By: Abbie Berthiaume
December 6th of this year will mark 34 years since the École Polytechnique Massacre, also referred to as the Montréal Massacre. The date marks a terrifying moment in Canadian history and one that should be remembered.
In 1989, 25-year old Mark Lépine entered the renowned Montreal university, École Polytechnique, with a semi-automatic rifle. Lépine proceeded to divide the classroom by gender and then told the men to exit the school. Alone with the women, Lépine declared that he hated feminists and opened fire on the women. Tragically, 14 female students were killed and many more were injured. Along with the attack, Lépine left behind a note stating his justification: that the feminists have always ruined his life.
At the time, Canadian news struggled to make sense of the attack and its motivations. Ultimately, discourse in the media would focus on questions of Canadian crime rather than misogyny and patriarchal violence. Typically, news coverage would highlight Lépine’s emotional instability and present the case as an outlier, rather than a case indicative of any structural injustice. In some cases, news outlets would even pin the blame of the attacks on feminists, citing that their alleged radical agenda was incurring severe harm on young men; so severe that it might drive them to commit such acts of terror.
Revisiting this incident from the year 2023, it is made clear that this was not an isolated case. The attacks of Elliot Rodger in 2014 and Alek Minassian in 2018 would present similarly motivated cases of cruelty. Both would employ related rhetoric and explicitly target women and moderate feminist ideas. Because of this connection, certain scholars would retroactively dub the Montréal Massacre “the first incel attack”. Eventually, it would be deemed that Lépine had kickstarted a wave of anti-feminist action which helped spark further femicides and help normalize this kind of gendered antagonism.
Inherent to historiography is the notion that events ought to be reinterpreted when further relevant information is revealed. Meaning, in this case, that the failure to address and condemn misogynistic violence at its outset would fail to prevent its recurrence. As the anniversary of the horrific ordeal approaches, it is important to highlight the event as a symbol of gendered violence and inequality. In tandem, it is important to acknowledge how the failure to comprehensively portray the incident within the media has caused further harm. And of course, it is crucial that we remember the victims of the incident as individuals and continue to fight against misogynistic brutality in their honor.
Bibliography
Kitchen, Merrie Jane. "Hearing women's voices?: an analysis of the initial newspaper coverage of the Montreal Massacre." Master's thesis, 1994.
Bloom, Mia M. "The First incel? The legacy of Marc Lépine." The Journal of Intelligence, Conflict, and Warfare 5, no. 1 (2022): 39-74.
Blais, Melissa. "Masculinism and the massacre at the École Polytechnique de Montréal." Rain and Thunder (2009): 28-34.