These 14 women were killed by Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi son of Liess Gharbi, a Muslim from Algeria.

IAMC I'm not sure what you are talking about. These 14 women were shot by Mark Lepine.

Percy; this article is not arguing that violent murderers would be prevented by funding lobby groups.

The murder of 14 women because they were feminists is an example of the lack of women's equality in Canada. Because there is still sexism (and racism don't forget) in Canada, we need lobby groups to ensure these marginalized people are given a voice in parliament. The Montreal massacre was 17 years ago but there still exists a disparity in income between men and women, women are still raped and beaten every day by men. The government claims we are equal and is punishing women who disagree with them by witholding funding from advocacy and lobby groups. This cannot be allowed.

bethanney; Marc Lepine wasn't his real name. He is not indicative of Canadian values. He was actually named Gamil Rodrique Gharbi and was raised by a Muslim from Algeria. He was taught to hate women by his father, Liess Gharbi.
He was anything but a typical Canadian. And we typical Canadians resent people like you who try to label all white males as sexist and racist, so piss off.
We are all Canadians, we don't need to be separated by sex. We will all be treated equally by this Conservative Govt.

Right, because inside every man there is a Marc Lepine waiting to get out. This kind of reasoning can turn every incident into some form of "expression" and thereby passes judgement based upon ideological/sociological motivations. This form of reasoning also concludes that:

Denis Lortie's attack on the Quebec National Assembly was an expression of attitudes towards the Quebec Government that still exist to this day.
Valery Fabrikant's murder of four Engineering profs was an expression of attitudes towards elitist college professors.

The murders committed by Lepine were the product of a disturbed mind and the victims were an expression of his personal problems with what he perceived to be "feminism" and "feminists." He was paranoid and had delusions of grandeur that led him to believe that he was fighting for society. His actions were far less symptomatic of the issue of violence against women than the recent murders of Manjit Panghali and Navrett Kaur Waraich.

The author needs to link the Montreal Massacre to the overall status of women because ideology demands it, and the column further laments funding cuts and the under-representation of women in Parliament. Violence against women is a human problem and not necessarily tied to the number of women in elected office or a psycho with a rifle. Sweden has high percentages of women in elected positions at all levels and in the private sector. Daycare, healthcare and other support services are widely available: there are possibly fewer barriers to women in Sweden than in any other country. They still have a serious domestic violence problem, more serious per capita than that in Canada in some years. Data on DV is always difficult to quantify, with under-reporting being a massive hurdle to anything nearing a complete picture, but the numbers are there with even the least favourable readings of Canadian data.

The Montreal Massacre provided a time and place where issues could be anchored. It is the base event for gun control and Canadian feminism. The problem is that it was an outrageous act committed by a man with severe psychological problems: an act of complete irrationality cannot be an expression of anything but the twisted visions of a madman. He was rejected by the armed forces and then rejected by École Polytechnique when he applied for an engineering program. His mind led him to blame women for this failure, but he could have blamed minorities or "the Jews" and singled them out instead if his mind had twisted in that direction.

Gamil Garbi was the name Marc Lepine had until he changed it.

He did not shoot them because they were feminists, he shot them because they were women at the university, mostly students of the same faculty (Engineering) that he had been denied entry to. The victims were chosen based upon his own criteria, not those of society, and the location was related to feelings of anger at his rejection to study there. Were all 14 victims shot actually "feminists," whatever that means at this stage, or were they women trying to live their lives?

I vividly recall the night that Marc Lepine performed that barbaric act and killed 14 women.

However, this article , the bigger picture and the consequences need to be compared.

Lepine killed 14 women...but were they actually so-called clearly defined feminists .....or simply perceived as feminists by Lepine or others because these 14 women attended a school(engineering) which may be perceived as a male enclave( though women have made major inroads in almost all previously male dominated enclaves ....haven't they?)

This article states " The massacre, rather than being just a random attack by a madman, was an expression of attitudes toward women that are still latent today and continue to hold women back ".

Sorry, but I resent the implication, vague or otherwise .....Marc Lepine did NOT speak for me nor millions of other males.

Is this issue simply taking advantage of a tragedy .....which is also thankfully an anomaly, and claiming that added funding etc. to any/all lobby group will solve the self - defined problem ?

What unfortunately happens is this issue gets extrapolated far beyond its original scope , the Gov'ts are forced into deer -in -headlights mode, then Gov't must do something,...a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g ...and thus create all sorts of new legislation without enforcing existing legislation , and everyone loses in various ways via the same -brush -tars- all.

As one media person with wise insight once said, Canadians tend to start these little groups and then they grow into literal professional groups and thus become full - time professions. Do they achieve their original objective, some may,.... but many don't, as the Math of inverse proportions often kicks in. ie more $$$ / less achieved.

Careful for what you ask for, and equally careful what you contribute to.

Feminism is a broad topic, not to be defined by a chosen few. FTR, I married into a family of "Feminists"...(or so they claim, at least when they were younger ).

This article ,in hindsight, is simply a lobbying -rant.

What is it that is misleading?

