The Productivity of Anger: National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
By: Sarah MacLean
This month’s blog post discusses sensitive issues related to violence against women which may be triggering to some readers. If you are a survivor of violence or abuse, there are people and organizations where you can seek support. These include but are not limited to:
Assaulted Women’s Helpline: 1-866-863-0511 (toll free) or text #SAFE (#7233) on any Bell, Rogers, Fido or Telus mobile phone
Fem’aide: 1-877-336-2433 (francophone crisis services)
Talk 4 Healing: 1-888-200-9997 (culturally grounded helpline for Indigenous women)
Seniors Safety Line: 1-866-229-1011
In Canada, today marks the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. It has been 32 years since the mass shooting at l‘École polytechnique de Montréal where 14 women were murdered simply for being women. Today, “we mourn their loss and remember their lives, we reaffirm our commitment to fight the hatred that led to this tragedy, and the misogyny that still exists today” [1].
We Remember:
Geneviève Bergeron.
Hélène Colgan.
Nathalie Croteau.
Barbara Daigneault.
Anne-Marie Edward.
Maud Haviernick.
Maryse Laganière.
Maryse Leclair.
Anne-Marie Lemay.
Sonia Pelletier.
Michèle Richard.
Annie St-Arneault.
Annie Turcotte.
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz.
Having grown up in Montreal, this massacre (a triggering word, but one that is apt here) has had a significant impact on my life. When I think of my coming of age as a feminist activist and scholar, learning about this event was one of the first things to spark feelings of feminist rage in my belly. In the pre-COVID times, I would attend the annual vigil here in Ottawa where community members congregate in one of our local parks to participate in an act of collective remembrance. This has always been an incredibly meaningful and rewarding experience for me, but, when days of recognition or remembrance aren’t balanced with real moves towards equity, it’s easy to feel disheartened.
To mark the 2020 National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, the Toronto Star published a story featuring the reflections of six women, some revealing histories of abuse, others pleading for our help to create a better future. Some explain how their experiences of violence have deepened their commitment to anti-violence and anti-oppression work. Others express anger and frustration with the Canadian government, calling for a national action plan on violence against women (which had not yet been released at the time), and highlighting that the issues raised by the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) inquiry had yet to be addressed. Others still call on us to think about how our own everyday words and actions contribute to a climate that allows violence against women to flourish. The experiences shared by these women matter; they make visible that our work towards gender equality is far from complete.
That said, what is notably absent from these accounts is a reflection on what this day of action and remembrance means to them. Previous research has shown that acts of public commemoration play an important role in coping for those both directly or indirectly affected by war, genocide, violence, or disaster [2]. These events allow opportunities for expression, acknowledgement, and social support [3]. However, in their scoping review, Mitima-Verloop, Boelen & Mooren (2020) found that post-traumatic stress and grief reactions increased during and after public commemoration of large-scale violent events [2]. These effects were often influenced by an individual’s prior experiences and other contextual factors (e.g., the cultural and political climate). This is, perhaps, unsurprising, but it does beg the question as to what impact the National Day of Remembrance and Action in Violence Against Women has on individual survivors? For those who have escaped environments of abuse, we are asking them to bear witness to both their own trauma as well as that of other survivors every year. For those who are still in the throes of abusive situations, days of remembrance may serve as stark reminders of the inescapability of violence. This is especially prescient now, in the middle of a global pandemic, when many women have been forced into lockdown with their abusers while at the same time facing increased precarity and reduced financial independence.
Every year, the Prime Minister, Members of Parliament, and others in leadership positions release statements on our need, as a nation, to recommit to the prevention of violence against women. For example, in today’s statement by Prime Minister Trudeau [4]:
“As we remember the victims of this hateful, cowardly act, we are also reminded that, for countless women, girls, and gender diverse people in Canada and around the world, violence is a daily reality. This threat, which has been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, is unacceptable and must be addressed. That is why, on this day, we reaffirm our commitment to speak up and take action against any form of violence against women” (para 3).
For survivors and those already entrenched in anti-violence work, statements like this can be especially frustrating. When these calls to action are paired with ineffective or delayed policies, this begins to feel a bit like the government paying lip service to something that has very real effects on women, girls, and gender-diverse folks across Canada. This is further underlined by stories in the news of continued sexual violence perpetrated by government officials, at both the local at national level, that shows no signs of letting up any time soon. Consider for example Ottawa City Councillor Rick Chiarelli’s sexual harassment of job applicants and staffers, Liberal MP William Amos who exposed himself (not once, but TWICE) during virtual parliamentary sessions, or the rampant sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces (with 18,889 claims having been made to date related to the CAF-DND Sexual Misconduct Class Action Settlement). In the face of this, it is easy to feel angry on days of national commemoration. Rather than letting this anger eat at my insides, I remember that anger can also be productive. Anger and pressure from survivors, activists, and community members are the very reason we have national days of remembrance in the first place.
