30 years since the Montreal Massacre

I feel embarrassed that I was not aware of this.
I am going to share it and speak with my 17 year old daughter about it.

Thank you for posting ❤️

I lived in Montreal at the time, I was 17. It has had a huge impact on my life. I became more scared of men after this and realised how much hate there was for women.

It is only recently, through women activists, that the this tragedy was recognised as violence against females and not just generic violence. He targeted women.

I still will not say his name but I speak the names of the women every year. Je me souviens.

Another here, thanks for posting.

It remains the worst mass shooting in Canada to this day.
It led to improvements in gun control in Canada, I believe.

I’m Canadian and can’t believe it’s been 30 years. I’m glad the horrific event is finally getting the recognition it deserves and is sparking dialogue. It remains the worst mass shooting in Canada to this day.

I was about 30, and living in the US at the time - I didn't hear about it either. I've only come across this before on FWR. I've got a DD who is an engineering student, it makes my blood run cold.

Such a horrible tragedy.

breathtaking irony …

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3759130-Munroe-Bergdorfas-UN-Advocate-for-ending-VAGWG

Inebri I agree. But it’s not just how sex role stereotypes are socialised in a wider scale like this, it’s also how parents convey these messages. While I don’t think messages at home somehow override the bs out there easily I think it plays a role. While I might be biased as a mother of girls, I generally find other mothers horrified at the suggestion (in general terms, not specific) that they should be teaching boys not to rape as some outrageous insult to their (poor poor) boys. I’m good at wording this gently in real life I promise, and I’m in no way letting men off the hook for their role in raising boys to be good men, but I spend most my time talking to mothers not fathers and the outrage at the idea that both parents should be teaching boys not to grow up to be rapists is extreme. Generally it’s in the context of other mothers saying that at least they don’t have to worry about girls getting all ‘silly’ once they are teens and want boyfriends, or it’s the I’d be so scared for her when she’s older going out to bars etc (often with the likes we did at that age/what we got up to at that age) and you must worry about how to keep them safe type convo. I tend to explain the usual yes I’ll talk to them about staying with friends/not accepting drinks/leaving drinks unattended and so on briefly but try to steer it to the reality that we shouldn’t be focusing on training girls not to be victims and that can be a form of victim blaming- which most seem to get I think - but add to it we really need to be raising boys to not be rapists and it’s like horror. It’s why would I need to teach them that and so on, and no amount of pointing out that you teach them not to hit, not to threaten to kill, not to steal etc seems to make it click. Explaining that boys need to be raised to understand they don’t have a right to sex often seems to set off mothers on how their sweet innocent boys of course have a right to be loved and how they can’t bring them up to think being lonely is ok and veres into male suicide rates and how there’s no help for men (of course countering this with facts doesn’t help). So there’s this part too imho. Even some of the most pro women’s lib mothers I know still seem to baby their sons and not grasp this point. (Although I’d never say that to them).

I know a whole range of different types of mums, not just a closer circle of likeminded mums, and I’ve found almost everyone who I’ve discussed twaw bs have grasped it, no matter how differently our views/lives may differ, but few mothers seem to grasp the need to activity teach their boys not to rape. I think this is just part of much wider problems, and that the fathers role or lack of and how other men socialise men deserves more blame, but I think women can continue sex role stereotypes socialisation that contributes to boys growing into men who feel they have a right to women’s bodies, even though they might be convinced they are men who support women’s lib in other ways.

I think it must not have been covered much in the UK. It was covered in Canada, and for years there was coverage every year at the anniversary, and it was always presented as being about an attack on women more generally, not just an individual crazy person.

I was 18 when this happened and have absolutely no knowledge of this. Was it just not covered in the UK? Shocking.

Those poor women. (And their families)

I would think bringing up future males not to expect to be entitled to our bodies would be a start.
I absolutely agree with this but I don't see it happening under the current iteration of patriarchy, which now demands women cannot say no to men being in our spaces.
They are training a generation of young women to believe that to say no to a man is a hate crime, that if a person appears to be a man they have to stay silent and submissive.

I found myself compulsively reading articles about it yesterday and getting really quite tearful reading the biographies of the women. I also grew up in Canada and remember it vividly. I can't believe it's taken 30 years for it to be recognised that it wasn't the act of a lone wolf but rather an anti-feminist attack. Even as a child that seemed blindingly obvious to me.

This thread I came across summed up a lot of my feelings:
twitter.com/emeegray/status/1202916574870614016

I was 21 and living in the UK when this happened.

I don't recall reading anything about this in the newspapers at the time.

It is so shocking.

Also shocking that it wasn't as widely reported as it should have been.

Bernard I would think bringing up future males not to expect to be entitled to our bodies would be a start. It’s not that simple of course as the current angry men influence future ones also, but women not putting sons first, the likes of social discussions around how everyone (men) have the right to be loved (get to fuck women) acknowledge that sex is not a human right, actively teaching boys not to rape rather than teaching girls not to be victims would be plus points. We can’t control how angry entitled men influence how sex role stereotypes are socialised but we can draw attention to how women are complicit in continuing these and appeal to the men who aren’t misogynistic to actively socialise future generations of men differently and to challenge the current entitled ones.

This is also why violence against w&g should be a hate crime. He directly attacked a marginalised group because he hated them for not accepting their bodies should be available to him. That’s the definition of hate crime and women being murdered for being women is no less of a hate crime than gay men being targeted for being gay. The article imho misses that, she says once the laws and rights are correct, yet this one isn’t.

I had never heard of this either.

The people in charge get to make the decision to keep certain bits of information under wraps.

Some details are considered to be too distressing as it was already clear who had committed the crime. This happened in the Jamie Bulger case.

But who gets to cherry pick the news released to the public and why?

This needs to be scrutinised more.

Another one here who'd never heard about this, thanks for posting this.

Thank you for posting about this. I have never heard of this event before. I would have been too young at the time for it to have registered even if it had been reported, but I bet if I ask my mum she won’t have heard of it either.
If it was a woman who had expressed her hatred for men and gone out and killed as many as possible can you even imagine the response?!!

I was 17 and I don't remember this. I remember other major events from years before. Was this tragedy not given the coverage it deserved?

I'd never heard of this before, I'm surprised it was not mentioned in any of the Eliot Rogers articles - I was in 6th form at the time and spent a lot of time reading about it and it was made out to be a first massacre with an anti woman motive.

I read this morning that this is (finally) now officially referred to as an anti feminist attack, rather than just an attack on a random group of people. I prefer the term femicide, as it’s more encompassing, but still, at least the motive is now acknowledged.

I’ll think of them today.

I’m another one who was unaware. I was 23 and am astounded it passed me by. Utterly horrifying. Thank you for posting.

I didn't know about this. The article is a really interesting take

The Montreal Massacre gave us our first clue that the threat of feminism wasn't about women being allowed to do men's work. It went much deeper. The real threat was not in having women engineers, in other words, as long as men-women relationships remained the same. As long as women remained physically and emotionally available to men

I think she's onto something here. This is basically the same view expressed by the likes of Jordan Peterson (just because it may be correct, doesn't mean it's right).

How do we get to a place where men's reaction on women not being available to them because they're not nice people to be with isn't rage, but to become nicer people?

I was 17. I'm ashamed to say I don't remember this. Thank you for posting. How awful.