It was just 34 years ago when a man entered Montreal's Polytechnique. He was angry. Angry at feminists and women, whom he blamed for -- in his own words -- "ruined" his life. He entered the school with a gun and told the men to get out of the classroom before he opened fire on the women.
Geneviève Bergeron;
Hélène Colgan;
Nathalie Croteau;
Barbara Daigneault;
Anne-Marie Edward;
Maud Haviernick;
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz;
Maryse Laganière;
Maryse Leclair;
Anne-Marie Lemay;
Sonia Pelletier;
Michèle Richard;
Annie St-Arneault; Sex-based
Annie Turcotte
This should have driven home that violence against women is a problem. Male violence against women. Sex based violence. Femicide. Innocent lives lost just because of the sex of these women. It's 2023. And ."this is still a massive problem - a massive growing problem. There are still men choosing to kill groups of women at a time. There are men who had plans and were thankfully found before they could act on their plans. The numbers of femicide cases has gone up since the pandemic.
Canada is not faring well, and Canada will continue to not be able to combat this massive problem properly. Not with the government obfuscating this problem with other forms of violence and lumping it all into the new term: "gender-based violence". Schools, like the University of Toronto, has opted to use a gender non-conforming male as keynote speaker for their vigil of the 14 women. The keynote speakers no longer speak about sex-based violence. Instead they speak to transphobia. If we cannot say the words, be precise in our definitions, speak with clarity about a problem,properly then we cannot combat it. We cannot combat male violence against women and honour the women who have died at the hands of those men if we refer to what is happening as "gender-based violence" and apply it to almost every group that exists.