assassin/thugs boarded her school bus and shot her in the head and neck along with two of her friend right in front of her classmates. Yes, they shot a 14 year old girl because she was a threat to the Taliban.

This is what the Taliban official had to say:

We targeted her because she would speak against the Taliban while sitting with shameless strangers and idealize the biggest enemy of Islam, Barack Obama."

They vow that, given another chance, they will kill her. Mercifully, she has been spirited to somewhere in England to be treated by 21st Century doctors, but there has already been one reported attempt to silence her even in England. Women in Pakistan are furious and have taken to the streets. Reaction around the world has been intense and loud. Reaction in the US has been...well...tepid and shockingly self-serving.

Disappointingly, President Obama has said very little. President Obama, whose own daughter is about Malala's age, says nothing. This would have been the perfect time to used a line like "She could be my own daughter", but not a peep.

In May, he made this statement to leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan:

"We have made it clear that that they can be a part of this future if they break with Al Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by Afghan law."

I guess killing little girl means that this brave message got lost in the mail.

VP Joe Biden even had this to say last year:

"Look the Taliban, per se, is not our enemy. That's critical."

Okay, Joe, what's critical is that they are now assassinating 14 year-old girls and we do nothing.

Even entertainers who ALWAYS speak out about everything including our "War On Women" have been silent. Oh, Madonna took off her clothes off in solidarity, but then it is hard to tell whether it was in solidarity or just because she always takes her clothes off. Okay, she did have "Malala" tattoo'ed on her back, but I still think it was just an excuse to...take her clothes off.

But most egregiously, N.O.W. that organization that has been fighting for the rights of women since I was a child, took this time to just be self-serving and bizarrely stupid:

"One in every 30 girls and young women age 12-14 in the US is a victim of violent crime accornding to the US Department of Justice."

Yeah, okay, but here's the big difference which whoever runs N.O.W. failed to connect. Our girls and young women are not being targeted for assassination by the US Department of Justice! Their statement just makes me ashamed that I ever considered myself a feminist.

Thank Heaven for little girls like Malala Yousafzai. While pampered women in the US shamelessly use the phrase "War on Women" to fight over vague wage disparities, already-won abortion rights, and free birth control, there are girls in this world who are willing to die in a real war on women just for the right to learn to read and write or to walk outside alone. As Malala said, if she does not do it, who will? Sadly, Malala's injuries may be permanent and at this point she is unable to speak. Her doctors are hopeful, but until she can speak for herself again, we must speak for her. We must speak up for ALL the girls like her who just want to live their lives as they choose.

Update: I read a report this morning that Malala is doing better and her doctors are hopeful that she may make a a full recovery. She woke up Tuesday from an induce coma and has been able to walk with help and is still able to read and write.