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On December 6, 1989 a twenty-five year old man man walked into L'École Polytechnique in Montreal armed with a rifle and a hunting knife. Over a period of approximately twenty minutes he would he would kill fourteen women, wound another ten women, as well as four men, before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life. The women were targeted because of their gender and they died because they were women. Before he started shooting the man had yelled, "I hate feminists." I don't know that any of the women who died thought of themselves as feminists. They were women pursuing an education in the largely male dominated field of engineering, or in the case of Maryse Laganière, working in the school's finance department. Perhaps they did. Perhaps they didn't. But today we remember them and acknowledge a National Day of Remembrance and Action of Violence Against Women.
The snow is so merciless
Poor old Montreal
In spite of everything that's happened
Yeah, in spite of it all
- Montreal The Tragically Hip
I was ten when the Montreal Massacre happened - old enough to understand they were targeted because of their gender but not old enough to really understand why. That, of course, assumes that one can ever understand acts of violence on innocents or acts of hatred. It took years for it to really sink in. Ten years to be exact. December 6, 1999 found me living in Montreal, attending university at a school across town. I found myself facing the day with dread, fearing some one would decide to follow that man's lead and walk into a university or college and start targeting female students, especially engineering students. Knowing that my best friend, someone I had know from my first day of first grade, was an engineering student in a different province and at a different school, was a potential target. I don't know why I felt that particular day, that particular anniversary, meant that she (and all of us really) was more vulnerable. Maybe it was all the press that year, not only reflecting on the ten year anniversary but the events of Columbine that spring...maybe school violence was more in the public psyche. Maybe we were all extra sensitive. I just know that on that particular day I didn't particularly want to be on campus. I had been evacuated from buildings due to bomb threats without feeling fear but just the image of the potential bad that could happen that day had me hurrying home after class. Nothing bad happened that day. But we remembered that year, perhaps more vividly than many, the fourteen women whose lives were cut short by a madman.
At Rants of a Feminist Engineer skookumchick reminds me that I was not alone then, nor am I for thinking it today as well.
The women who died could have been anyone. They could have been your friends, your mothers, your sisters, your lovers, your daughters, your neighbors, your students, your teachers, maybe even you.
Lessons were learned that day. You see, the police had arrived on the scene before M.L. completed his killing spree. But they first established a perimeter around the building. In that time lives were lost. Policy was changed. Unfortunately that policy has also had to be tested. September 13, 2006, another man armed with guns entered another school in Montreal, this time Dawson College, and started shooting. When police arrived on the scene they did not wait to establish a perimeter. One student died. As did the male shooter (he shot himself in the head but was also shot by police in the arm). The coordination of police and emergency response teams is credited with minimizing the loss of life at Dawson.
We remember the name of the man who did the shooting eighteen years ago. Yes we do. Even though it used to be standard not to ever say his name in media because that was what he wanted it is a standard that has long since been dropped. But I refuse use the full name of the perpetrators of such acts of violence. It's what they wanted. My refusal is my own personal act of defiance. I will only ever refer to him in print by his initials, M.L. but his name is etched in my brain. But if you were to ask me to name you the fourteen women whose lives were taken that date I'd struggle to name more than one or two. If you asked me to name
