National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

By: Kim Quinn, FSWC Educator

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On December 6, 1989, an armed man walked into the mechanical engineering class at École Polytechnique de Montréal and ordered all women to stand on one side of the room while instructing the men to leave. The gunman then went on a rant, railing against women and denouncing feminism as a blight on the world, after which he killed all  14 women in class.

The atrocity, one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history, has since become emblematic of a much wider issue. The gunman, who was barely 25 years old left behind writings revealing a deeply misogynistic and violent man, enraged by women and their “audacity” to exist and succeed in the world. He became a kind of revolutionary hero to virulently hateful men who blamed women for their problems, and longed to see violent retribution against them.

According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, four out of ten women in Canada have reported experiencing intimate partner violence – domestic abuse of some nature from a romantic partner. In 2019, Statistics Canada reported 4.7 million – more than 30% - of Canadian women from the age of 15 and up have reported experiencing sexual assault. In the same year, there were over 107,000 police-reported cases of domestic abuse against women – of which police have acknowledged is likely less than half of the actual figure. While violent crime in Canada has slowly declined percentage wise, sexual assault against woman has remained at the same level since 1999.  

Globally, women and girls continue to make up the vast majority of victims of sexual assault and trafficking, domestic abuse, and reproductive coercion. In 2022, many Canadian cities demanded the federal government declare a national epidemic of gender-based violence, after a wave of murders of women by men dominated headlines. In one small town in Ontario, a man with a history of domestic violence and criminal charges murdered three women in a single morning.

Girls continue to be taught to keep their keys between their fingers, to cover their drinks when in the presence of others, to be polite so as not to aggravate a man, but not so polite that she inflames his interest. Women who are victims of abuse are often asked what they were wearing, how much they had to drink, what they said, and how they said it, implications that it was her fault for being brutalized.

Across Canada, statistics continue to point out the glaringly obvious: women, and especially women already marginalized by society, are routinely subjected to physical and emotional degradation. In 2022, the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability stated that one woman or girl is killed every 48 hours. If this is the case, more than 6,000 women have been killed since the École Polytechnique massacre.

December 6 is the Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. “Every act that exists on the spectrum of violence against women,” feminist Anne Thériault wrote, “happens due to women being viewed as less human than men.” She added that it is not enough to simply remember the names of the victims – it must be the impetus to prevent the creation of more victims. On the National Day of Remembrance and Action, it is no longer sufficient to just remember – it is a call to action, to embrace all women and girls as humans, and afford them the rights and dignities of humankind.

Activities:

While International Women’s Day is in March, teaching about gender-based violence through a lens of empowerment can have a positive impact on your students.  The Government of Canada has compiled a collection of activities that are intended to engage students, spark conversations, and lead activities.  CLICK HERE to access the Every Woman Counts activities.