Wednesday was International Women’s Day—a day to celebrate women around the world of both past and present who have helped to make this planet a better place for both girls and boys alike. It is a day to celebrate all the progress that the women’s movement has made, but also a day to acknowledge the ongoing struggles that women collectively continue to face.

The latter aspect of the holiday inspired some women to participate in organized protests designed to raise awareness on issues affecting women today. These protests could have been as simple as wearing red or generating discussion around the water cooler with colleagues, or as serious as taking the day off work—both paid and unpaid—to simulate “a day without women,” and demonstrate the various important roles that women play in our economy and communities. As with any protests, some of the rhetoric was worthy of eye-rolling and some of the actions worthy of criticism, but the overall message was based on what I believe to be an undeniable truth: Women today are perhaps as appreciated and empowered as they have been at any time in human history, but that does not mean that they are as appreciated and empowered as they should be.

That message was largely lost on rising conservative darling, Tomi Lahren, who used her Wednesday night “Final Thoughts” segment to demonize anyone participating in the day’s protests, or for just being a part of modern day feminism in general. In the video, Lahren angrily lambasts protestors for their “selfish” behavior and self-victimization, asserting that “real women” don’t need to “remind the world every single day” that they have been historically slighted.

For someone that is constantly mocking liberals for their over-sensitivity, Lahren sure seemed pretty triggered herself Wednesday night over some wardrobe selections and sick days. I know that she doesn’t believe in safe spaces, but perhaps a few days of shielding herself from the social justice warriors of the world would help her to cool down a little bit. That said, I occasionally find myself agreeing with a lot of Lahren’s critiques of the left. I could do without the shouting, but sometimes beneath the bombast lies some actual legitimacy.

Wednesday night’s segment was not one of those critiques.  Lahren is not usually one to be overly-nuanced, but her outrage over the actions associated with International Women’s Day was especially overstated and out of place. Worse, on a day that is supposed to be about women empowerment, Lahren’s words served only to undermine the efforts of millions of women around the world working to gain the appreciation and opportunities that they deserve.

To Lahren, Wednesday’s protests were not about equality. They were about “special treatment”—special treatment that, in Lahren’s mind, can be summarized as free abortions and birth control for everyone. Lahren says that she doesn’t deserve special treatment because she has “ovaries and a menstrual cycle.” I disagree. I think that women should get special treatment based on the fact that they have ovaries and a menstrual cycle, just as I believe that men should get special treatment when it comes to our prostates and our testicles.

Women’s healthcare is different than men’s healthcare, and our healthcare packages should reflect that. Yes, abortion is part of this, but again that is because only women get pregnant. I can’t say that I have ever met a woman quite like the abortion-happy, birth control pill-guzzling, caricature of a feminist that Lahren describes, but I have met plenty of women who want access to affordable contraception, and affordable abortions in the unintended and undesirable circumstance where they feel like they need one.

Lahren may disagree that an abortion should even be an option for women, and indeed if she had it her way, it probably would not be, but then I hope she would still acknowledge that some “special treatment” may be necessary for the mothers now tasked with the difficult assignment of raising children that they were not prepared to have.

But then Lahren makes a good point: Don’t the problems like those above pale in comparison to the “women in less fortunate parts of the world [who] wake up without basic human rights”? Yes, Tomi! I agree! I do not think that that makes the above issues irrelevant, but I do think that women in other parts of the world face challenges that deserve our immediate and prioritized attention. After all, this is INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day. But of course, Lahren spends less than four seconds on this point, using it only as a tool to delegitimize the issues that collide with her own personal agenda.

Instead, Lahren turns to the “victim card.” “Yeah, some challenges might be a little greater for women,” Lahren admits, “but let me tell you, it feels a whole hell of a lot better to overcome those challenges, than it does to dwell on them, complain about them, or use them as an excuse to fall short. If you constantly claim you’re a victim, you will always be a victim. Free yourself.”

I can’t say I disagree with the sentiment. No matter how much of a victim a woman, or anyone from any other historically marginalized group might be, the message to that individual can never be to dwell on their victimhood. It has to be a message that empowers and overcomes in spite of injustice and oppression, and that is kind of what Lahren was getting at.

But Lahren’s pep talk is missing an important piece: validation…validation that the victimization that that person is experiencing is real and not imagined…validation that life is oftentimes unfair, but that they have a right to fight back. But rather than validate, the tone of Lahren’s tirade instead suggests that any girl that has ever complained about sexism or the glass ceiling is nothing but a whiney, entitled brat projecting her own shortcomings and failures on the dismantled vestiges of the patriarchy. And that is so not the case.

I’m never going to tell a woman that she is a victim if she doesn’t feel like one. If that’s the case with Tomi Lahren, then more power to her. But I am also never going to tell a woman that she isn’t a victim when her experience tells her that she is, especially when I still see so much evidence to validate that claim.

I want to live in a world where no girl feels victimized by her womanhood—where every girl can be whatever or whoever she wants to be whether that’s a CEO or a stay-at-home mom. For many women, that world doesn’t exist right now, and that’s what makes International Women’s Day both important and necessary. I’m glad that many women took that day to make their voices heard, both the protestors and the protestors of the protestors alike, because somewhere in between the world’s most radical third wave feminist and Tomi Lahren is progress, and hopefully within that conversation, progress is what emerges.

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P.S. Here is a song I tweeted out in honor of International Women’s Day. It’s a song by a guy, but hey, I’m a guy, sooooooo…Anyway, to all the unknown legends out there: Keeping building yours!

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