CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG/CNN) - Malala Yousafzai, the human rights icon and Nobel Prize honoree best known for surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban at age 15 for trying to attend school, says Caitlin Clark and other female athletes are inspiring to her.
In an interview with CNN, Malala said athletes like Caitlin Clark, who has brought in millions of fans to the WNBA and women’s basketball, can act as role models and encourage more girls to take up sports.
“I have been following the journey of amazing female athletes right now from Caitlin Clark to um Ilona Maher, and I know these sports because of these incredible female athletes,“ said Malala. ”I think they’re doing, they are, they have a huge impact without actually saying much, so I don’t think we need to ask them about every topic and every issue. The fact that they’re on the field and they’re on the court is already changing perspectives. It’s empowering. It’s sending a powerful message to women, to all of us, that the sky’s the limit, and women’s sports will thrive. We will have more equal opportunities for women and girls and we can imagine a world where girls are empowered.”"
Malala spoke as she launches a venture to open more opportunities to encourage women to get involved with sports. She and her husband launched the Recess initiative. It will feature a multitiered approach to grow women’s professional sports to try to increase the number of girls involved in sports.
“For women’s sports to grow everywhere, we have to have a different approach for different places,” Malik told CNN Sports. “And obviously, Recess’ approach is to treat them like a proper business and to go in and prove that it’s a great business case, so that more capital comes in and it grows.”
Women’s sports have often been maligned by lower revenues, salaries and investors than the men’s leagues. Caitlin Clark gets a salary of less than $80,000 from her WNBA contract compared to the salary for last year’s top NBA pick, Victor Wmbanyama’s nearly $13 million salary.
Malala says sports were a key factor in her journey to stand up to the Tailiban.
“I remember in school recess time when boys would go off to the local cricket playground and girls had to stay behind,” she said in an exclusive interview with CNN Sports. “From that point onwards, I knew that sports was something that girls did not have easy access to.”
“We are capable of dialogue, we are capable of coming together, and sports, in history, in the current times, have proven to be that powerful way of bringing communities together. … We could be competitive, but at the same time, when the game is over, we can hug each other, shake hands, and recognize that we’re all one humanity.”
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