Inspiring women
- Nova Women in Business
- Apr 26
- 5 min read
How many times have women’s achievements been downplayed or attributed to luck and connections?
Too many.
However, hearing how women have made a difference and shaped the reality we live in, forces us recognize their merit and our own potential to do the same.
This article sheds light on their accomplishments and puts the focus on the process. It reminds us that change is created by those who step forward, not those who wait.
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley was born in 1913 in Alabama. Growing up in the segregated South, racism was nothing new for Parks, who was frequently confronted with racial discrimination and violence. Her early involvement in local civil-rights activism later made her a key player in the structural change of segregation.
Ku Klux Klan, a violent organization that pursued a white supremacist agenda by employing terror, posed a constant threat and played an escalating role in an already fearful atmosphere among black families. It frightened communities by acts such as burning churchesand schools, and by the persecution and killing of non-white people. On some of the most dangerous nights, children would go to bed dressed so that they could flee quickly, if need be. Rosa would sometimes stay awake and keep watch with her grandfather.
While in school, Parks attended a segregated establishment where classes were overcrowded – one teacher was often responsible for 50-60 schoolchildren. Moreover, though white children were bused to their schools, Black children had to walk, and segregated public services - transportation, drinking fountains, restaurants, and schools – were ingrained in their daily lives. This distinction, and one could argue dehumanization, reinforced pattern of bias and disrespect towards African American families, perpetuating unequal rights and opportunities.
In 1932, at age nineteen, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber and a civil-rights activist, who was actively fighting to combat racial injustice. She became active in the Civil Rights Movement at a young age and established herself as a respected organizer and leader. In 1943, Rosa was elected secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a social justice organization, where she served until 1956.
The ’Montgomery Bus Boycott’ was triggered on December 1, 1955, when Parks was riding a crowded Montgomery city bus. After noticing that several white passengers were left standing, the driver told Parks and other Black passengers to surrender their seats and stand. Parks showed active resistance by refusing to do so, not because she was physically tired, but because she “was tired of giving in”.
As a result of such bold and almost unacceptable behavior, Rosa was arrested, but had little intentions of apologizing and be censored. She accepted Montgomery NAACP president E. D. Nixon’s offer to help her appeal the conviction and thus challenge legal segregation in Alabama. They knew the implications - harassment, public scrutiny and death threats - but the potential gains would tremendously impact millions of lives.
On the day of her trial in early December 1955, a boycott of the municipal bus system began. It lasted 381 days, and because African Americans constituted about 70% of bus users, revenues were deeply hit. The boycott’s end followed the U.S. Supreme Court endorsement of a lower court’s decision stating Montgomery’s segregated bus seating unconstitutional.
Parks’ courageous act helped ignite a movement that ultimately led to the integration of public transportation in Montgomery. In the process, she lost her job and endangered her privacy and life, yet she remained committed and dedicated to the social justice and human rights cause. Despite dying at age 92, with financial and health troubles, her legacy was profoundly rich, offering a lasting blueprint for resisting racial discrimination and injustice, and the power of individual action to create change.
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, in Pakistan. Growing up in the Swat Valley, Malala lived under the influence of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). Amongst other extremist values, they imposed a misogynist agenda, enforcing strict Islamic law and banning females from any active role in society.
Her father was an outspoken social activist and educator, and established Khushal Girls High School and College, the school his daughter attended. However, in 2007, the Swat Valley was invaded by TTP, who destroyed and shut down girls’ schools. Malala, who was eager for knowledge and a curious child, had to say goodbye to her colleagues and school in January 2009.
Yousafzai started public speaking at a very early age. It was on September 1, 2008, that she gave her first speech – “How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Basic Right to Education?” – which was publicized throughout Pakistan. Afterwards, she began to anonymously write regular entries for BBC about her life, under TTP’s rules. Due to rising tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban, Malala and her family were forced to seek refuge outside of Swat valley. Nevertheless, she never stopped advocating for her values and core beliefs about girls’ access to free and qualified education. From working with reporters for documentaries for ‘The New York Times’, to being awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize in October 2011 (later renamed the National Malala Peace Prize), the young activist’s impact was starting to build momentum. However, her visibility and outspoken defiance made her a target.
On October 9, 2012, fifteen-year-old Malala was going back home from school, when two members of the Taliban stopped the bus she was in. They asked, “Who is Malala?”, and when she was identified, they shot her in the head. After being flown out to an intensive care unit in England, surgery, and ten days of induced coma, Yousafzai woke up. She would yet have to spend months in reparative surgeries and rehabilitation, but Taliban’s actions had backfired. Instead of silencing her, they had fueled the fire. The event gave rise to protests, which led Malala’s cause and fight to further spread throughout the world.
As she started to attend school in Birmingham, in March 2023, the young activist decided not to give up “until every girl could go to school”. Her first public appearance since being shot was on her 16th birthday, where she addressed an audience of 500 at the United Nations in New York. She won the United Nations Human Rights Prize, was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people, and published her autobiography, all in 2013.
In 2014, she and her father established the Malala Fund, an organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for women and girls. Through it, she traveled to meet Syrian refugeesand young female students, and to speak out in support of abducted girls who had beenkidnapped by a group with similar principles to the Taliban’s. Alongside her own voice, it funds education projects internationally and partners with global leaders to innovate strategies to empower young women. In July 15, she opened a girl’s school in Lebanon for refugees from the Syrian Civil War.
Finally, Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, becoming the youngest person to receive such prize, at age 17. However, she didn’t consider the award hers – it was “for those forgotten children who want education, (…) for those frightened children who want peace, (…) for those voiceless children who want change”. Malala went on to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford, graduating in 2020, but never forgetting her cause.
There is only a short amount of people that can compare their impact on the world with Malala’s. After surviving and attempt on her death, she displayed the power of resilience and the true meaning of ‘purpose’. Using her public profile to shed light on human right issues around the world, many women look up to her, feeling inspired and driven by her life journey.
Sources:
Rosa Parks
Malala Yousafzai
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