Following the 1989 massacre, feminists were scared and, given that the shooter’s* suicide note explicitly blamed feminist activists for his plight, some felt responsible. Mélissa Blais, a researcher at l’Université du Québec en Outaouais whose research focuses on feminism in Québec, explains that she interviewed many women who were activists at the time of the murders who, following these horrendous events, chose to remain silent afterwards to avoid attack [5]. Blais further explains that even in the early 2000s, people were still reluctant to speak of the massacre in political terms [5]. This largely relates to media framing of the events, with coverage directly following the 1989 massacre positioning the shooter as a “madman,” “as innocent as the women he killed…himself a victim of an increasingly merciless society” [5]. We have seen this song and dance before; the actions white mass murders are often framed within the context of individual psychology or mental illness (rather than as acts of domestic terror) [6]. It was (and still is) the continued work of feminist activists that have helped to change this conversation from one that focuses on individual men as “bad apples” to one that highlights the societal impacts of inequality on attitudes towards women, girls, and gender-diverse people. Following the events at l‘École Polytechnique de Montréal, it was community members, not government leaders, who organized vigils to honour the 14 women whose lives were lost. It was feminists who pushed for large-scale change. It was survivors’ stories that highlighted that everyday forms oppression, the acts that often escape our attention, serve to prop up a culture that is permissive of violence against women.
It is this same grassroots political pressure that have resulted in the policy changes we are (FINALLY) seeing in our current moment. In 2017, the Government of Canada released its federal strategy for addressing for ending violence against women (It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence). This strategy focused on three areas: 1) Preventing gender-based violence, 2) Supporting survivors and their families, and 3) Promoting responsive legal and justice systems. Under this federal strategy, and Advisory Council on Gender-Based Violence was established to advise the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development on issues related to gender-based violence. This Advisory Council includes representatives from anti-violence and anti-oppression organizations across the country, including the Canadian Women’s Foundation, Women’s Shelters Canada and the Native Women’s Association of Canada to name only a few (for the full list of members, see here). A key task of this council was the development of a National Action Plan to end gender-based violence which was released earlier in 2021. This development of this action plan was, similarly, the result of consultations with organizations throughout Canada. The National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence lays out 100 policy actions, addressing the following four pillars: 1) Enabling environment and social infrastructure, 2) Prevention, 3) Promotion of responsive legal and justice systems, and 4) Support for survivors and their families. The report also references a fifth pillar that relates to Indigenous women’s leadership but this has been delegated to Women and Gender Equity (WAGE) Canada’s Indigenous Women’s Circle. Importantly, this plan highlights the need for an all-of-government approach that involves key contributions from people with lived experience of gender-based violence at every stage of its development.
We have made important strides in addressing violence against women in Canada. But our fight is far from over. It is important to remember that mass gender-based violence is not our past. It is our present. Consider, for instance how only three years ago, Alek Minassian’s extreme hatred of women and his radicalization through men’s rights online forums led him to run down and kill ten people in Toronto. We must continue to pressure the government – local, provincial, federal – to enact the changes laid out in the National Action Plan. We all have a role to play in preventing gender-based violence. This year, on December 6th, when you re-commit to ending violence against women, think about what that materially looks like; what changes will you make to secure a safer future for Canadians?
* In this blog, I have made an explicit choice not to include the name of the perpetrator of the attack at L’École polytechnique de Montréal. He has received far enough attention to date and I would prefer not to add to this.
References
[1] Women and Gender Equality Canada. (2021). The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Retrieved on December 1, 2021, from: https://women-gender-equality.canada.ca/en/commemorations-celebrations/16-days/national-day-remembrance.html.
[2] Mitima-Verloop, H. B., Boelen, P. A., & Mooren, T. (2020). Commemoration of disruptive events: a scoping review about posttraumatic stress reactions and related factors. European journal of psychotraumatology, 11(1), 1701226. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2019.1701226.
[3] Miller, J. L. (2012). Collective memorializing. In Miller J. L. (Ed.), Psychosocial capacity building in response to disasters (pp. 283–299). Columbia University Press.
[4] Government of Canada. (2021). Statement by the Prime Minister on the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women. Retrieved on December 6, 2021, from: https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2021/12/06/statement-prime-minister-national-day-remembrance-and-action-violence.
[5] Bindel, J. (2012, December 3). The Montreal massacre Canada’s feminists remember. The Guardian. Retrieved on December 6, 2021, from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/03/montreal-massacre-canadas-feminists-remember.
[6] Wheeler, E. (2017). Mass shootings and the media: How race and ethnicity influence media coverage. Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science, 5(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.31979/THEMIS.2017.0505.