Remebering Les Filles De Poly

By Zamboni

Here's a cheery note: Today is the 107th anniversary of the Halifax Harbor explosion in Nova Scotia. It was so big that it ranked as the biggest explosion caused by humans until the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Today is also the 35th anniversary of the massacre at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. In less than 20 minutes, a gunman (yep, accent on man, no surprise) killed 14 women — because they were women. "I am fighting feminism," he declared before opening fire. Dude seemed to have a problem with girls learning engineering. Like most mass killers, he shot himself before police could get there, but left a suicide note saying that feminists "have always ruined my life."

The Polytechnique shooting isn't the only misogynist rampage to have happened in Canada, the other occurring in Toronto in 2018. Both give pundits and policymakers annual opportunities to mull over the continuing problem of violence against women. But we never seem to make any progress, do we? In fact, it's getting worse. "The concept of male supremacy has been popularized and normalized by social media influencers like Andrew Tate," writes columnist Allison Hanes in The Montreal Gazette. "Disillusioned and wayward young men are being fed the message their problems are women's fault. And the antidote to their ailments and inadequacies is to assert male dominance."

Ugh. Improving women's overall status and safety may never happen unless more and more of them can get elected to the corridors of political power. The US had a bit of a setback on that front this year, but we cats refuse to give up. In the meantime, we HISS.

P.S.: On the subject of gun violence, there's no doubt that healthcare insurance companies are rapacious bastions of evil. But shooting their CEOs in the back is also bad. We cats HISS again.