Davos, Jan. 27 (TNS): Leading Pakistani girls’ education advocate Malala Yousafzai has a message for President Donald Trump: Treat all women as you’d want the women closest to you to be treated.
Speaking at the Davos Open Forum, the women’s empowerment activist said she was “disappointed” to see how people in powerful and influential positions like Trump talk about women.
In a discussion with Yousafzai, BuzzFeed’s world editor, Miriam Elder, asked the world’s youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate what her message “to someone like Trump, who has his own history — or lack of history — with women’s rights” would be. “What kind of message would you want him to hear form you?” Elder asked.
“I just get so disappointed to see that people are at these high positions — and they talk against women, they do not accept women as equal, and they harass women,” Yousafzai replied. “It’s just shocking for a second to believe that this is actually happening.”
While the 20-year-old activist went on to say she hoped women would continue to stand up and speak out against such treatment, she also noted that those holding such antiquated attitudes needed a change of perspective.
“I hope that people who are involved in such shameful things, that they think about their own daughters, their own mothers, and their own close female relatives, and just imagine for a second that — can they let it happen to their daughters, to their sisters, to their mothers?” Yousafzai said. “I don’t think they would accept that. So I think they need to look at it from that perspective.”
