Sarah Khan

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.

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

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.

It’s the 21st century and there are still dad stereotypes that are not only anti-feminist but also downright backwards thinking that need to stop. But you can’t stop something until you know what it is, so here is a list:

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.

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 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.