How are the discourses implicitly racist? How does one judge the implicit nature of a discourse? Evidence, please....

Grub, things seem to have gone over your head for a bit:

The media discourse dovetails nicely with the over the top Islamophobia exhibited by some troll above...It's implicit in some of the coverage that male violence is a problem particular to brown men. I can think of a pretty effective one word rebuttal for our local context:

Pickton

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/CityandRegion/2006/12/05/2636570-sun.html

gramscian, I just take issue with sentences that are thrown in gratuitously. I expect better from people writing for the Tyee.

I'm just asking the author to specify what was misleading.

As to racist? If the Indo community decides there is a problem, and meetings are held to discuss this problem, and the media covers these meetings, that's somehow racist?

Obviously violence towards women is neither a brown nor a white issue. But, might there be cultural factors to explain what goes on in the Indo community? I don't know. I suspect that's what those meetings were about.

gramscian
Wait for the trial, there's more there than has been covered in the press. Another woman, found alive, was just taken off the 'dead' list. How many is that now?

I do agree that Ron (IAMC) has a problem with folks who don't fit his definition of minimally Canadian.

I just have a feeling that Willy Picton might have an interesting defence that doesn't have much to do with his alleged status as a serial killer. And which may undermine the point you’re trying to make.

grub
I think your point is valid but I'd level it at Ron and not gramscian - that's who he was writing about.

And, I know policing these posts is a difficult and frustrating job, but, this is hardly the first time Ron Erwin (IAMC) has posted hateful stuff aimed at a particular and clearly identifiable group.

I've made a decision to point such things out whenever I see them and I hope someone will notice.

People have been banned or edited for less in the past. Especially left wingers.

GWest, I hope you appreciate the irony of that comment, appended to an article that suggests all men are potential murderers.

Do any of the right-wing trolls derailing this discussion have anything to say in defense of Harper's cuts to Status of Women? Or anything of substance to critique about the ongoing importance of feminism and struggle against male violence?

Percy
Not at all, I don't consider men a group in the sense that we’re discussing. We are half of all humanity and we have always managed to stir up the vast majority of the mayhem and violence.

I just read a long review article on the subject of the uses the Christian church has made of violence and I'm not all that sympathetic to the idea that men are all, or even mostly blameless as a class. In fact, quite the contrary.

I was actually hoping someone would make the point you did, because as Gerharius so clearly pointed out, the violent nature of the male isn't just focused on women, feminist or otherwise.

And Gramscian, you are absolutely correct, Harper's cutbacks in this area, along with his refusal to fund the Kelowna accord and to pull funding through the Heritage ministry for Native Language studies are all unforgivable. As is his 'justice' initiative which amounts to warehousing criminals rather than rehabilitating them and his refusal to fund a decent child care program anywhere but in the province of Quebec.

Among other things.

Well, you seem to have gotten it all wrong. The violence is only effective due to the inequality of physical stature.

The result is that an approach which mitigates the advantage of physical stature is neccessary to fight back successfully.

And as a result, gun control was the exact opposite of what was required. A better approach would be gun liberalization, to enable everyone to arm themselves, and fight back successfully.

I bet that the rate of DV against female infantry is very low.

Sorry for the personal anecdote but...

One of my closest friends is a Democratic Prosecutor near a major US Army base. One day he called me and asked if X, a woman I had dated at university, was born on such & such a date in Seattle. I responded "yes" and asked why. Apparently a file was on his desk that outlined a possible DV case, with X accused of battering her husband. X was not a violent person in the slightest but she had taken a variety of self defence courses over the years before teaching martial arts courses while in law school. One night her boyfriend started something and she defended herself. She called the police and ended up being processed herself because the guy ended up in rough shape, nothing permanent but lots of pain while X had barely a mark on her.

My friend recused himself from the case and eventually the charges were dropped, followed by an 12 month suspended sentence for the guy. When I spoke to X later about that night and the guy, she said he knew that she had instructed karate and studied martial arts for years and yet he still came at her in a rage. She was angry at her treatment but also realised that she had reduced him very quickly from assaulter to victim.

G West:

You commented about "policing" these posts...

Other than your usual sparring partner "R" saying "piss off", he is commenting on what he feels are insinuations, which is how many of these topics end up...with people getting pissed off with the one -brush- tars -all.

There have been some unfortunate incidents whereby cultural specific murders have occurred based, or rooted, on cultural beliefs, there is nothing racist about that, its simply a fact.

(2) recent murders of females have had those given ethnic communities rallying around to deal with the issue, apparently internally, and maybe that is the best approach. There are also OTHER murders etc. and violence in society for other reasons too numerous to list nor understand.

Bethanney commented that Lepines victims were feminists...no... they are 14 females .....who knows if they were feminists ? , they can't admit or deny it anymore...and as the author stated, Lepine had a list of who HE felt were feminists and who he felt were next in line for his own delusional reasons.

Throwing money at some group which claims to represent others is often a bad idea...how does one quantify the investment?

