December 6, 1989, Montreal

[iverglas]

December 6, 1989, Montreal.

May not sound immediately familiar.


If I say ...

December 6, 1989. Montreal massacre.


http://archives.cbc.ca/society/crime_justice/topics/398/

For 45 minutes on Dec. 6, 1989 an enraged gunman roamed the corridors of Montreal's École Polytechnique and killed 14 women. Marc Lepine, 25, separated the men from the women and before opening fire on the classroom of female engineering students he screamed, "I hate feminists." Almost immediately, the Montreal Massacre became a galvanizing moment in which mourning turned into outrage about all violence against women.

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the event that turned us upside down here.

In the course of my work a few years ago, I had to read the coroner's report on the deaths -- both the report on the investigation into the emergency services response, and the individual post mortem reports. The intimate details of each woman's body and death; the socks she was wearing, the path the bullets had travelled through her body, the damage they had done. It's very hard to even think about now.

We commemorate the event here with candlelight gatherings in public. My city, like many, has a monument to women victims of violence in a small local park.

And this year, we renew our opposition to Conservative government efforts to abolish the firearms registry, and wish we could tighten restrictions on the kinds of weapons that are used for these sorts of horrors.

A gunman confronts 60 engineering students during their class at l'École Polytechnique in Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989. He separates the men from the women and tells the men to leave the classroom, threatening them with his .22-calibre rifle. The enraged man begins a shooting rampage that spreads to three floors and several classrooms, jumping from desk to desk while female students cower below. He roams the corridors yelling, "I want women."

Before opening fire in the engineering class, he calls the women "une gang de féministes" and says "J'haïs les féministes <I hate feminists>." One person pleads that they are not feminists, just students taking engineering. But the gunman doesn't listen. He shoots the women and then kills himself.

From today's Toronto Star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/734817--lessons-of-the-montreal-massacre?bn=1

Lessons of the Montreal Massacre

Twenty years ago Sunday, Nathalie Provost yelled "We are not feminists" as Marc Lépine sprayed her and her classmates with bullets. Today, the engineer and mother of four says: "I realized many years later that in my life and actions, of course I was a feminist?"

Provost was one of the lucky four who survived. "At the time, I thought to be a feminist meant you had to be militant," says Provost, who today is overworked and feeling skittish as the anniversary approaches. She was the young woman who, from her hospital bed a couple days later, urged Canadian girls to not be frightened by the event and to pursue engineering careers. She was also my introduction to feminism in life, not just theory. And to the concept that the personal is political.

"I realized many years later that in my life and actions, of course I was a feminist. I was a woman studying engineering and I held my head up."

... If you are one of those young women who says you aren't a feminist, you haven't heard this story. Or you have forgotten. We've all grown complacent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre

* Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student
* Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
* Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
* Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
* Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student
* Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student
* Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department
* Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student
* Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
* Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student
* Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student
* Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
* Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student
* Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

[musette_sf]

1. I remembered

[ismnotwasm]

2. God

So sad.

[BlueIris]

3. Horrifying. nt

[get the red out]

4. I never knew this!

I had just graduated from college myself in 1989!

My thought after reading about this horrible tragedy was how long before some guy who listens to Limbaugh and Beck non-stop does something like this at a US university? I am shocked it hasn't happened already.

[iverglas]

5. similar event, different generation ;)

I was leaving for my home town after first-year final exams (and a year of political activism, including anti-war) on the morning Kent State came on the radio news (here in Canada) in 1971. Had you been in Canada when the Montreal Massacre happened, it would have been the defining moment of your university career.

Women have of course been targeted by mass murderers in the US, although not on campus. The recent incident of the women shot in the gym bears a striking resemblance, in the blatant hatred of women demonstrated by a loser who blamed women for his problems.

I'll fetch the discussion of that in this forum and add a link here.


Add:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=341&topic_id=14532