It will have been 35 years since the world got to know Marc Lépine’s name, identifying him as the man who shot and killed 14 women at École Polytechnique in Montreal. He would wound another 10 plus four men during his rampage, and the world hasn’t been the same since.
For members of the Canadian Federation of University Women, that moment in time has served as a touchstone for their efforts to help end violence against women. When they gather on the steps of Stratford’s city hall on December 6 to remember the women who died that day, they will pay solemn respect to the memory of the victims while also standing up for them and others.
“That man’s actions have had ripple effects everywhere,” said Cynthia Hastings, a member of CFUW Stratford. “Each year in Montreal, they read the names of every person he killed and put out 14 spotlights. The ‘White Ribbon’ campaign that was launched in 1991 in London was done by a group of men for the specific purpose of raising awareness of the prevalence of male violence against women.”
The motto CFUW is working with for this event is ‘work for change’ and Hastings said that will be part of her remarks on December 6. She’ll talk briefly about the women who were killed and they will be named during a ceremony where the group will hold up photos of the victims – helping to drive home the point that this was not an anonymous group of women who died.
“We will have a moment of silence and maybe some comments from the mayor, but then we’re going to talk about the fact that violence against women has not even decreased since that day,” Hastings said. “We need to continue the fight that’s been going on far too long. Women are being killed for no reason.”
Hastings and CFUW Stratford chapter president Cambria Ravenhill were asked if, after three and a half decades of continued violence against women, the cause is any further ahead. Hastings said it’s one she wrestles with frequently.
“In some ways women have made progress, but not necessarily on the violence against women front,” she said. “There are some women in professions like medicine and law – if you look back to the 1960s and the University of Toronto has all of the pictures of their classes, you would see a woman one year and a black person the next year but there was never more than one. Yes, I do think progress has been made, but women are still afraid to walk the street at night, and women are still the subjects of mass killings. They’re targeted because they’re women.”
Ravenhill stated that a friend of hers was one of just three women in the engineering program at the University of Waterloo when she attended, and now that number is significantly higher with females making up roughly 40 per cent of the class. So even as young women gravitate to the very program the Montreal victims were enrolled in, the fight for safety and security still rages on in the background.
“It’s still there, the violence, and it’s gone up,” Ravenhill said. “This is an issue we’ll keep advocating for because it’s showing no signs of abating. This is why we remember the women who were killed that day, and it would be wonderful if their deaths had made a huge impact in changing the culture.”
And while the content of the message is clear, the target audience for it is divided. Hastings said this isn’t about targeting all men, but she does point out that more men could take an active role in helping tilt this fight in the right direction.
“That saying that gets used all the time is if you’re not part of the solution then you’re part of the problem is applicable here,” she said. “We’re hoping to move men towards speaking out. It’s very easy to not say anything as it can be uncomfortable to speak up. So I’m comfortable to turn to a friend and tell them I’d never speak to my spouse like that so I don’t know why you’re doing it. We’re hoping to encourage men to take that step, to be uncomfortable and to call out violence when you see it.”
The flag lowering to commemorate the 14 women who were murdered will be at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 6, at city hall.