If one actually sells the plan and the idea to the general public, sans emotion, ( and not only to knee-jerk vote sequestering politicians who like to hold up big cardboard cheque$$$ to lobby groups ...) solutions will be arrived at and also further educating the general public, and we will all, both male and female(....or female and male ) reap the societal benefits.

Are there are any women in Canada that think any sane Canadian man would condone what Lepine did?

Most men in Canada treat women with a lot of respect, sometimes more than some of them deserve. Most women in Canada treat men with a lot of respect, sometimes more than some of them deserve.

C'est la vie.

This is what Ron wrote:

Judge for yourself maestro, I assumed you could read.

Well, a LOT has changed since this mass murder...especially on the university campuses and in the classrooms.

Young men have changed soooooo much (and are now being criticized for that, not surprisingly) and young women don't have nearly the obstacles to overcome that their older 'sisters' even 15 or 20 years ago did. In fact, the female students practically run university campuses now (with a few hold-out bastions that have been slower to register the trend....Engineering, computer sciences...I'll keep my thoughts on that to myself for now.)

I'd initially started a post on this when the article first it went up, and then decided to stay away from it. I've debated this too often, and have learned it's often better to just leave it alone.

Suffice to say that I'm relieved the issue(s) are handled a little bit more intelligently & sensitively now than they were at my Alma Mater in the years immediately following the massacre. Where possible, the issues should be acknowledged without that highly personalized berating of men or the gratuitous pathologization of male sexuality, which many of us were subjected to at the time....but conversely we must just as strenuously resist spurious attempts to exploit this tragedy in support of contemporary political agendas and funding ploys that are not even tangentially related.

Just a point of clarification: Status of Women was hardly the only "policy shop" to get hit with the budget knife earlier this year, or to have their mandate tightened up to re-assert the distinction between government and lobbyist. Status of Women is actually one of the worst offenders on the latter score (they're notorious), so you could say that they had it coming. In a way, they were ruining it for everyone else that was trying to get some real policy thinking done in Ottawa. Note, for example, their ill-conceived, disasterously timed, hare-brained "report" calling for the legalization of polygamy which they released to the public with great fanfare smack in the middle of the highly publicized Senate hearings on Bill C-38 (the "gay marriage" legislation). That kind of idiocy should be culled. They're a liability to progressive forces, not a friend.

G West:

Yes.... I read it many times in order to try and see YOUR point.

I guess you didn't read my last post.

Jeez nightbloom, I thought you'd gotten over that highly personalized berating and gratuitous pathologization stuff.

Carry on as you were. BTW, there's an interesting review article in the current issue of The New Republic on the history of the use of violence in the Church.

It's a bit too long to post and it's behind subscription.

If you send your email to this address I'll send you a word file I made of it.

maestro
I've seen Ron's tactics far too often to be the least bit sympathetic to his final pandering comment about 'Canadians'.

If you doubt me, ask Frank the next time he's around.

jwstewart:

Just means that self-defense courses ought to be mandatory in the school system.

nightbloom,

I'd love to hear them :)

Do you think it's for lack of trying?

http://www.jadeproject.ca/

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/local/affairs/committees/FoWCS/

http://batman.mech.ubc.ca/~new/

http://batman.mech.ubc.ca/~daweg/

http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/wie/

http://www.grad.uwaterloo.ca/scholarships/details.asp?sid=1089

OJ Simpson? A dog? What next, the tabloid obsession with Britney Spears' vagina: a phallocentric social perversion?

Leaflets fluttering down from an ivory tower. I'm not interested.

Liberal solution to the Montreal Massacre. One billion plus of your moneyfor long gun registry. What good did that do?

Status of Women - Last year - one year - spent $11,068,299. for five reports. Last year - one year - spent an additional $ll,268,852 in grants. What good did THAT do?

RickW

Self Defense course offered in school isn't a bad idea. But even same-sex martial arts like boxing categorize opponents according to size, so physical stature plays a role.

Since manual dexterity is not related to physical stature, firearms would equalize the disadvantage more successfully.

But of course, much training and practice would be required, especially regarding when and how lethal force could be used.

As it stands now, fighting back would mostly likely involve fleeing if at all possible.

The issue can be looked as anomalies and how we deal with them. If ,however, they were epidemic that's a whole different matter.

Grasping an anomaly and using it as a cause celebre' is its own form of prostitution.

There is really no defence against someone who wishes to shoot or use other means to kill people en masse'. People so predisposed will find the means.

Bill C-68 was enacted in 1995. Some attribute it's genesis to the 1989 Montreal massacre. As Maxwell states, over one BILLION dollars spent. In hindsight,( but not that many of us hadn't predicted it), it was a huge waste of tax dollars.

Perhaps these lobbyists should be careful what they wish for, and why we often tune them out, as they have not achieved their objective, BUT had Big Brother abscond more of our civil rights and YET these lobbyists still come back for more ?

Show me a plan that works SVP...

