Sarah Khan

For the last six years, I have been living with depression. Despite the fact that I have extremely low moments when there is an inexplicable and unreachable pain inside me that demotes me into a sobbing, self-harming, low self-esteemed shell of the person that I actually am, there are a number of ways that living with (not suffering from) depression has improved my life and made me a better human being.

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.

Thanks to a number of different stressful factors, I was sent to the Centre For Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) emergency department recently at the "professional advice" (read: insistence) of my general physician. This all happened because I admitted to planning the care of my beloved cats in case I killed myself.

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.

If you are 18 or over, dating online and using apps, sexting might be something you do. While we hear horror stories about sexting paving the way for revenge porn, we often forget that sexting can be fun and liberating. But there are ways to do it that will make you feel not only like a sexting goddess, but also safe and in control rather than victimized.

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

I live, work,and was also raised in Canada, where abortion has been legal since the late '80s. And before that — since the late '60s — it was legal with the permission of a committee of doctors who would agree whether or not an abortion was necessary for the mental or physical well-being of the mother.

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.

When I tell people that I keep a box of tampons on my desk at work, they are either surprised or they want to know why. As if keeping a box of tampons on my desk is any different than the box of Scooby-Doo Band-Aids or the bulk candy I keep on there as well.

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.