My community doesn't inspire me to have courage: it forces it. The structure of Pakistani society is designed to intimidate women into submission, and allow men to continue enjoying the advantageous side of oppression. Ironically, these efforts only serve to fuel some women’s determination to resist being crushed: they work to develop a strong voice of their own to free themselves from fear. I have felt the injustice of misogyny all too keenly, and the backbone of my day-to-day life has therefore become risk-taking ability and resilience. If I must work twice as hard as a man to be half as heard, I will be audacious, tenacious, and courageous enough to give it my all.

In a wider context, courage is a critical skill in the ever-changing postmodern world. To succeed on your own, you must be able to stand up for yourself, take risks to help those in need, ask questions, and withstand adversity—all of which require valor. Therefore, courage is usually cultivated out of necessity if it is not already present in someone’s character; like all character traits, it is developed by a combination of nature and nurture. This bravery is often derived from a sense of self-esteem when it is used to protect your own self. Alternatively, when fearlessly protecting others, the motivation stems from the psychology, morals, and belief system of a person. (This is an idea reflected in the Dauntless Manifesto from Divergent: “We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another”). In this way, daring is evidently a fundamental component of a strong character, especially when compounded by selflessness, as this gives rise to fearless campaigning for others’ rights as well as your own.

Courage is a moral imperative, a practical tool, an agent of justice. Its nature intrinsically calls for action; accordingly, acts of courage tend to be drastic and with extensive consequences, so a great deal of care and responsibility should be employed to ensure only absolutely essential violence is committed. Even so, the measured addition of violence to courage is crucial when fighting on behalf of the voiceless—oppression is fought with noise, and violence is loud. The ongoing movement for civil courage condemns bystander behavior and implores an apathetic society to turn to empathy; activists like bell hooks*, a black feminist critic, call for action against the double marginalization of women of color. It is therefore imperative for us to develop and exercise the power of courage against injustice to create a more egalitarian world.

Sources:

• https://hbr.org/2020/05/how-to-find-and-practice-courage
• https://wave-network.org/civil-courage/

*purposefully lowercase: a personal decision to focus on her message rather than herself.