Sarah Khan

I’m proud to say my mother is a supporter of SlutWalk, is staunchly against victim-blaming, and all for empowering women. But when it comes to me, her ideals seem to change.

What a lot of us don’t realize is that the patriarchy also makes us think it’s OK to objectify men.

Welcome to the 21st century, in which women have more power than ever before, yet have less power than ever before as well.

There are only a few people around who haven’t seen the video/picture of the group of sorority girls at a baseball game doing nothing but taking selfies. These women have become the butt of jokes all over the Internet and are being held as an example of the supposed egotism and self-obsession of today’s youth.

I’ve been doing the online dating thing for a little over a year now, and it’s the first time I’ve been doing it as a staunchly, outspoken, won’t-take-any-bullshit feminist. That’s how I discovered the curious system of “revenge flagging,” which is when guys don’t take rejection gracefully or can’t deal with a bruised ego — they flag the woman’s profile as revenge.

It’s International Women’s Day, which means we get an entire day to celebrate the accomplishments of the millions of women in the world.

It isn’t until I actually sat down and thought about it that I realized that the badass feminist babe I am today is predominantly the creation of a mixed bag of women I’ve encountered in my life.