National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

[electricland]

15 years ago today a man murdered 14 female engineering students at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal.

I remember it very vividly -- I was 16 years old and in Grade 12 at the time. I remember thinking, that could have been me -- me and any 13 of my classmates, shot in a classroom by some man screaming "You're all a bunch of feminists!", someone who hated us not for who we were or what we did, but just for what we represented, just for being women doing something a little untraditional. I think every woman and teenaged girl in Canada probably felt a little less safe, a little less secure, after that.

I can't write much about this. But I remember the women who were killed:

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
Annie Turcotte

I remember dozens of missing and murdered women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

I remember the victims of violence.

Comments

[iagofan.livejournal.com]

when will it end? it has to end.

[pixel12.livejournal.com]

and today, on the other side of the world, I am reminded, and remember.