Twenty-three years and three days ago, I celebrated the results of our efforts to elect Audrey McLaughlin, the first woman leader of a federal political party.
She beat out one of the most powerful men in B.C. politics, Dave Barrett – it was a surprise upset.
Three days later, Marc Lepine brutally murdered 14 women at Montreal’s L’ecole Polytechnic, which was a French speaking engineering school. He separated the men from the women sending the men away. Lepine murdered the women due to the fact that they were women and thus in his mind, feminists.
In Lepine’s mind, feminists were responsible for everything that had ever gone wrong in his life.
Audrey McLaughlin’s name was on the hit list of proposed targets found in Marc Lepine’s pocket when he died.
Less than one week later, I was attending a provincial council meeting of the provincial party in Vancouver and the men in the room were furious that Dave Barrett’s efforts to become leader had been bested by a woman.
Gender warfare was intense and overshadowed the business of the day. At one point all business came to a halt.
A very brave man walked up to the microphone and identified himself as a father of a young female engineering student studying in Montreal at the English-speaking school of engineering.
He called out the men in the room. He called upon them to “knock it off,” stop the fury and feuding, and embrace the need for all men to stand up and stop the violence that women are subjected to based on their gender. He stood weeping at the fates that had saved his daughter from Marc Lepine’s rage and rifle.
He single-handedly changed the dynamics in the room and men and women, weeping together began embracing and grieving the tremendous loss we had all collectively experienced.
That man was a hero. He stood strong and called upon all men to stand up and stop tolerating violence, jokes about rape and women hating. He changed our world inside that previously rancor filled room. He made a difference.
I leave this message with you from one of my favorite men in this world; Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu who said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” I ask each of you, what side do you choose every day?
– Speech given by Margaret Maximenko at 2012 National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada ceremony at Grand Forks City Hall on Dec. 6.