Some interesting stats:
% of women knifed by their partner: 4.1
% of men knifed by their partner: 11
(Risk of serious physical injury from assault by a woman intimate, 1999)
Number of wives/husbands who hit or tried to hit their spouse with something: 30 wives/1000, 17 husbands/1000
(National Family Violence Survey, 1995)
Rate of wives/husbands who engaged in severe violence against their spouse: 46 wives/1000, 30 husbands/1,000
(ibid)
% of all child abuse committed by mothers: 61 (National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, 1995)
% of children murdered by mothers: 55%
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1994
So what color ribbon should we wear to stop female violence?

What rubbish.

The status of women has never been better. An interesting article would be one that explores this fact in some detail.

Women dominate the post-secondary world, and they occupy all of the leadership positions in my high school. Last year, when the top five students in each grade were recognized at an assembly, I couldn't help but notice that the stage held 24 girls and 1 boy.

Here's a title for a useful article: "Where are the boys?"

I have a son and a daughter. I worry more for his future than for hers.

Re: Worrying more for your son than your daughter...

Davey-Boy when you ask "Where are the boys?" ...in case you haven't looked around at the working classes lately, most of the boys around here grow up and become skilled craftsmen and tradesmen who are currently employed in areas such as the BOOMING construction industry and earn approximately 30 dollars and hour or more. Most of the girls around here grow up and stay in school only to become employed as waitresses and part time administrative assistants, earning approximately 10 dollars an hour with little to no job security.

To write that 'the status of women has never been better' strains my eyes. You've got to be joking that this is enough for your daughter and that you are more concerned for your son. You must not see the whole picture.

In this country, grown women are still the lowest wage earners when compared to grown men, are still more likely to be beaten, raped, and killed by men, are still more likely to be prostituted by men, are still more likely to carry the burden of child rearing with little to no financial support from the fathers of their children.

Of course the boys need to be accounted for, most women are struggling to take care of their fathers, brothers, and sons on top of grappling for their own security in a anti-feminist climate.

Dec 6th is the day Canadian men and women organize themselves around to publicize their lived reality, and recognize the violence women experience at the hands of the men, to recognize they and their children are still not protected.

Aurealee,

If you disagree with my assertion that the status of women has never been better, please tell me: when was it better than now?

While I agree that there is a booming construction economy and that men are enjoying the job opportunities that follow, this is a recent boom. The truth is that for the last couple of decades, we have lost alot of jobs in sectors that used to provide higher wages and benefits for men with limited educational credentials. Think forestry and mining.

I'm quite thankful to see my former male students earning decent wages as welders, framers, plumbers and electricians, and I actually encourage my female students to consider these areas, although for them to do so means thinking outside of the box, so to speak.

I sincerely doubt that human history has ever seen as dramatic a shift in the status of women as it has in western societies in the last forty years.

And this is good thing.

This article is rather absurd. What's next, an article about how tall people can't play basketball?

Davey-boy

I may meet your challenge and submit an article about the shifts and chages to the status of women in Canada since confederation, but now is not the time.

To answer your question, in general Canadian women are experiencing more legal freedoms than they have throughout herstory, but this is neither universally experienced or enforced I appreciate you stating that the shift in women's status in Canada is a good thing, yet I truly question your point.

Saying that the status of women has never been better than today cannot mean all women in Canada are experiencing equality... because that would truly be absurd.

You are correct to imply that things may have improved for some women in Canada, but it still has not improved for the vast majority of us, particularly when race and class are involved.

The artilce written by MS. Whitfield is not absurd, it is a very important argument that needs to be heard.

Davey-boy, re: tall people and basketball, perhaps the worst analogy ever...

The point is that rates of violence against women have not qualitatively changed. For instance, over 60 women have been killed this year alone by husbands/partners. None of the boys who keep denouncing that article seem to be addressing that small fact. But then, a gendered analysis would tell us that it would tend to be men who have the time to sit around and engage in flame wars all day...

Why the hell is this TYEE topics text now italicized...

....it's starting to look like poetry.

First of all, you're right. But second of all, let's check out the other side of the coin: men are more likely to be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, more likely to commit suicide, more likely to die violently, more likely to die 10 years earlier that their female counterparts (due to a female-centric healthcare model and a stress-ridden financial-reward-career system that sucks the life out of men), more likely to lose all contact with theirs kids in a divorce, more likely to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs, more likely to be drafted as a child soldier and killed or maimed (not in Canada, admittedly, but in a lot of places), more likely to get killed or paralyzed doing any number of things to impress women and other men for a little bit of affection/acceptance (like riding motorcycles a.k.a. donor-cycles). And when men finally do crack, is there a nice cozy healthcare/welfare support system for these bad boyz?...oh, no, it's off the the Correctional System. Put Big Bad Dad away. And when professional men screw up, they're publicly lynched....whereas professional women who mess up are sheltered, protected and coddled (many, many highly publicized examples of this trend...I call it the "diminished standard of accountability" which we hold women to relative to men). And when you can't pay your debts, when was the last time they threw a woman in the cooler - oh no that's only for the men who "fail" as "breadwinners" and "providers" (warrants on this basis are virtually exclusively issued for men - statistical fact...although the practice has been diminishing since the late '80s when bankruptcy started to become a household name). Let's face it - if women are still sex objects (partly through their own volition) then men most surely are seen by women as "success objects". Let't put that on the curriculum for a change, and then you might actually get some "consciousness raising" happening.

