I am shocked! I can't believe the number of Canadian females my age who are just hearing about the Montreal Massacre. I am thinking of the females broadcasting on our campus radio station right now. One of them even had some little message for Marc Lepine, "if you're listening." No, dear. He's not listening. He turned his gone on himself after he killed those fourteen women.

ARGH! How could these women not know? The University of Western Ontario holds at least one memorial session each year. Get your heads out of the sand, ladies!

Though I was only eight years old when the Massacre happened, I remember it well. It is an event that has affected me deeply.

As a young Canadian woman growing up in what I still consider to be a safe and sheltered community, the Montreal Massacre and the sex-slayings of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristin French a few years later marked my coming into awareness that women can be targets for violence specifically because their sex. It is an event that has shaped my consciousness as a woman.

Yes, I often find myself walking alone at night, but no, it is not without fear. But I know enough to keep myself from being a victim. I walk with confidence--and with my keys threaded through my thumb and index finger. I pay attention to my surroundings.

But I know that while this is all well and good, it is no guarantee.

The victims of the Montreal Massacre were in school. They were in a university--a bastion for freedom of expression and freedom to persue an education. These women were supposed to be safe.

What's scarier still, though, is that women are more likely to be attacked by someone they know than a stranger like Marc Lepine.


UPDATE: I heart the girls doing the Mysty's Music show today on the campus radio station. They have restored my momentarily wavering faith in my fellow university-aged women. They actually know about the Montreal Massacre. They know about the attack, the attacker and--more importantly--the victims (they've got the facts straight AND they're reading the names of the victims!) Why they didn't just have these girls do programming all day, I don't know. They are so much better equipped to host today's commemorative programming (yup, all women DJs and all woman musicians ALL DAY) than the ignorant twits that were on earlier!