Taliban try to kill 14 year old girl

I get very angry when I hear complacent Western women saying there is no longer any need for feminism - they seem to think it is about trivialities , rather than life or death for billions of women.
This is not about religion - it is just about men wanting to control women, and using religion as an excuse.

Such a tragic situation for a very brave and intelligent young woman.

I think living in a country with the Taliban must be hell for a woman - I don't know how they can stand it.

It's not helped by those Western governments who have interfered in this country happily asserting that "things" are much better for women in Afghanistan (or Iraq) now. They're pretty dire for this girl and many other girls and women.

So glad to see her surgery was successful. I wonder how they will protect her from now on.

Yes and (possibly as a result of the war?) it seems to have spread to Pakistan where this atrocity took place. Part of the british commonwealth.
I agree re feminism greatnan

If any good can come out of evil it just might make the poulation of Pakistan and the like realise the Taliban are not there for their good. There has been a public outcry over this and that is reassuring. I liken it in a small way to the Libyan people being outraged at the murder of the U.S Ambassador and their reaction of 'Not in my name'.

It looks like Malala may be taken to another country for care, or is that a code for her protection?. She is a brave girl and I hope she recovers O.K.

POGS Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan have a cohesive or homogenous population. Both countries still operate extensively on a tribal basis. Consequently, in some pars of them the Taliban is at, the least, acceptable and often viewed with approval.

Absent

I am well aware of that point!.

My comment was not factual, I was merely trying to say I hope there could be a chink of light in the minds of the populous,whichever tribal basis they operate from, that things could be challanged.

I don't understand why you should think that is a possibility, POGS or perhaps it's just a faint hope.

Very sad news. Poor girl. I hope she gets the protection she needs and the education she wants.

Sad also that this repression of females goes hand in hand with another kind of repression, which I shall not name on this thread, but which I assume everyone reading this will understand.

Absent

Precisely, a faint hope. Arab Spring and all that.

I am afraid the powerful do not usually give up their power voluntarily. If enough muslim men wanted to end the repression of their wives, sisters, daughters, they could do it. 25% of young, British-born, Pakistani men interviewed after the sexual grooming case agreed that young white girls were 'asking for it'.

Having read some newspapers this afternoon, I have learned that this young woman not only defended female education but was also outspoken about many political issues. The fact, however, remains, that she is still a child with no real poitical power, so why did someone try to shoot her? How scared are these controlling men of a girl child speaking out? I hope that she recovers completely and quickly.

For the record, so far as I understand, the man with the gun approached the school bus and asked for Malala by name. Another pupil innocently pointed her out and, possibly, someone else denied that the figure pointed out was Malala. All three seem to have been shot. I don't know how the other two are doing.

the world truly does seem to have gone mad.

Words can't express the outrage I feel on behalf of this child - at just 14 that's what she is, a child.

The government of Pakistan and the so-called tribal leaders in that region should hang their heads in shame.

Perhaps Absent shooting the daughter is one way of controlling the parents, punishing them for not 'controlling' their girl and threatening other parents into keeping their daughters at home and stifled.

NFK You may very well be right about that. In fact, you probably are.

Whereas we think of Malala as a child, I wonder if she is not regarded this way in a community in which it is quite common for very young pubescent girls to be married. At 14, traditionally, she would probably be married and even have a child.

greatnan did they ask non-Pakistani men what they thought in that survey?

Good point, JessM.

Sooner or later the sort of belief systems that denegrates stigmatises and controls part of society will fade away. Treating half of the human race to such barbaric practices as is happening in Afganistan will eventually be seen for what they are - medieval and wrong, but the problem for women who are part of these systems today is that this may not happen for decades.

I don't know, Jess - do you think many non-Pakistani young men would have felt the same? It could be that they would.

I understand that Malala has been moved to a military hospital where she should be under protection. Let's hope so.