Ending Violence Against Women: Remembering Ecole Polytechnique

[Nathalie Rose]

On this day in 1989, a young man murdered 14 women at a college in Montreal; the sole reason being that they were women. He so strongly believed in male superiority that he blamed those women - all women - for taking what he believed to be his "rightful place".

Today vigils are being held across Canada and around the world in remembrance and in action to speak out against all violence that women experience in our communities. This violence has reached epidemic proportions, where 2/3 women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime, and 99% will know harassment or violence of some kind at the hands of men.

Women of colour, indigenous women, migrant women, women with disabilities, queer women, and, important to TERB, sex workers face a particular kind if socially-sanctioned violence.

I hope that everyone takes a moment to remeber the women we have lost, consider their own misogyny, question the pervasive misogyny in our society (the wage gap, sexual harrassment, sexist portrayals of women), and most importantly speaks out against these injustices in any way possible.

For a video on the issue, see CBC archives: http://archives.cbc.ca/society/crime_justice/topics/398/

 

[fuji]

It is worth noting that his act was a complete failure. Contrary to his misogynist views women have and continue to excel in universities and now outnumber their male counterparts.

 

[Rockslinger]

Compared to many other countries and cultures, Canada's record on women's rights is actually very good but there is always room for improvement.

 

[FatOne]

Violence against women is wrong. If you feel like doing that, stop, wait, find a guy and pound him with a baseball bat. He has a penis so it is OK to beat him stupid.


Silly me, I always figured one should be against violence against people regardless of naughty bits.

 

[fuji]

Fats, I don't think anybody would disagree with you that "violence against people" is the ultimate wrong here.

The question then comes, what causes violence against people?

It turns out there are a variety of causes: Random violence, gang/crime related violence, and violence arising from bigotry and discrimination. In working to snuff out violence it makes sense to go after its causes, and those causes are different for different categories of violence. So we have separate initiatives going, such as anti-gang programs. We focus on misogyny as a cause of violence because it is a numerically significant problem, in the larger context of violence generally, it's one of the big causes.

If philogyny were a major cause of violence in our society no doubt we would go after that--but it's not. So much so that few people are even familiar with the word philogyny. Violence against men tends to fall into other categories, like gang violence, or violence directed at their religious or ethnic group.

 

[Brill]

The incident was a big factor in setting up a gun registry, now it's been dismantled by the current generation of misogynist politicians.
Very unpopular move in Quebec in general and for women across Canada.

 

[fuji]

The incident was a big factor in setting up a gun registry, now it's been dismantled by the current generation of misogynist politicians.

Do you feel that there was anything in the gun registry legislation that would have prevented Marc Lepine from striking, had it been in effect?

I am a strong supporter of the restrictions on concealable weapons, like hand guns, and short barrel rifles, or sawed off rifles. These are the weapons of choice for ordinary street criminals, precisely because criminals want weapons they can conceal. It makes a hell of a lot of sense to me that we should be doing everything we can to dry up the supply of these weapons. However, handguns have been subject to registration since the 1940's, this is long-standing law in Canada, and nothing that was enacted in the aftermath of Lepine's attack. My feeling is that people like Lepine, or Breivik in Norway, plan their attacks in advance, and generally do not have criminal records prior to their horrific crimes. Thus I do not think that legislation aimed at deterring street crime is really effective against these people.

Let's look at what happened, and how the law changed in response:

Lepine used a Mini-14 to which he had added a 30 round magazine. The legislation left the Mini-14 as a "non restricted" weapon, meaning there were no additional special controls placed on it, such as are placed on AR-15's or handguns. So all he would have had to do is get his gun license and he would be able to purchase the same rifle as he used, and carry it around wherever he liked.

The legislation DID make it illegal to have more than 5 rounds in the magazine of a semi-automatic rifle, such as the Mini-14. That was a specific response to the fact that he had 30 in his Mini-14 when he attacked. The legislation requires that the magazines on such rifles have rivets put into them at the five round mark, to prevent loading the weapon with more than six rounds (one in the chamber, five in the magazine). It is illegal, and punishable by up to ten years in prison, to use a dremel to remove that rivet.

