The Montréal Massacre (1989)
On December 6 1989, twenty-five year-old Marc Lépine entered École Polytechnique in Montréal, Québec with both a rifle and a knife, specifically separating and targeting women throughout the school and claiming to be "fighting feminism". After killing fourteen women and injuring ten more in less than twenty minutes, he committed suicide. The event immediately raised concerns of violence against women and also debates of gun control.
Click here to listen to a touching radio podcast from the CBC archives. Broadcasted originally in 1989, just one day after the massacre, the podcast interviews several distraught women at the University of Toronto; asking them about their thoughts on the tragic event.
One student says, "If you think about it, It's basically just a larger example of things that happen everyday - violence to women, rape, adultery being battered."
The students' emotional reaction to the massacre speaks to the fact that the violent act was, not only a crime committed to this isolated number of women at the École Polytechnique, but also, a powerful threat of violence and hatred towards all women and the concept of feminism. The long term significance of this event is that it raised awareness throughout Canada on issues of violence against women and the glaring inequalities that are still systemic in our society between genders.
While women have come a long way since the days when they couldn't even vote, they still have far to advance in achieving full equality and elimination of discrimination in all aspects of society.
One student says, "If you think about it, It's basically just a larger example of things that happen everyday - violence to women, rape, adultery being battered."
The students' emotional reaction to the massacre speaks to the fact that the violent act was, not only a crime committed to this isolated number of women at the École Polytechnique, but also, a powerful threat of violence and hatred towards all women and the concept of feminism. The long term significance of this event is that it raised awareness throughout Canada on issues of violence against women and the glaring inequalities that are still systemic in our society between genders.
While women have come a long way since the days when they couldn't even vote, they still have far to advance in achieving full equality and elimination of discrimination in all aspects of society.