Ladies I Love: Y is for Malala Yousafzai, Education Equality Superhero!

Posted in Blogging, Events and Courses, International, Role Models by Marci

Today’s A to Z Challenge post is an especially meaningful one for me. My Lady I Love for the letter Y is Malala Yousafzai. I hope that you have heard of her. She comes from the Swat Valley, Pakistan, and is 16 years old. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, Malala boarded her bus as usual. A man stepped on board, asked for Malala, and shot at her three times with a Colt 45. One of those bullets entered the side of her forehead and ended up in her shoulder. Malala spent a significant amount of time in critical condition, but recovered, and now her voice is louder than ever.

What the hell happened? Born into a Sunni Muslim family, Malala was largely educated by her father in her early years, himself an education activist. The Taliban became active in the Swat Valley, and their presence and power grew stronger there as Malala grew up. The Taliban destroyed girls’ schools and banned girls from attending school altogether at certain points. The BBC wanted to cover the growing presence and influence of the Taliban in the area, and looked for someone who would anonymously supply them with information; after searching, Malala’s father volunteered her for the job, to which she agreed. In early 2009 Malala started secretly providing the BBC with handwritten notes which would then turn into an anonymous blog published on the BBC’s news service. Inspired by her father’s political activism, Malala became more outspoken in both the national and international news media and asserted the rights of girls to an education; for her efforts, she was awarded Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize in 2011. Yousafzai was even planning to start the Malala Education Foundation, which would help poorer girls go to school.

But of course, you know what happened next.

Only, the actions of the Taliban had a completely different effect than the one they had planned. Both Malala and her father are alive today. On Malala’s 16th birthday, she spoke at the United Nations and called for universal access to education, for everyone. She stated:

The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born … I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I’m here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists. — Malala Yousafzai

Malala has been bestowed many many honors, including winning the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice in 2012, being named one of Time‘s 100 most influential people in the world (Chelsea Clinton wrote the magazine’s article on her in 2013, and she was just included among the list for 2014); and being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 2013 and 2014 (the youngest person ever nominated, I believe, to boot). Additionally, she published her book detailing her experiences and her mission, “I am Malala” in 2013.

I encourage you to watch the extended version of Malala’s interview with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, who is fantastically awesome. Malala comes across as passionate and modest, and I hung on her every word – after all, with an assassination attempt under her belt and a bunch of feathers in her cap, she’s like an education rights superhero!

If you’d like to learn more about Malala and her work for education equality,
please visit The Malala Fund.

28Apr2014

Ladies I’ve Barely Heard Of: X is for the eXotic Xochiquetzal!

Posted in Blogging, Events and Courses, International, Women by Marci

Today’s A to Z Challenge post is going to be a little different. I’m making a 24 hour temporary theme change from “Ladies I Love” to “Lady I’ve Barely Heard Of” because let’s face it – X is a freakin’ hard letter to deal with. And they throw it at us right near the end of the challenge? That’s pretty effed up, in my opinion. In fact, my friend Mich over at Sick B*tch (who is also doing the A to Z Challenge and who’s theme is “I am going to complain now”) says that X is a useless letter and I’m beginning to agree with her (in fact, Mich is not even writing posts for Q and X because they are that irrelevant). Think about it – you can pretty much make up all the X sounds with other letters. 26 is such a dumb number of letters to have in an alphabet anyway, so I’m petitioning to lower the number to a nice 25 (all the letters who will be included, please step forward…hold on there, not so fast, letter X!). But for the sake of not backing down from a challenge, here is today’s X post anyway.

A stylized version of Xochiquetzal from http://www.gothambynight.com/scion/xochiquetzal.htm

I’ll bet you thought I was going to write about Xena, Warrior Princess, right? HA! WRONG!!! I’ve never even seen an episode of Xena, so I’m certainly not going to write about her. So today’s ~~Lady I Love~~ Lady I’ve Barely Heard of is Xochiquetzal (pronounced “so chee ket zul”). Her name means “flower precious feathers”, and she is always followed by birds and butterflies (the Aztec version of the birds and the bees, maybe???). Xochiquetzal, a mythological Aztec goddess, is always depicted by a young, alluring woman richly garbed in flowers. She represents female beauty, fertility and sexual power, and is a protector of pregnant women, young mothers, and is the patroness of lovers and prostitutes (whew, that’s a lot). She was also one tough cookie – according to MexicoLore, she seduced a priest and turned him into a scorpion, just to show off her powers. She was celebrated in festivals every eight years…and hey…she sounds like a Lady that many people have Loved!

Below are a couple of depictions of Xochiquetzal from historic codex, which are drawings done on sheets of animal skins and folded up, accordion-style. These codices are thought to have been written before the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Xochiquetzal (left) from the Codex Borgia, seducing a priest (middle).

Xochiquetzal from the Codex Fejérváray-Mayer. http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/gods/goddess-of-the-month-xochiquetzal

15Apr2014

Ladies I Love: M is for Marjane Satrapi, Graphic Novelist and Film Producer from Iran

Posted in Art, Blogging, Books, Entertainment, Events and Courses, Feminism, International, Movies and TV, Women by Marci

I can’t believe I’m already writing my “M” post for the A to Z Challenge! I’ve got another cartoonist (I think this is the last one) for today’s Lady I Love: Marjane Satrapi. I chose Marjane Satrapi for today for two very interesting reasons: first, she grew up in Iran under the Muslim fundamentalists who took power after the Iranian Revolution; and second, she’s an outspoken woman who lived to tell about it.

Marjane Satrapi was born in Iran in 1969 and lived in a middle-class family with highly educated parents in Tehran until 1983. During her childhood, she was rambunctious, strong-willed and outspoken, and her family feared that her behavior (and mouth) would get her into serious trouble with the authorities, who had strict behavioral codes for women. So, her family arranged to have her study in Vienna for high school. She returned to Tehran after a near-deadly bout of pneumonia and stayed there for several years, but now lives in Paris with her husband.

Satrapi’s childhood and teenage years are detailed in her autobiographical graphic novels, Persepolis 1 and 2. I loved them because she grew up in an entirely different world than I did (geographically, at least, which was fascinating in and of itself), but for all those differences, I could see ways in which she was no different from many of us growing up: questions, conceptions of right and wrong, repression (in her case the government, in my case, parents), and general teenage angst. Half a world away, and it was like I knew her!

In 2007, Persepolis was made into a feature film and debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2008, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, making Marjane Satrapi the first woman nominated for the category. In 2011, her graphic novel “Chicken with Plums” was made into a live action movie as well. There are several interviews with Marjane Satrapi about her work, but I found this one and this one to be very interesting – if you have the time, check them out. And, below I’ve included the trailers for both Persepolis and Chicken with Plums. Perhaps you will put them on your “to watch” list!