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March 8 is International Women's Day , a celebration of women's achievements and a day wherein I reflect on how many hurdles women still face in society.

Last year I put together a list of 50 reasons we need the day; this year, I bring you 50 more.

Because 17-year-old Retaeh Parsons hanged herself—and subsequently died—after being tormented in the wake of an alleged gang rape in 2011

Because Christie Blatchford defended Parsons’ rapists

Because one in five Canadians still believes drunk women are asking for it

Because men are more likely to be sexually aggressive toward women if the woman is drunk

Because the entire University of Ottawa men's hockey team was suspended over allegations that multiple members of the team raped a woman from Thunder Bay

Because U of Ottawa student leader Anne-Marie Roy had to call out the rape culture on campus after receiving screenshots of a conversation between five men detailing how they’d like to sexually assault her

Because of the rape chants at St. Mary’s University in Halifax

Because of UBC’s rape chant

Because there’s a man sexually assaulting women on UBC’s campus

Because UBC’s serial sexual predator has been assaulting women since at least April 2013 , but the public wasn’t warned until months later

Because UBC’s serial sexual predator has yet to be caught

Because “ rape culture ” is prevalent at many universities

Because when you talk about “rape culture”, some people don’t believe it exists

Because women are routinely harassed and assaulted on public transit in Vancouver, so much so that SFU students Alexa Dredge and Katie Nordgren set up a blog to record people’s experiences ( Harassment on Transit blog )

Because Avery Edison, a transgender woman from the U.K., was denied entry into Canada, detained in Toronto, and sent to a men’s prison

Because 132 sexual assaults were reported in 2013, a 21 percent increase from 2012 (and remember: generally only one in 10 assaults is reported at all)

Because pregnant women are still discriminated against in the workforce

Because there is still nowhere to obtain a surgical abortion in Prince Edward Island

Because Saskatchewan ProLife and the Association for Reformed Political Actio) would like to bring parental consent regulations to Saskatchewan, requiring any female under the age of 18 seeking an abortion to get her parents’ approval before the procedure

Because too many white feminists routinely lessen, negate, belittle, ignore, and erase the experiences of women of colour

Because solidarity is for white women

Because during a news scrum , Toronto mayor Rob Ford said he never wanted to eat former policy adviser Olivia Gondek's pussy and he has "more than enough to eat at home"

Because after Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, the media rushed to defend them —for example, after the verdict was delivered, CNN correspondent Candy Crowley said, “Those poor boys’ lives are ruined.”

Because Georgia Appeals Court Judge Christopher J. McFadden ordered a new trial for a convict rapist because the victim— a 24-year-old woman with Downs Syndrome— didn’t act enough like a victim

Because of the GOP’s War on Women

Because, despite Texas senator Wendy Davis’s successful 10-hour filibuster of a controversial omnibus bill that would severely restrict abortions and women’s access to them in that state, Governor Rick Perry called a special session of the senate so he could rubber stamp it anyway

Because Texas Tribune editor-in-chief Evan Smith thought it was totally appropriate to ask Davis, who’s now running for governor of Texas, if she plans on playing the "gender card" in the race

Because the last reproductive health clinic in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley had to close its doors last month

Because activist Sarah Slamen was forcibly removed from the Texas Senate's Health and Human Services committee for criticizing anti-choice lawmakers

Because Alaskan senator Fred Dyson thinks that low-income women are too cheap to buy birth control

Because Bill O’Reilly and Michele Bachmann still don’t think women are qualified to be president.

Because, during the Screen Actors Guild awards in February, a red carpet host asked Mayim Bialik how many people assumed she could “solve calculus” because she plays a scientist on The Big Bang Theory, oblivious of the fact that Bialik is also a neuroscientist

Because advertisers still rely on hoary, outdated stereotyping to sell products to women—obviously we only use computers to plan our weddings, right Microsoft ?

Because leaning in is considered the epitome of feminist thought by too many people

Because only 20 percent of computer programmers are women.

Because women are less likely than men to have an employer-provided pension , and those pensions are generally worth less than those of a male employee

Because Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court just ruled that it’s absolutely legal to take upskirt photos of women

Because the members of Pussy Riot were whipped by Cossack militia members during the Sochi Olympics

Because former Pussy Riot members Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina were again attacked on March 6 by a group of men in Nizhny Novgorod, one of whom carried a sign saying “Dirty whores out of our town”

Because only 23 percent of Oscar voters are women

Because exactly one woman, Kathryn Bigelow , has won an Oscar for Best Director, and only four women (including Bigelow) have even been nominated for the award

Because of how many films utterly fail the Bechdel Test

Because only 36 percent of newsroom staffers are women

Because an online study conducted by the International Women’s Media Foundation and the International News Safety Institute found that 64 percent of female journalists have experienced “intimidation, threats, or abuse” in the office or in the field, and 46 percent reported they’ve been sexually harassed at work

Because a man writing for the Columbia Journalism Review decried the results of the above study because it didn’t survey men, too

Because when I search for stock images of “International Women’s Day”, I am bombarded with pink pictures of shoes, silhouettes of women dancing, cupcakes, flowers, and lipstick