December 6th

Today is National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, the day we Canadians remember the horrifying École Polytechnique Massacre on December 6, 1989.

I remember the news reports on the TV, and the worry on my mother's face, as she feared copycat attacks in college and university campuses across the country, including the college my sister was at. It's a day that lives in my memory because I looked at the news footage of frantic emergency responders, running around in the cold, snowy winter night in Montreal, and I felt a palpable sense of confusion. Just days before my 11th birthday, this event took hold of my consciousness; I became aware that I was a female, and that this fact alone could put me in harm's way.

21 years later, I'm still conscious of that fact. At 11, I could not grasp the full implications: it was nothing to do with a social construction...Marc Lepine did not shoot and kill those women because of cultural constructions such as religion or national identity; he did not care if they were French, English, Polish, Irish, or whatever. He shot them because a 50/50 chance and biological determination made them women. He constructed women at that school as feminists, not because they were indeed feminists, but because they were women, and that was all he needed...woman must equal feminist. To know that I could be so reduced in order to 'justify' my demise, solely because of that 50/50 chance...it's sad, and unsettling.

But the best I can do is live, and not let the fear stop me from achieving my goals and following my passions. And I think that, above all, is the lesson I carry with me.