On December 6th, 1989, 14 young women were murdered. The École Polytechnique massacre was a shocking display of violence against women. The perpetrator, Marc Lépine, interrupted an engineering class to segregate the female and male students. He forced the men to leave and the women to line up. When Lépine opened fire, he screamed,
“You are all feminists!”
His justification for doing this was “fighting feminism”, because it had apparently “ruined his life.” Lépine shot all nine women in the class, murdered six of them, and then stalked the halls looking for more victims, most of whom were women. Lépine then committed suicide after harming 10 women, 4 men, and taking the lives of 14 others. His suicide note blamed feminists for ruining his life and named 19 women whose lives he also wanted to take, including several women who were prominent in the community.
Canada learned from this event and placed more restrictions on gun control, and they named the day “The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.” This event was seen as representative of how society treats women as a whole, and not just one man’s crazed obsession. Despite this day, people continue to treat women as less than human and justify their violent acts towards women as what they deserve. To support the National Day of Remembrance, wear a white ribbon in honor of the women who were lost in the École Polytechnique massacre.
