Over the last week there have been three mass shootings in the US. All three shooters had expressed their hatred for women.
We have said it before and we will say it again, the subtext of acts of mass violence is misogyny. With each new story in the news, as details are revealed so is the history of toxic masculinity of the shooter, they are mad, resentful and driven by a sense of entitlement.
In 1989 in Montreal Montreal Massacre at École Polytechnique 14 women were killed at the school. The shooter yelling: “I hate feminists!” before he began shooting.
In 2014, six people were shot and killed on a California university campus by a member of the “incel” community. His anger directed at women for not dating him.
In Florida the shooter was abusive to both his wives before opening fire on revelers in Pulse nightclub.
The mass shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, was committed by a man who’d threatened to kill his mother years before he gunned her and 26 other people down at an elementary school.
Authorities responded to 36 emergency 911 calls from the family home of the, South Florida high school shooter because of his violence towards his mother.
While mass shootings are a small percentage of overall violence they tell us something about inherent misogyny. Let us not forget earlier this year The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability (CFOJA) released their report #CallItFemicide Understanding gender-related killings of women and girls in Canada 2018. The report confirms that in 2018 148 women and girls were killed by violence in Canada. On average, every 2.5 days one woman or girl is killed in Canada which they state is “a consistent trend for four decades”.
We cannot, any longer, ignore misogyny, whether it is online, harassment, sexual violence or violence in intimate partner relationships –because it has deadly consequences.
BWSS exists to disrupt misogyny and other forms of inequalities. Supporting survivors of gender based violence through crisis support, counselling, support groups, and legal advocacy but also working for systemic and social change.
