Fourteen young women gunned down for simply being female drew global attention 34 years ago.
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But details of the Montreal Massacre, in which Marc Lepine killed them and injured 10 others in a shooting spree at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989, don’t immediately come to the minds of some young women at St. Clair College in Chatham Wednesday.
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They notice a display set up by the Chatham-Kent Sexual Assault Center to mark the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women spawned by the tragedy.
The memories of some women are jogged when they are reminded of the details and see a board displaying photos of the 14 slain women. But, they soon drift away; one says, “Thanks.”
Kayla Coates, the center’s public education co-ordinator, believes many people are aware of massacre, but the details are being lost, because it happened so long ago.
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But violence against women hasn’t faded with time. Many advocates say intimate partner violence is epidemic.
“We think that the overarching issues that were part of this massacre are still very relevant today,” including that it was gender-based violence and femicide, “where these women were killed purely because they were women,” she said.
This is still seen today, especially in its impacts on marginalized women, like those in the LGBTQ+ community, through acts of misogyny and homophobia, and with missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
On Tuesday, Cynthia Sitzes’ family were in a Chatham court to see Stephen Thompson, 44, handed a life sentence for brutal murdering the 44-year-old Bothwell woman on July 1, 2022, because he was upset about information he saw on her cellphone and her “attitude” toward him that day.
Glenda Johnston, the center’s volunteer co-ordinator for more than three decades, hasn’t seen a significant improvements in preventing violence against women during that time.
“I think women are still being murdered in droves,” she said.
Instead of continuing to ask women to protect themselves, it’s time more men took on the responsibility to help address the ongoing problem, Johnston said.
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