December 6th marks the anniversary of the massacre of 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. Today, on the 21st anniversary of this tragedy I find myself wondering where these women would be today if misogyny and hatred hadn’t manifested itself in such a murderous way so many years ago.
Without accounting for all their birthdays, my guess is that the women would be in their mid forties, that they would have successfully completed their studies and been well established in their respective careers. They would be gearing up for the Christmas season, sharing the worries and joys that life brings all of us. Sadly, these women were robbed of their futures, families, and robbed from us as society. Their murderer stole them from us because he viewed their progress as a personal threat to his own.
Inherent in his action was the belief that he, as a male, was more deserving of education than the women he killed.
Some have said that Lepine’s actions were taken out of context to push the radical feminist agenda. That he was one crazy guy who did a horrible thing, that his killing spree was nothing more, certainly not a manifestation of the systemic misogyny of our society. Certainly not evidence that we are as a nation sexist.
I disagree. And I think it’s more than simple sexism, though I think sexism is still very prevalent in Canada, so is racism and classism and a lot of other oppressive attitudes that encourage marginalizing and dehumanizing certain populations.
I think that tragically there are those who believe in some kind of balance sheet progress. That somehow there is some finite amount of power and success available to the masses, and that more for you means less for me. That if we let women into the workforce it will mean that men won’t have jobs. That if we let same-sex couples marry somehow hetero marriages will be devalued. In the US, that if Cuba was a trading partner it would undermine The American Way.
We often fail to see that if we encourage and support the progress and development of marginalised populations that they contribute positively to our neighborhoods, countries and world, and that more often than not, everyone moves forward.
I look forward to the day that we value all people, and that no one would be disposable. The day when the sentence for harming a person is reliably longer than the sentence for property damage. I look forward to the day when EVERY man KNOWS that it is never acceptable to beat, maim or kill a woman.
