Hello all,
In our final class on Wednesday, reference was made to the Montreal Massacre, which occurred on December 6, 1989. This tragedy was a pivotal event in Canada. From a personal perspective, I can tell you that it marked a significant shift in the way that many Canadian women thought about issues of gender and violence. In some ways, it shocked us out of any sense of complacency we might have had about living in a country where gender equality was taken for granted. The deaths of 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique that day – killed because they were women by a man who wanted to kill women – changed many of us, and many of our attitudes, in significant ways. It’s become something of a cliche to talk about important events as the ones that affected you so deeply that you forever remember where you were and what you doing and who you were with when you heard about it. But for so many women I know, December 6 was one of those moments.
Today is commemorated in Canada as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. If you like, you can read a little more about it here:
Wishing you all well,
Janis
