On Father’s Day, two men who almost lost their daughters to the tyranny of patriarchal society are coming together on behalf of the #StandWithHer campaign.
Ziauddin Yousafzai, father of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, and Ranjit, father of a daughter who became the victim of a brutal sexual assault in India, sat down for a conversation in New York in March. Their discussion, about their shared experience and effort to combat toxic masculinity, has become the basis for a new short documentary released today on YouTube.
“One thing that you and I have in common,” Yousafzai tells Ranjit at the beginning of the film, “is that we are both known for our daughters. We’re identified because of them.”
Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai in London on March 19, 2024
Dave Benett/Getty Images for National Portrait Gallery
Malala Yousafzai was just 15 when she was shot in the head in the Swat region of Pakistan by a Taliban gunman angered by her advocacy of girls’ education. Kiran (a pseudonym for Ranjit’s daughter) was just 13 when a group of boys sexually assaulted her in a rural part of India’s Jharkhand State. As shown in the Oscar-nominated documentary To Kill a Tiger, directed by Nisha Pahuja, Kiran’s parents – Ranjit and Jiganti – were pressured by villagers to marry their daughter to one of her attackers to “preserve the family’s honor.”
Ranjit, Jiganti and Kiran stood up to that pressure, and insisted instead on pursuing criminal charges against the assailants.
“If we force her into the bond of marriage, then it’s a big crime,” Ranjit explains to Yousafzai during their conversation. “It would be so oppressive.”
Ziauddin Yousafzai (left) and Ranjit meet in New York
#StandWithHer
Yousafzai tells Ranjit he identifies with his plight. “These kinds of difficult circumstances, I also faced something similar,” he says, “when everyone in the community is on one side. They think a certain way, a way that’s against girls and their dignity and not in favor of justice.”
The short film, under the title, , is directed by Neha Shastry and Nisha Pahuja (the To Kill a Tiger filmmaker). You can watch the film below.
In the documentary, Yousafzai and Ranji engage in “a frank and deeply moving conversation that offers an illuminating insight into the crucial role and power of male allyship,” according to a release. “Both dads are part of #StandWithHer, a campaign advocating for gender equality around the world and that sees the role of men and boys as critical to that pursuit.” The #StandWithHer campaign is supported by NGO partners Equality Now, Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice, and MenEngage Alliance.
Both men – Yousafzai, an education activist born in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, and Ranjit, a farmer of humble origins in a remote area of India – break from the traditions of their cultures by advocating forcefully for their daughters.
“I fought against patriarchal thinking,” Yousafzai says in the film. “I didn’t cut [Malala’s] wings, but certainly others wanted to.”
He tells Ranjit, “You are very brave that you shared your story for the wellbeing of humanity and now this movement around it, the campaign #StandWithHer, that every father, every brother, all men must stand with women. This is huge work for equality, for humanity, for human rights.”
Kiran in ‘To Kill a Tiger’
Notice Pictures Inc/National Film Board of Canada/Everett Collection
Comments Ranjit, “As more and more men join together, I feel it will definitely have an impact on men and boys. If they understand that this injustice, like in the film [To Kill a Tiger], was wrong, and to correct that wrong these people are taking action.”
Adds Yousafzai, “I come back to what your daughter says in the film. ‘When people walk together, no one can stop them.’ We walked together, and this institution of the family…it is an agent of change, an informal one, but there’s no force more powerful than the family.”
Watch A Conversation Between Two Fathers of Remarkable Daughters below. To Kill a Tiger is streaming on Netflix.
