But then something happens that unleashes my inner feminist and makes me want to burn bras and shout, “I am woman! Hear me roar!”

Recently, in Afghanistan, there was a law passed basically allowing husbands to have intercourse with their wives whenever they feel like, regardless of how the wife feels. It also tells women their husbands can determine what they do for a living, how they dress and when they can leave the house.

Women flocked to the streets and protested, but in the end had rocks thrown at them for standing up for themselves. A women’s rights advocate was even killed.

In several countries around the world, women have little to no rights. Afghanistan is only one of many places where women are discriminated against. In Nepal, women who are not married off at an early age often will be sold by their families to human traffickers. In Sudan, Janjaweed militias have used rape as a weapon.

Countless other countries allow the rape and terrorizing of women as an everyday occurrence, and there is no punishment against the people who commit these crimes.

It makes me wonder how far women have come. In America, I can do basically anything I want when I want. As a woman, I can walk down the street alone, I can date who I want and find any career that pleases me. I think it is because I’m so privileged that I forget what it must be like to be a woman in Afghanistan.

And now, with this in the back of my mind, the whole world seems different.

If I were forced to have sex with someone when I didn’t want to and it were legal, how would I feel? It makes me sick to think at this very moment there is some girl exactly my age who has every aspect of her life outlined by someone else. What would other girls do if they were in that position?

It really never bothered me when I saw college women walking down the street looking trashy before. But this past weekend, after I had thought about the poor women in Afghanistan, seeing these young women dressed in outfits only suitable for whores made me wince.

In America, we have rights and we still subject ourselves to being objects. We still trounce around in scantily clad outfits and devalue ourselves to men because it makes us feel wanted.

I can’t honestly say that I haven’t fallen victim to allowing myself to be used by a man. Like I said, I’m not a dedicated feminist. I don’t constantly lobby for women’s rights or completely embrace the womanhood that I have.

But after looking at other women’s situations in other countries it makes me think that maybe I should be more proactive and proud I have a voice as a woman.

I’m not saying that I want the women of East Lansing to storm the streets and protest. Although I wouldn’t say that’s a bad idea, either.

What I do think should happen is more appreciation for the rights we have. I think men shouldn’t use women in ways that would infringe their rights as people, and I think women shouldn’t allow themselves to be used.

Next time someone disbands me from playing video games because I’m a girl, next time some guy says a derogatory remark to me, next time someone thinks that I have a certain place in the world because of my gender, I will prove to them that there is much more to me than being “some dumb girl.”

We who have rights need to use them and stand up for them because there are people at this very minute that don’t have the same luxuries we do.

If we don’t fight for what we have and allow ourselves to be used, we lose the one thing that makes us as American women unique — our freedom.