You get the idea. Don't even start. I don't invalidate the issues you mention, but when "feminists" get as self-righteous about systematic mass infant baby MALE genital mutilation right here at home as they do about female circumcision on the other side of the globe, then I'll grant them a little more credibility on gender issues.

Sure women are becoming a larger percentage of students in universities. They can count and even with the glass ceiling know education is the way to get the most opportunity for them selves. Right on women. The guy who killed the women students simply because they were there was a sicko, but he knew what he was doing. Our family grieve for those women still, after all those years. We look at our daughters and granddaughters working hard to get the best education they can get. They work hard and should never have to be keeping an eye out for some jerk who will harass them. Or harm them. We worry about them and support them as best we can. There is an expression I like. "Women hold up half the sky" Oddly enough, we all know the killers name but most don't know the names of those killed. hey they are only women seems to be the thoughts of many.

nightbloom:

I thought entering the armed forces was voluntary and then, once you're in, going to Afghanistan as also.

Was I wrong?

Further, the point is that things are changing - and I think there are lot more women in danger in country too than there ever were before, no?

SO male pathology is all the fault of women, nightbloom? Because men go out and bring home the bacon for momma!

My goodness you are bent aren't you.

Did you send me your email so I can give you that review article on violence in the early church yet?

The patriarchy still has a lot of guilt to atone for - my view.

DPL - I always thought it was 'women hold up more than half the sky'.

I know women have their struggles. With breast cancer and Alzheimer's Disease a major affliction for them, we must all cut them some slack. It's not fair to punish those that are helpless to their gender appointment by God.

Just the way it goes Ron:
A review of the literature was conducted to generate hypotheses that might explain why more women than men have AD, and how HRT may increase dementia risk. Longer life span of women than men may be the largest factor in the preponderance of women with AD.

If you decide to hang around as long as the ladies, Ron, you may well end up just like your hero Ronnie

jwstewart said:

Since manual dexterity is not related to physical stature, firearms would equalize the disadvantage more successfully.

But of course, much training and practice would be required, especially regarding when and how lethal force could be used.

As it stands now, fighting back would mostly likely involve fleeing if at all possible.

RickW said:

I agree jw and RickW, well said.

Not that we shouldn't mourn, I mourn the loss of these women, but clearly we need to be training them to protect themselves through self-defense and weapons training imho. FA's are a an equalizer, but knife, stick, and good open-hand technique can make a significant difference as well. The physical empowerment of women should be encouraged by society...

Oh, and well said Maestro, these "feminists" were "women" as we can not pretend to know what their beliefs were...

Peace,

Bear

Yes, military enlistment in most (not all) Western democracies is voluntary in this day & age. It wasn't for the majority of our history. The point still stands. The whole function and principle is based upon the assumption of male expendability - particularly young male expendability. This is anthropological, not merely a product of custom or culture. The wartime military is only the most blatant of a far-ranging and often subtle patina that runs through all human societies everywhere.

G.West You must not be reading the same buttons as me. I got two that say just what I wrote, and the poster says the same. women supposedly own more than 50 percent of the assests according to some reports. I have them right here in the same place as the button honouring the women killed at the university. But we don't need to debate the expression.

You're right of course - I wasn't even actually thinking of assets so much as the simple fact that women hold us (men) and our families together more than the other way around. We'd be more than lost without the ladies.

But I sometimes think they'd manage just fine w/out us!

I remembered your post about that crash in the Arctic in that context by the way.

It was a good one too.

I'm all over the physical empowerment of women. I tend to agree that gender inequality boils down to this crucial point. A male friend lent me a book a few years ago, "The Frailty Myth", by Colette Dowling. A summary:

"The Frailty Myth presents new evidence that girls are weaned from the use of their bodies even before they begin school... their strength and aerobic powers have started to decline unless the girls are exercising vigorously--and most aren't. By sixteen, they have already lost bone density and turned themselves into prime candidates for osteoporosis...
Yet as breakthroughs among elite women athletes grow more and more astounding, it begins to appear that strength and physical skill--for all women--is only a matter of learning and training. Men don't have a monopoly on physical prowess; when women and men are matched in size and level of training, the strength gap closes."

This book should be required reading for every woman on the planet. I'm petite and (since I was a kid scrapping with boys a foot taller than I) have NEVER backed down to the most intimidating man, be it a random argument on the street (involving my dog peeing on his grass- well, this IS Vancouver), or a run-in with a gang of betel-nut chewing mobsters in Asia. Every single time I knew they were subconsciously reacting to my size more than anything (if I were a small man, same thing would apply) and every single time I've seen the surprised look in their eyes and the slight shift in their confident stance as they realize I'm not some timid little thing that will go scuttling off, fearing the "big, bad man".

I remember reading a few years ago about an Asian woman who was grabbed by TWO men in Burnaby or somewhere, who then tried to stuff her in the trunk of a car... she fought like the devil and started screaming and was able to escape. It was a small article tucked away in the paper, and I thought it should have been front page centre- this tiny woman had fought off two men! Bravo.

