My generation grew up in the age of feminism. Our mothers were the ones who led the campaigns in the 1960s and 70s. They started the first woman-centered organizations.

They celebrated the FDA’s approval of the Pill. They cheered when Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in 1973’s “Battle of the Sexes.” They burned their bras.

Ok, maybe some techniques were more symbolic than others.

But they changed this world to make it a person’s world, instead of a man’s world.

I was lucky enough to grow up in the generation that followed, so I could feel the effects of the feminist movement.

I am proud to be a woman. I can do anything I want. I can be anything I want. I am woman, hear me roar.

But I think my generation is taking feminism a step in the wrong direction.

A nationwide survey conducted by Independent Women’s Forum released its results of a survey of 1,000 college women. According to the survey, 40 percent of college women prefer “hooking up” to traditional dating.

In this survey, hooking up is defined as any sexual encounter ranging from kissing to sexual intercourse where both participants expect nothing further afterward.

Ten percent of college women responded to the poll saying they had hooked up more than six times. (So did they have sex with six different men or kiss six random guys? That seems like a big difference).

In this survey, women said they were rarely asked on dates, but rather hung out with their dates in informal settings.

The poll also said 91 percent of college women reported what was described as “rampant hook-up culture” on their campuses.

So why are countless college women participating in this self-destructive sexual behavior? Why are they having sex and then not expecting the man to call them the next day?

It all stems back to the feminist movement. In order to prove to the world that women are in control of their bodies, they have sex without strings attached. And what does that prove?

In today’s world of hooking up, women end up hurting themselves emotionally and sexually, while men live the easy life of meaningless sex in the cheap comfort of their own apartment.

And women take the problem lying down.

My female friends and I complain all the time about how we never go on dates.

“What happened to dating?” we ask each other. Just once we want our men to plan a date with dinner and a movie, instead of inviting us to hang out and hook up in his apartment.

Call me a dating prude, but I like traditional dating. I haven’t been on many because I let my feminist beliefs get in the way of having a good time.

As a feminist, I feel like I’m obligated to argue with every man who has offered to pay for a date. I can’t let him pay because then I would be going against all my feminist values.

So I’m asking all the women of Iowa State to reevaluate their relationships. I want women to think about the long-term heartache hooking ups can cause and remember that women can be feminists without hooking up. College women, let a man pay every once in a while.

It doesn’t mean you’re not a feminist. It just means you have control of your life.

And that’s what feminism is all about.

Michelle Kann is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Garnavillo. She is editor in chief of the Daily.