Montreal Massacre lessons took 25 years to learn

I remember women saying: "Now, they'll believe us.Now they'll see how women aresubjected to violence."

It was in the days following the Montreal Massacre, "the first sexist crime in history," as the late PierreBourgaultput it.

• Polytechnique anniversary: Remember the 14

Everyone was still under the shock of what happened: 14 women killed, 14 others injured, 15 others on a hit listall because of an angry young man's anti-feminist crusade.

Nothing in the history of this country had prepared us for such a bloodbath. Nothing had warnedus that a man would want to kill women simply because they were women.

But the shootings at cole Polytechnique did not provide the much needed wake-upcall women had hoped for.

Sure, therewere a number of initiatives in the wake of thetragedy, starting with the yearly commemorations, the white ribbon campaign andDec. 6 set aside as a "national day against violence against women."

But thesesymbolic gestures did not open the floodgates of collective reckoning the way, say,the Jian Ghomeshi scandal has.

In hindsight, it's obvious that the Montreal Massacre was too extremeno one could draw a line between women being gunneddown on a university campus and what women, as a rule, were being subjected to.

Not to mention the denial, particularly noticeable in Quebec, that went on aroundthe Dec.6 tragedy.

Marc Lpine, the 25-year-old assassin, had speculated inhis suicide note that he would be dismissed as a "crazy gunman" and that's exactlywhat happened.

"Un tireur fou tue quatorze femmes"or "Crazed Gunman Kills 14 Women" was La Presse'sheadline thenext day.

The editorial in Le Soleil newspapereven went so far as to say that the killings had"nothing to do with women."

Twenty-five years later, the message that women are disproportionately subject to violent abuse is atlast being heard.

In my mind, the Montreal Massacre, far from giving the women's movement a much-needed boost, officially ended the glory days of second wave feminism.

Unable tolook the tragedy in the eye to this day we have yet to acknowledge that this was not just a crime against women but against feminism, against women who dare go where only men have gone before we have been paying lip service in the fight against violence against women.

The good news? Twenty-five years later, the message that women are disproportionately subject to violent abuse is atlast being heard.

Football players beating their wives, women in the video game industry receiving death threats andyoung stars and famous performers (Emma Watson, Beyonc) jumping onto thefeminist bandwagonhave all participated in tweaking the message.

But perhapsnothing has done so much, at least here in Canada, as the Ghomeshi scandal.

It was the"smooching suddenly turning into smacking,"as actress Lucy de Coutere famouslyconfided on The Current,the immense grey zone that almost every woman has experienced the line that separates comfort from discomfort, pleasure from pain,fun from fear that did it.

Who knows how many women saw here something thatthey themselves had experienced?

Thanks to social media(#BeenRapedNeverReported, #agressionsnondenoncees), thousands were able tosay so.

• #BeenRapedNeverReported sheds light on survivor stories

This kind of collective refusal to put up with the untenable, as well as the attentionthe protest movement has been getting, hasn't been seen for over 30 years.

Twenty-five years after the horror of cole Polytechnique, there is actuallysomething to celebrate.

It's been a long time coming.

Where are we now? 25 years after Polytechnique

Join CBC News Montreal host Debra Arbec and guests for a live, web-exclusiveconversation about how far we've come since Dec. 6, 1989.

Follow the Google Hangout discussion and take part in our live chat starting at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday Dec. 3 on CBCNews.ca Montreal.