L Ecole Polytechnique's Impact On Canada

Why is it that some women have to fight to defend their right to achieve an education in a safe, inclusive environment? On December 6th, 1989, in Montreal, Quebec, it appeared that gender equality meant nothing. Known as the Montréal Massacre, this tragic mass shooting of 14 young female engineering students at L’Ecole Polytechnique had an impact on many Canadians by bringing attention to the perceived safety of all Canadian women. It brought to the forefront the reality that women trying to better themselves through education in a male-dominated field might not be viewed as equals as originally believed. It took a devastating tragedy to wake Canadian society to the hardships women were still facing in modern times. Although tragedy had struck
It inspired women to become feminists and leaders. The aftermath of the shooting had reduced the amount of violence in Canada. As reported by Statistics Canada, “Homicides involving long guns decreased by 41 percent between 1995 and 2010”. This meant that the massacre was beneficial towards creating stricter gun laws. In 1995, a law was made to legally register your possession of a gun, due to this the number of homicides had slowly decreased since then. What happened in Montréal had a positive turn of events towards the hardship in the gun system and influenced a change. Over the course of the years after the event, multiple groups supporting female engineers have been created. Not only feminists, but all men and women participated in creating a campaign, in particular, to encourage women to join engineering programs. According to rabble.ca, “Female enrolment increased in the following decade by 9,000 students from 13% to 19%”. Women felt emboldened to choose to engineer. By doing so it would have meant that the shooter, Marc Lépine’s intentions, and all his effort were unsuccessful and useless. It had only caused people to want to do more for women such as expanding and creating more relief centers for people who have gone through traumatic times. People were inspired to grow from this experience and wanted to find ways to improve our society. Everyone surrounded in that community was struck with shock and fear yet it took the occurrence of an event so tragic to strike a change in