Fii said:

Hi Fii,

Yeah, good thought, and even if it didn't boil down to this point, I don't mind being able to "hold my own" until they find out what it does boil down to... :- )

I too am a small gal, and I don't stress about it, but I have made the development of physical skills in defense of ones self a part of my day every day for 30 years... I teach skills now, and believe in the increased physical prowess and improved confidence ladies have when given some skills. Besides that, it is quite fun to learn...

Peace Fii,

Bear

It’s hard to know where to start pointing out the racism and sexism rampant in the responses to this article. It’s even hard to see how a lot of these comments relate to this article.
I see a demand for evidence that these women were feminists. I would counter that with a demand for evidence that Marc Lepine changed his name from Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi or that he had a mental illness. When Lepine’s mother spoke to the press recently, she identified herself as Mrs. Lepine – did she also change her name? Even if it’s true that Marc Lepine’s father was Muslim, what is the relevance??? It is a myth that violence is only perpetrated by men of a certain culture.
And let’s say that these women were not feminists, but simply women who had succeeded in a male dominated area, the point remains that this was a massacre of women by a man.
Although I would encourage every woman to learn self defense, the heartbreaking thing about this is that we should not have to!!! Why should women have to live in constant fear of male violence?
The point this article makes (and makes well) is that the Montreal Massacre is a horrific example of male violence against women. To arbitrarily dismiss some events as ‘anomalies’ without any clear criteria ignores larger social problems. If the Montreal Massacre was an anomaly, are the recent murders of 5 girls in the Amish schoolhouse an anomaly? How about the 60 women who were murdered by their husbands last year in Canada alone? How about the 1/3 women worldwide who are raped and beaten by men sometime in their life? WHEN will it stop being an anomaly? How many women have to suffer, how many have to die before governments will recognize women’s inequality and do something to change the problem?

Lauraj said:

Spot on Lauraj. Great points or which I agree with you on, but if you don't mind I would like to add just one more thing... "How many women have to suffer, how many have to die before governments and the individuals themselves recognize women's inequality and do something to change this problem".

Peace Lj,

Bear

...of course by "individuals themselves", I mean women to acquire the skills necessary to personally defend themselves. Sorry if I didn't make this a wee more clear...

Bear :- )

...of course by "individuals themselves", I mean women to acquire the skills necessary to personaly defend themselves. Sorry if I didn't make this clear...

Bear

...in stereo. Again-ooops.
Bear

fine to me Bear - kinda stereoscopic - like a view master - remember them?

...ha,ha G. :-D

Some dayz eh..., and yes, I confess, I do remember the view master G... :-)

P.G.

Bear

Exactly. And what exactly could a government do to change the problem ?

Short of re-engineering the female genome to eliminate the physical size difference or posting armed police at gatherings of one or more females, not much really.

The most successful way to stop an armed attacked is with similar arms.

And the same could said of most non-lethal attacks.

We shouldn't need a police force or an army or security guards, but we do need them nonetheless.

LauraJ,

The Montreal Massacre was indeed an anomaly.

That doesn't invalidate the associated issues, but it shouldn't be used as a tool to further pathologize men and boys, as well as to pathologize male sexuality generally. If only the Dec. 6th carpetbaggers would observe this simple dictum, they'd find they have many allies.

The vast majority of violence in the world is committed by men against other men. And no small part of that violence is carried out in defence of home & hearth, which means that women are not infrequently the beneficiaries of male violence. There are many facets to that cycle. Boys learn very early what they must to do win approval, acceptance and validation. I hate to break it to you, but women are part of that cycle, I'm afraid.

After hours of trying to sort through the sexist, racist and unrelated comments that have been brought up under the premise of the earlier article, one fact seems only to have been absorbed by a few: Today in our society, woman are being victimized and oppressed. This is a point, although well diluted, misunderstood and shamefully reasoned, has yet to be disagreed with.
So the fact remains, why are there such inconsequential comments being written about how many men are being sent to Afghanistan or the amount of women presently in positions of authority at their local universities?
The message, although clear at the beginning of the week, seems to have been lost along the way. The message of a woman's right to freedom from violence at the hands of men and their right to be supported by our governing bodies are but simple and human desires.
As for the concern as to the motives and mental state of men like Lepine, there is no use in arguing over what we cannot either know or decipher ourselves, but take only his actions as proof enough of his motives. He separated the women from the men and brutally killed the woman. That IS an act of violence distinctly committed against woman and that is the problem.
Let us all agree that what Lepine did was a horrific act. And understand and support other woman's rights to use that event to raise awareness and support. In order to prevent the continuing high percentage of violence against woman that is a sad reality in our society today.

Andi - I can't take your post at face value, when you toss out your "-ist" words (racist, sexist) and then provide examples drawn from my own posts. Your stridence is all too reminiscent of the feminist bullying and browbeating many of us recall in the years immediately following the massacre (when even male relatives and friends were not allowed to attend the vigils). I don't deny the validity of the issues, I deny their willful exploitation for political and financial gain.

