TransGriot Note: December 6, 1989 is a day that is etched into the minds of many Canadian women such as my Timmy's icecap drinking homegirl as the Montreal Massacre. I remembered it as well because while mass school shootings are a far too common occurrence in the US, they are almost unheard of in Canada.
On this date a gunman stormed into a Ecole Polytechnique classroom armed with a rifle, separated the men from the women, declared he hated feminists and opened fire on the women's group before turning the gun on himself. 14 women died and 21 were wounded in what is Canada's worst mass shootings.
Renee of Womanist Musings wrote this post two years ago recalling that sad and senseless event and how it affects her and other Canadian.women of her generation to this day.
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(21 years ago Marc Lépine went on a shooting spree, which today has
become known as the Montreal Massacre. By the end of the day, 14 women
would be murdered by his hand for the crime of being women. This
horrible massacre continues to resonate deeply with Canadian women, as
we use this day to say unequivocally that violence against women must
stop. I wrote the following piece 2 years ago, and decided to re-post
it today)
For women across Canada,
December 6 is a day that we are reminded that despite the gains of
feminism and women’s work to end gender based violence, we are still
marginalized and vulnerable bodies. It is the anniversary of the
Montreal Massacre. On this day we think of Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène
Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud
Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia
Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte, and
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz.
To ensure that there was no confusion as to why he felt the need to
enter École Polytechnique and massacre 14 women, Marc Lépine left behind
a detailed three page letter in which he blamed feminists for being
“so opportunistic they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated
by men through the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every
time they can”. He considered himself to be “rational” and therefore,
he felt his rage against feminists was justified. He went on to state
in his suicide note, "why persevere to exist if it is only to please
the government. Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for
science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the
advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave
preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves
those of men.” Lépine was so angry at the perceived loss of unearned
male privilege, due to the advances of feminism, his letter also
included a list of nineteen other women that he also wished to see
dead.
After such a horrible event there were many that
felt that this terrible act of violence should be looked upon as the
actions of a sole mad man, who had lost the capacity to reason. While
it might be comforting to look at this as a singular incident, to do so
would mean ignoring the degree of violence that Canadian women live
with on a daily basis.
Lépine was the product of domestic violence, having grown up in a home
where he spent his early childhood with an abusive father that routinely
told him that women existed to serve men. Is it any surprise that
after having been indoctrinated in this way, in his formative years,
that he would come to see any woman with agency as a threat to what he
considered traditional gender roles?
Even knowing that the end product of such an environment for children is
dangerous, in that it produces men like Lépine, socially we still
exist with the idea that a clear distinction between genders is
necessary to our well being. We use colloquial phrases like, boys will
be boys to justify violence, or aggressive behaviour in young males,
while encouraging docility and submissiveness in young girls. The
discord in worth and value between men and women is systemic.
It is not a simple matter of the so-called angry man hating feminists
trying to secure special rights for women. Though patriarchy has much to
gain from painting acts like that of Lépine as an isolated incident,
the fact of the matter is that statistically speaking women represent a
vulnerable minority.
In a report for Statistics Canada, completed by the Canadian Centre for
Justice Statics that compiled a statistical profile in the year 2004,
girls and women by far constitute the largest percentage of those who
have been exposed to violent physical and sexual acts.
• In 2002 females accounted for 8-in-10 (85%) of all victims of spousal
violence reported to the subset of police departments. Young females
aged 25-to-34 experienced the highest rates of spousal violence.
• In 2002, girls represented 79% of victims of family-related sexual assaults reported to a subset of police departments
• In 2002, older females were more likely than their male counterparts
to be victims of family-related violence. Of the approximate 1,100 older
adult victims of violence by family members, about 700 (or 65%) were
females. This is largely attributed to the fact that females make up the
majority of victims of spousal violence.
• Males made up a large proportion of those accused in family violence
against older adults, accounting for nearly 8-in-10 perpetrators.
Approximately 22% of accused were males aged 65 or older, most often
spouses and over one-third were between 35 and 54 years of age,
typically adult children.
• Data from the Homicide Survey indicate that between 1993 and 2002,
women were more at risk than men of being killed by their spouse (8
homicides per million couples compared to 2 homicides per million
couples). The risk was also higher among younger and common-law spouses.
What the facts bear out is that despite our cultural rhetoric of
equality between the sexes, women of all age groups are subject to
larger amounts of violence than their male counterparts. This is not to
say that all men are abusers, or even violent offenders, but the degree
to which violence is targeted at women serves to keep us leading lives
that are dictated by our fear of attack.
On that cold winter day, Lépine’s victims were just ordinary women
working on getting an education. There was nothing special, or unique
about any one of them. They became targets of Lépine’s rage for having
the audacity to attempt to receive an education. Whatever excuse that is
proffered, male violence against women exists to support patriarchy.
Though his fourteen victims now lie silent in a cold grave, their deaths
remind all women just how vulnerable we are in a world that has chosen
to value one sex above another. We reify this in every single
institution from education to government. Each December 6th as we stop
to remember our fallen sisters, we are reminded of just how far we still
have to go.
In a just world women would not have to worry about walking to their
cars on a dark night. There would not be domestic violence shelters
decorating the landscape from coast to coast. We would not routinely
need to inform women of the various ways in which to protect themselves
from attack. It would simply be assumed by all, that such gender based
violence is unacceptable in a civilized world.
As westerners, we have a tendency to look at areas like the Middle East,
or the so-called third world and label them backwards in terms of
their gender based acts of violence. We look on in horror as young
girls are forced to undergo female genital mutilation. We express
righteous indignation when we hear of rape victims being sentenced to
prison for being raped, or subject to honour killings because their
virginity is deemed more valuable than their person. When we make these
moral condemnations of other social norms, we do so from a place of
Western certainty that somehow we are more evolved. We comfort
ourselves in the knowledge that because public stoning and honour
killings are not the tradition of western countries, that we have
reached a true state of gender parity. Feminists are often told that
real inequality does not exist in western states, and that we should
look to our third world sisters if we wish to view real systemic gender based injustice.
What this attitude does is affirm a hierarchy of oppressions. There is
no such thing as a good oppression. Whether it is a woman being beaten
in Calgary by her spouse, or a woman in Tehran being lashed for daring
to reveal a wisp of hair, both acts constitute an indignity to the body
and an act of patriarchal oppression. Looking at the Middle East as the
prime example of violence against women encourages Westerners to live
in denial and ignorance at the crimes that are committed daily against
women within our community. We may have many freedoms due to our
secular state, but that does not mean that we should hold ourselves up
on a pedestal as though violence against women is not occurring in our
society.
Marc Lépine is not a solitary mad man that lost his mind one day, rather
he represents a collection of men who through acts of violence daily
remind women that male supremacy will be defended at all costs. Today we
weep for the potential that was lost that cold December day so long
ago, but amidst our tears, we must come together and commit to ending
the conditions that lead to this sort of violence. All bodies matter
and this must become our communal mantra.
Tags:
If anyone was wondering how Team USA was going to play tonight in their opening CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament Group B match against the Dominican Republic, they answered that question early.
While Team USA extended its record in CONCACAF Olympic qualifier play to 9-0-1 and continued its streak of never losing a game on Canadian soil, there was the downside of seeing midfielder Ali Krieger being carried off the field in the 42nd minute after her right knee was raked by the extended foot of Leonela Mojica.