Now here's the question I have for you:

If you decided that you were going to take your rifle to your school and murder a bunch of people, do you think you would be deterred by the law that says you cannot use a dremel to drill out the rivet? It does not strike me that someone intent on committing a capital crime is going to be deterred by five or ten years in prison for removing the rivet on the magazine of the weapon they plan on using to commit a mass murder.

 

[Brill]

Do you feel that there was anything in the gun registry legislation that would have prevented Marc Lepine from striking, had it been in effect?

No, he was intent on his actions.

 

[fuji]

No, he was intent on his actions.

Yeah. We agree. So would you agree that there is nothing misogynist in dismantling legislation that has no effect on violence against women?

 

[guelph]

Fats, I don't think anybody would disagree with you that "violence against people" is the ultimate wrong here.

Violence against men tends to fall into other categories, like gang violence, or violence directed at their religious or ethnic group.

This is not my experience when we were kids it wasn't the fathers and male teachers beating on us.

 

[rld]

The incident was a big factor in setting up a gun registry, now it's been dismantled by the current generation of misogynist politicians.
Very unpopular move in Quebec in general and for women across Canada.

I don't see the gun registry as a related issue at all.

But I guess we live for opportunities to label people misogynist.

 

[massman]

Agree with comments above. No long gun registry would have prevented lepine from commiting his horrific crime that day. For politicians to have used this major tragedy for political gain to embarass the govt is shameful. Dont get me wrong, i have no love for our current "harper" government, but even more important is that our elected representatives do not manipulate such issues for political "points" or soundbites.

The long gun registry is one that targets legal gun owners and users. We can debate it separately. But at the timE of the montreal massacre, strong gun controls were in effect, that he followed, and the additional step of "registering" the firearm would have done nothing at all to prevent that crime, he simply would have registered it when he bought it. How would that have prevented this lunatic from carrying out these acts?

 

[djk]

It is worth noting that his act was a complete failure. Contrary to his misogynist views women have and continue to excel in universities and now outnumber their male counterparts.

It's not hard to do with the overwhelming entitlements women have received over men.

 

[train]

The gun control issue is a red herring to this thread. I personaly think that Marc Lepine was more a product of his abusive Afghan father than anything but if feminists want to use this tragedy as a lightening rod to raise awareness against violence against women that is fine with me as there that element was front and center. God knows every bit helps. It had a double impact on me, being from Montreal and knowing that neighbourhood and it seemed the day Canadians lost a bit of our innocence and our belief that this couldn't happen here.

Quebec seems to have more than its fair share of these violent multiple muder "events". Concordia University murder of 4 by a professor in1992, Dawson College mass shootings in 2006 (proof that the gun registry was ineffective I guess), and the murder of 4 women by their Afghan (again) family currently on trial.

 

[fuji]

It's not hard to do with the overwhelming entitlements women have received over men.

They now get in on the basis of their grades, which are higher.

 

[rld]

It's not hard to do with the overwhelming entitlements women have received over men.

Such as...?

 

[djk]

They now get in on the basis of their grades, which are higher.

Which isn't hard to do when the last 20 years has been spent on shaping the education system in their favor.

 

[djk]

Such as...?

Quick example, I google "federal government of canada women" and the first hit is http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/index-eng.html. I google "federal government of canada men" and the first hit is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Canadian_internment.

Upon further searching, there appears to be no agency or department within the Federal Government seeking to address the issues and challenges that men face today.

 

[rld]

Quick example, I google "federal government of canada women" and the first hit is http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/index-eng.html. I google "federal government of canada men" and the first hit is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Canadian_internment.

Upon further searching, there appears to be no agency or department within the Federal Government seeking to address the issues and challenges that men face today.

That's it?

You seemed to suggest there was some sort of overwhelming entitlement system favouring women in education.

 

[djk]

That's it?

You seemed to suggest there was some sort of overwhelming entitlement system favouring women in education.

What started with good intentions has turned into a zero sum system. Some examples, demonizing healthy young male behavior (play fighting), wrongful accusations scare away male teachers and role models, schools are not taking into account differences between the genders and so on.

The Globe and Mail felt the situation was severe enough to bring to attention.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/failing-boys/

There's also some great books on the subject as well.