The original point of the article was not to re-hash the massacre, but to argue that not much has changed. I asserted that a LOT had changed for women since then... but clearly not much has changed for men, when the male viewpoint is once again pathologized and drowned out with a barrage of -ist words. Is male-on-male violence (the vast majority of violence) so unrelated that it doesn't warrant a place in the lopsided universe of feminist gender-based theory...?

Moreover, we are once again being asked to swallow the appalling insinuation that Marc Lepine is indicative of all Canadian men. No way. Not by a long shot. I'm willing to bet that the number of Canadians who actually swallowed that rot is very small. They just know it's not worth the trouble of arguing about.

As for violence, my point remains about its fundamental nature. I don't invalidate women's issues, but I refuse the endorse ideologically-motived spin designed to bolster grant funding for feminist political activist groups. They should not be exploiting this tragedy in the way that they have. There's a way to acknowledge it, and make it part of the effort, without turning it into a national neurosis in the manner they have consistently attempted to do.

Nightbloom is correct, and shame on feminism for it's lack of inclusiveness. I learned from an early age that I had to hustle, that my worth as a man was tied to my ability to provide. Are women held to this standard? And let's look at what men will do for acceptance/approval. How many police officers, soldiers, firemen and construction workers died in the line of duty? How many fishermen have died trying to provide for their families? I receive accident reports periodically where I work, the last one involving a man who was cut in half by a 55-tonne hatch cover. No, I won't consider any 'ism' which excludes the other gender. I always thought feminism was a joke anyway, because you actually embrace male traits. You want to be equal to men, so in my view that makes you a 'masculinist'. I could go and on but you get the point. I have only so much sympathy to dole out, and most of it goes to the fellows I work with who perform a hard job for very little recognition. There isn't any left over for feminists with grievances.

acadian driftwood said:

I don't know, but I think people not being appreciated or losing their lives doing honorable, hardworking jobs, is perhaps a separate issue altogether. Sad no less, but imho, a separate issue. We are talking about men physically targeting women to wound or die because they can...

But I must say too…I cannot ignore your lack of sensitivity towards this issue. I guess it would be safe to assume you have never been threatened, or abused because you are a physically smaller and more fragile human being huh...?? Imo, this is more what we are talking about...

Peace,

Bear

All boys and men undergo this experience, sometimes on a daily basis, as rite of passage into adulthood. I certainly did. We're just so innured to it we don't see it for what it is.

A.D. is simply articulating the basic fact of male expendability and its astonishing array of manifestations, whether it's in the workplace, on the battlefield or within the family home itself.

Read the headlines of the past...oh...several millennia. Men have been doing precisely that to other men on a systematized basis far grander than the most paranoid fantasies which those well-fed neo-adolescent campus feminists can dream up. Why is it so hard to develop an inclusive theory of violence--? Because some interests would be out a few million dollars in government grant funding, not to mention the fact that we'd have to re-think much of feminism as it has existed in post-war North America (since the Gloria Steinem / Manhattan set marginalized and isolated the truly visionary pre-war womanly feminists like Betty Friedan).

C'mon. As I said, women have legitimate issues with male violence against women (especially one-on-one sexual or conjugal violence, and the commercialization of sex)...But Marc Lepine was no cypher for mainstream Canadian men, or for male sexuality, or for male emotional patterns. The fact that activists are still able to browbeat hetero men with this is a good indicator of the emmasculated Stockholm Syndrome now crippling the blackmailed and emotionally hostage men of the father-deprived X and Y generations.

There's something about this tragedy that we are still somehow unable to put in perspective, while nevertheless assuming nonchalant attitudes about genocides and massacres exponentially worse in terms of the human toll in suffering and lives lost.

nightbloom said:

.

I realize this nightbloom, although I am not fussy about your wording and assumptions, I am NOT disputing this...

Again, information I understand and believe the numbers are greater here if it is indeed NUMBERS we are talking about... My point is, the issue at hand isn't about other human deaths caused by other humans, but the TARGETED death of women caused by men, and why.

I appreciate and adore the male gender, but there are men with a tendency towards violence towards women, and clearly enough of them that this discussion exists at all. Let’s stay with it, and see if we can find insight and solutions, instead of drawing in and defending a serious too, but a whole other issue of abuse.

Right, and that is the point. I do not think that we know enough about Lepine to know his motives, nor do we know enough about the women taking this course to suggest their deeper beliefs,(dead men\women don’t tell tales) but we do know a man targeted and killed a group of women again, and that individually women are targeted in society all too often...This is just a fact.

Peace,

Bear

But that has never been the premise of the Dec. 6th discourse. You can read it above: the Marc Lepine murders are reflective of Canadian men, Canadian society, Canadian political leadership, and male sexuality generally. This has always been the messaging on Dec. 6th, and the central themes of vigils and marches associated with the massacre. C'mon, they draw a direct line correlating Marc Lepine and Stephen Harper. That's how phantastic the discourse has become.
It's politics and money-getting, as usual. Those who have framed this debate have not been nearly as temperate as you are suggesting.

