Malala’s mother, Tor Pekai Yousafzai, represents the theme of gender well as she is a very traditional Islamic wife. The traditions of Islam and of the Pashtuns set many limitations and expectations on women. “My mother started school when she was six and ended the same term. … There seemed no point in going to school to …show more content…
He set and reinforced the expectations of women in Swat. “A man goes out to work, he earns a wage, he comes back home, he eats, he sleeps. That’s what he does. Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where power lies.” (Yousafzai 116). Mualana Fazlullah preached this idea, and many members of the male gender in Swat listened. The only restriction that was set was that a man has to have facial hair and not defy the governing body.
The autobiography I am Malala contains two characters that portray the theme of gender very well. Both of these characters are extremely traditional, thus showing how the Pakistani and Islamic traditions impose many restrictions and expectations on women, and not so much on the men. A story on NPR/WLRN ran several weeks ago outlining the plight of women in ISIS areas, specifically how ISIS was selling women to keep soldiers, much like a barter system. Is this tradition, or have the radicals taken the restrictions and expectations of the female gender a little too