Remembering the Montreal Massacre

[HerBeatitude]

Just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention.

We should remember them

The women Marc Lepine murdered wouldn't necessarily have called themselves feminists. They were just 14 young women who had chosen to study engingeering and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lepine himself was a seriously deluded, ill, individual. Many people, myself included, dislike the way his horrific actions have been 'hi-jacked' to make a political statement. I personally prefer to just rememember them.

That women can be murdered just for being women, is a political issue actually.

It's like complaining that the Stephen Lawrence case was hi-jacked to make political points. His murder was political, because he was murdered purely and simply because he was black. These women were murdered purely and simply because they were women, as you say, in the wrong place at the wrong time. If that's not political, I don't know what is.

Look, all I'm saying is that not everyone choses to remember the incident as a political one. It doesn't make me wrong or ill-informed, I just happen to have a different opinion from you.

I understand your argument, I just don't buy into it. There are many more high-profile and eloquent people than me who have called for Dec 6th not to be viewed as a political event. I still remember the 14 every year, without fail. It saddens me that it has been hi-jacked for political reasons.

How you remember this terrible event is up to you TooPragmatic. And how everyone else chooses to remember it, is up to them.

You can refuse to talk about the politics of men murdering women if you want. I think it's important to though, so that we can stop them doing it.

Thank you for posting this SGM. I had never heard of them...

TooPragmatic They were killed because they were women. You don'T get more political than that.

It upsets me that people would attempt to depoliticize this event by pretending it's coincidence that the murderer was male (as if it would be female) and just another mere coincidence that the victims were female.
When the truth is that the murderer was a woman-hater in a woman-hating world.

sorry, thank you HerBeautitude for starting this thread

Well, Sakura, I guess I choose not to view the planet I live on as a "woman-hating world". Blimey, I'm genuinely surprised you can face the world each day if that's how you see things.

yes, it was difficult at first to take off the rose-tinted spectacles. BUt now I'm glad I have, because even though facing the truth is difficult, it's the only way to change male violence against women, and a world where a man thinks it's acceptable to hurt women.

I had never heard of that massacre before today. I think it was political as well. Even if the women were not feminists (as TooPragmatic seems to say) the fact that he killed them because in his mind they indeed were (according to the Op's link he left a note to that effect)makes it political.

he thought they were feminists because they were studying. A real, traditional, "good" women would be in the kitchen and home where she belonged

How many massacres do you know of by women TooPragmatic?
Far more men kill women than women kill men.

Sethstarkaddersmum: To answer your question, I am not familiar with any female massacres. ( I assume that's the answer you're after?) That's hardly surprising, surely? In general, women don't go around killing other people. I think we're all agreed on that one.

On the other hand, how many massacres/shootings are like the Poly, where all the victims were women? I know of no other case and if other examples exist, they must surely be rare. So this is/was a fairly unique situation, involving one very crazy individual.

Thank you Prolesworth

TooPragmatic Google the Congo

TooPragmatic,
If the Montreal massacre had involved a white man shooting dead 14 black men - would you still want to de-politicise it? Would they have been 14 men who just chose to study engineering in the wrong place and wrong time? Could you seriously say that?
If not, explain the difference to me.

OR find out how many women are murdered every year in the UK by their spouses

smugaboo

I think (to go back to a point made earlier in the thread) the Stephen Lawrence case was political. It was a nasty reminder of racism in society.

However, the scenario you give of a rampage/shooting involving a white gunman is very different in my eyes. I think I would view it much less as a sign of a racist society and much more the actions of a seriously mental ill person.

The gunman at the Poly had had his application to study there turned down. In his warped mind, he'd lost out to women who'd won places at the school. To put it mildly, he wasn't exactly thinking straight was he?

If it makes you all feel any better, I'm regretting posting in this topic already. I know that we all view the events of 1989 within the context of our wider view of the world. I suppose I just thought, naively, that I might make some people view what happened in Mtl from a different perspective. I'll leave you to it.