December 6th, 2009 marks the 20th year since the Montreal Massacre, when a gunman named Marc Lรฉpine entered Montrealโs รcole Polytechnique, shouted โI hate feminists!โ and killed 14 women, just for being female engineering students.
Each year since, December 6th has been a day of memorial for the young women and an occasion to identify and deconstruct sources of the continuing violence against women in our society; this year, however, the Womenโs Centre will not be holding a memorial, at the behest of the families of the 14 women slain.
We would like forย Laurier students to continue to take this opportunity to think about violence against women, and recognize the need for organizations such as the Womenโs Centre and the White Ribbon Campaign โ a menโs group dedicated to eradicating violence against women โ in Canadian society today.
Feminism was needed in 1989, and it is still needed today.
Violence against women is still an enormous problem, and the costs are too high for us to stand idly by.
โWLU Womenโs Centre Collective