Incidentally, I mentioned sexual violence above. Did you know that the vast majority of genuine rape takes place within the bloated North American male prison system? Feminist thought is totally and absolutely mute on the subject. How credible is that?

This is why I see Dec. 6th an ideologically loaded strategem to stoke grievances, consolidate constituencies and bolster mainstream support (or at least intimidated acquiescence) for increased government grant-funding to special interest activist groups that have little meaningful to say about the actual reality of the situation.

You know nightbloom, I can think of one group who has taken this situation and manipulated it to their gain. It is the Wendy Culker(spelling??)group agaist firearms. This is indeed a stretch to me. I believe individuals who do deplorable acts such as Lepine, would indeed have STILL carried it out with perhaps a PIPEBOMB. Violence rests in the heart of the individual, NOT in the chosen weapon imo. The corelation is an unacceptable stretch imo. To blame FA is insane really
and this group does just that. Go figure...

I don't mean to frusterate you nb but I limit my opinion to the obvious when it comes to this issue. But I will continue to consider your comments nb...thanks.

Peace,

Bear

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, we as citizens need to keep track of who pushes themselves forward to assert "ownership" of tragedies like this. We can't simply sign onto everything just because it looks like a good cause on the surface of it. The way the Dec. 6th tragedy has been redefined, repositioned and realigned by a few organized interests is really quite Macchiavellian. These kinds of manipulations have really stunted the discussion that needs to take place.

...true Nightbloom, but as well it needs to be said that within every tragedy there is a lesson we need to learn. We not only need to learn it, but we need to recognize the opprotunity to promote change towards a better world through it. This imho,is an important part of our evolution...look for ways to evolve to the good as a species.

You made it clear we have more than one issue that we need to promote understanding and change. Some of the ones you and acadian driftwood mentioned needs to be considered deeply. Some of the mentioned are not gender issues however imo, but valid no less, and demands attention..

As well, as you said, we need to be aware or the groups who attempt to assert their ownership of these tragedies. My question is are their issues truly related, or are they manipulating this tragedy to suit their cause?? If they are related, we need to listen to them, and learn from them, but if not, they need to be called out.

Our lessons lie within every tragedy, and it is up to us as a humanitarian species to determine how we want to be defined and how we want to be remembered...

Peace Nightbloom,

Bear :-)

Is 'humanitarian species' used flippantly, or was that politically charged? Last week a rabbi in Seattle threatened to sue SeaTac airport because they had Christmas trees set up exclusively in the airport. It worked -they took the trees down. I understand the rabbi has withdrew his threat and the trees are back up. Here's my point: Was Marc Lepine coopted by the left as a trojan horse, a means by which an ideology can gain ascendency? Your word selection, Bear, is a model of neutrality. 'look for ways to evolve to the good as a species'...Were these words chosen flippantly, or are they bullets of secular humanism and/or feminism aimed at the destruction of religion?

Could 'God's Children' be substituted for 'humanitarian species'? Or is that inappropriate? I ask because I don't believe language is neutral. If 'humanitarian species' cannot be replaced, then what is your agenda, Bear?

I will add finally that I don't understand your statement Bear, 'it is up to us as a humanitarian species to determine how we want to be defined and how we want to be remembered...

C,mon Bear. Save the eco-neutral language for Berkeley. That and fifty cents will get you a cup of coffee at the worst greasy spoon in Seattle.

Wik...not the greatest source, but essentially my intention is about the kindness and respect which exists in human beings as a whole.

By "evolve" I mean learning from our mistake so as not to live in a sense of repetition of error...basically getting stuck and not learning...

Acadian driftwood, in no way was I being flippant, or any of the other titles you mentioned... I find your comments and questions sad, and with a pathetic intention from the heart. Your not looking to find solutions to this problem, so we really do not have anything more to discuss right...

Perhaps in person the communication between us would have been clearer eh...??

Bear

My apologies, Bear. I was a little over the top.

I'll be clearer. I believe there are no solutions to this problem. Pride, wrath, envy and all the deadly sins are written in our DNA.

Did you know that the railroads of BC were built by Chinese hands, who frequently died in explosions, who received a paltry sum of money, lived in shanty-towns and could not vote?

Communism fell apart and feminism will, too. Only our Judeo-Christian roots have stood the test of time.

I am sorry about what happened to these women, but it is not new. I must insist that.

I realize this sounds defeatist. When I see the leaders of today, whether it's Canada or the U.S., I see ordinary people who've chosen public service. I don't see a 'patriarchal system' rigged to the advantage of white males. I see the evolution of thousands of years of sometimes barbaric history. I would caution women who seek to exploit the Lepine tragedy for political gain: be careful when you're looking for work -you just might get it.

...no sweat acadian driftwood.

Perhaps think about this: "Feminism"...what-ever. Why not just be respectful to one another, and quit with the titles. Let’s treat everyone fairly, with appreciation, kindness and love?? Let's learn from our mistakes, and adhere to a higher ethic in our relationships to others and to the Earth...

Good goal??

Bear

In the end, in the words of a Zen Buddhist friend of mine: 'It's better to be kind than to be right; it's not unimportant to be right - but in the end, kindness is more important.'