This year, among other things, we will need to take stock of Canada's Minister of International Development's proclamation that the government will have a feminist approach to international assistance.

Throughout my medical training, I have been struck by the failure to better differentiate women from men in terms of our health, risk of disease and drug metabolism. Often, women are contemplated as "mini-men."

It's exhausting having to constantly point out privilege, what it is, how it operates and how it's insidious and thus extremely hard to see or understand when you have so much of it; which is precisely why even those feminists with the best intentions can get caught up defending their own story instead of listening to the stories of those more oppressed. 

1) Do your research.

There are still no resources to speak of for girls with disabilities facing violence, even though they experience violence at higher rates and more frequently than any other group of young women and girls in Canada. The rates of sexual, physical, verbal and systemic violence are at least three times higher.

As an increasingly isolated beacon of progressive values in North America and even the world, Canadians have a role to play in preventing the reversal of critical progress for women's rights. Especially now, we must first hold our Government to account for their stated priorities to advance the rights of women and girls.