On Dec. 6 every year since 1989, women, mostly women, hold vigils to commemorate the Montreal Polytechnique shooting massacre of 14 women merely for being women. As much as it is for the women who died, this yearly tribute continues because not enough has changed for many of the rest of us in the intervening 18 years.
Women working fulltime still make .73¢ on every dollar made by men in comparable jobs and thousands of battered women still seek shelter in not enough shelters. Certainly Marc Lepine's battered mother could have used one. Yet despite this, last I heard the only street-level women's advocacy group in Victoria, the capital of BC, was still operating out of a storage locker.
Since 1991, The White Ribbon Campaign, almost all men, pledge to do what they can to end violence against women and children in their communities. Hats off to them.
Some other people however wish we'd all just shut the hell up about it. It's an unseemly public display, they say, and besides it's unfair to men. Usually they go on to state that more men than women die violently every year while neglecting to mention that those men are almost always killed...by other men. Mostly they complain that the memorial is divisive and that destructive violent attitudes cross the boundaries of sex, class, and religion. I am willing to concede this last point; in fact I'm willing to prove it.
The following three sets of statements regarding the Montreal massacre were taken from texts written by Marc Lepine, the Let Freedom Reign group blog of a Calgary aldermanic candidate, and National Post columnist Barbara Kay - those last two just a couple of days ago. I challenge you to guess who made which statement.
"...male heroism was considered a quality deserving of public recognition. But now, a "grandfathered" Nov. 11 is the only day of the year when feminist ideologues refrain from overt misandry....male-bashing is often justified by the fact that more men kill women than women kill men."
"However my Christian upbringing isn’t good at telling me to go out and kill feminists. Even though they sanction the death of over 50,000 of their sisters each year. While everyone is agonizing over violence against women “today” more men in Canada fall victim than women to violence every year."
"...the feminists always have a talent for enraging me. They want to retain the advantages of being women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventive leave) while trying to grab those of the men.... They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can."
Answers in comments.
H/T bastard.logic
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