Over thirty years ago, on December 6, 1989, Marc Lépine walked onto the campus of École Polytechnique, a university in Montreal, Canada with a legally obtained firearm and a hunting knife. Upon his intrusion into the engineering class, he evacuated the men from the classroom, ruthlessly shot and murdered six female students, and left three more badly injured. He then canvassed the rest of the school, targeting only women and bringing up the body count to fourteen. He left ten more women injured before he finally turned the gun on himself.
Upon discovery of his body, police found a suicide note listing names and telephone numbers of females he deemed feminists: “Nearly died today,” it read. “The lack of time (because I started too late) has allowed these radical feminists to survive.” Though he unintentionally injured four men in the crossfire, the suicide note in his pocket left no room for interpretation of who he blamed for his rejection to the engineering program and who he was targeting: “Would you note that if I commit suicide,” Lépine wrote, “it is not because of financial reasons (…) but because of political ones. Because I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker.” He then goes on to define himself as “a rational erudite” who was “forced” by the Grim Reaper to take extreme measures. According to Lépine, feminists do not want gender equality, rather, they want to maintain the “advantages of women” such as “cheaper insurance” and “extended maternity leave” while simultaneously “seizing for themselves those [advantages] of men”.
It is events like this, in which tragedy brings forth larger scale societal issues, where we are given the chance to evaluate how women are represented in the public eye and how some demographics of people come to be disproportionately affected by it. Indeed, Lepine’s view of feminists as opportunistic and greedy, while misguided, still exists in modern society: violence against women involves difficult, often context-specific, and norm driven questions of power, authority, rights, and responsibilities. The stereotypes and misinformation about feminism, women’s issues, and gender equality contribute to the normalization of gender-based violence and an overall accepting attitude towards violence against women.
Media, in particular, can impact on the achievement of gender equality since they have the power and capacity to inspire necessary changes in norms, attitudes, and behaviors by determining whose voices are heard, why, when and in what way. Thus, in writing this article I am using my university’s media outlet as a method to raise awareness of an event that highlights the need for feminism and education surrounding it. If you, the reader, can share this article and inform even one person then I have accomplished my own small contribution to raising awareness.
In Canada, December 6 is a Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women and the 31st anniversary of the massacre. In the past, there have been protests, rallies, memorials, and parties across Canada in solidarity with victims, their families, and all those women whose voices were silenced by misogyny and violence. This year, however, with Covid-19 restrictions still in place there has involved some innovative thinking on the parts of UNBC and the Northern Women’s Centre in order to celebrate with the rest of Canada. Rather than an in-person rally, the Northern Women’s Centre is looking into a virtual celebration that will take place on November 25th at 11:00, the last day of the Inspiring Women Among Us (IWAU) events.
If you would like to volunteer to be a speaker, poet, or performer for this event, please visit the Northern Women’s Center or email the coordinator at [email protected]
