'I still don't understand why people have to get married,' says Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai loves her mum’s cooking, laughs at her own jokes, spent too much time on social media during lockdown and is always leaving assignments to the last minute.
She is also friends with Greta Thunberg, has earned high praise from Apple’s Tim Cook and Michelle Obama, and was star-struck by Brad Pitt.
These are just some of the things she shared in her new interview with British Vogue for the magazine’s July issue.
Malala, 23, was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman when she was 15 after campaigning for girls in her native country, Pakistan, to have equal rights to education.
At 17, she became the youngest Nobel laureate, receiving the prize for her “struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”.
Now, eight years on, she has completed her university education and – like many other graduates – is unsure of her next steps, she tells the publication. Here’s everything else from the interview:
Her days in lockdown looked very similar to ours
Malala was among the class of university students who graduated during the pandemic. In March 2020, she moved back to Birmingham to complete her final year at Oxford University from her parents’ home.
In the months since, she has spent a lot of her time playing the online game Among Us, eating her mum’s lamb curry, reading, and “doom-scrolling” on social media.
Her headscarf does not mean she is oppressed
Her headscarf, which she mostly wears when outside in public, is more than just a symbol of her Muslim faith.
“It’s a cultural symbol for us Pashtuns, so it represents where I come from. And Muslim girls or Pashtun girls or Pakistani girls, when we follow our traditional dress, we’re considered to be oppressed, or voiceless, or living under patriarchy.
“I want to tell everyone that you can have your own voice within your culture, and you can have equality in your culture,” she said.
Her go-to McDonald’s order
Malala finally got some time for herself at university, to play poker with her friends and go to McDonald’s, where her go-to order is a sweet chilli chicken wrap and a caramel frappe.
“I was excited about literally anything. I was enjoying each and every moment because I had not seen that much before.
“I had never really been in the company of people my own age because I was recovering from the incident [the Taliban’s attempt on her life], and travelling around the world, publishing a book and doing a documentary, and so many things were happening. At university I finally got some time for myself,” she said.
She leaves her assignments to the last minute
Despite being an A* grade student at school and earning a spot at the UK’s most prestigious university, Malala is no stranger to leaving assignments to the last minute, vowing to never do it again, only to find herself in the same situation the following week.
“Every week! I would be so annoyed with myself, like, ‘Why am I sitting here at 2am, writing this essay? Why haven’t I done any reading?’” she said.
She doesn’t understand why people get married
Her parents, who had an arranged marriage in Pakistan, would like Malala to get married one day, but she isn’t sure how she feels about it.
“I still don’t understand why people have to get married. If you want to have a person in your life, why do you have to sign marriage papers, why can’t it just be a partnership?” she said.