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Remembering the women of École Polytechnique

By guest blogger Terri Monture

I remember the evening of December 6, 1989 with the cold clarity of skidding my bike down Toronto’s Bathurst Street in a blowing snowstorm. I was going to meet a friend for dinner after work, and we were chatty and laughing until the bartender turned up the sound on the CBC supper hour broadcast, where the images of sheet covered bodies being wheeled out of a building caught our attention. We watched in horror as the reporter detailed the dreadful facts of what had happened: that a man with an automatic rifle had gone into the École Polytechnique in Montreal and separated the men from the women, then shot the women proclaiming “I hate feminists.”

I didn’t sleep well that night, tossing and turning with vague, unsettled dreams of an endless parade of stretchers. The next morning I went to my office – I was then working for a non-profit organization –  and sat with my stunned co-workers, all of whom were women between the ages of 19 and 35, the same age range as the murdered women in Montreal. We were shocked and shattered, but mostly scared. The dreams we had of excelling at something professional in our own lives suddenly seemed too dangerous, and that there were people who hated women enough to kill was really difficult to accept.

In the 25 years since that horrible day, not much has changed. We hear about the horror and death of women and girls around the world – from brutal rapes to schoolgirls being kidnapped, to honour killings abroad and at home, and the murdered and missing Indigenous women here in Canada. And my only thought is: Why does this continue to happen? Why can’t we stop this?

The statistics are horrific:
-One of out of four women in Canada has been the victim of some kind of sexual assault.
-A woman is killed every six days by her intimate partner.
-Every night, about 200 women and their children are turned away because the shelters are full.
-There are approximately 1,181 murdered or missing Indigenous women and girls, a number so statistically out of whack with our population that it would be like an entire town in Canada has disappeared.
-Close to home here in Toronto this past weekend, a woman and her two sons were the victims of a murder-suicide by her estranged partner
-Sexual harassment in work environments – which should be places of safety, creativity and good work – has still not been rooted out

It feels dangerous to be a woman, but we persevere, and push back, and insist that this has to stop. Which is why on December 6, I will pause, reflect, and remember those 14 young women, cut down at the beginning of their lives, for merely daring to be educated in a profession that would allow their dreams to soar. Let’s work together so the violence ends here.

Remember their names:

Geneviève Bergeron

Hélène Colgan

Nathalie Croteau

Barbara Daigneault

Anne-Marie Edward

Maud Haviernick

Maryse Laganière

Maryse Leclair

Anne-Marie Lemay

Sonia Pelletier

Michèle Richard

Annie St-Arneault

Annie Turcotte

Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz

 

Terri Monture is a Staff Representative with the Canadian Media Guild

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