Remember the Women of the Montreal Massacre by More Than Just Their Names
Remember the Women of the Montreal Massacre by More Than Just Their Names
Victims
In a park, 14 coffin-like benches of pink stone are set in a circle. A higher slanted pink panel is visible in the foreground
Marker of Change, memorial consisting of 14 coffin-like benches in Vancouver by artist Beth Alber
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
In addition, some suicides were later reported among students who had been present at the time of the massacre. At least two students left notes confirming that they committed suicide due to distress caused by the massacre.[17]
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As #MeToo unfolds across social media, it’s crucial to remember the Montreal Massacre’s victims as being more than just names. Men will be the first to tell you that they love women—they love their mothers, their wives, their sisters, their daughters. They’ll say this as if it solves the problem of gender-based violence, as if “love” hasn’t been used as an excuse for inflicting harm throughout human history. The truth is that women don’t need men’s affection. We need for men to see us as fully human and just as deserving of rights and autonomy as they are.
Some people will find it ridiculous that I’m trying to draw a straight line from the Montreal Massacre to #MeToo and the recent outings of sexually predatory men. After all, Marc Lépine didn’t harass or assault any women as far as we know, and Harvey Weinstein certainly has never committed a mass shooting. Sure, both are instances of violence against women, but is there a uniting factor beyond that?
The answer is that every act that exists on the spectrum of violence against women—from street harassment all the way up to rape and murder—happens because we live in a culture that still views women as being less human than men.
Women were objects to Lépine, things that had unfairly taken his rightful place at the École Polytechnique. In his view, women had stood in the way of the life he’d wanted. He wrote in his suicide note: “I have decided to send the feminists who have always ruined my life to their Maker.”
In many ways, Weinstein and his ilk have viewed women through a similar lens: as objects, to be used or not used according their desire.
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http://www.flare.com/news/remember-the-women-of-the-montreal-massacre-by-more-than-just-their-names/