Three minutes late...
...and it's now December 7th.
But seventeen years ago yesterday (December 6, 1989), fourteen women were murdered at a tech school in Montreal. There's little doubt that this was motivated by the killer's sociopathic hatred of women, in particular women in technical areas of study. Being a technical student myself, I am well aware of this day and of the need to treat the deaths of these women with solemnity and respect.
That being said, I'm glad I'm in St Catharines and not in Waterloo today. Every male at school feels like dirt today, no matter what our views on women are, because some fuckup went and pushed our progress towards acceptance and equality back two hundred years. But that's a call to action, I suppose- we can't shake this off our collective conscience because somebody else did it, but we can take responsibility for our own actions and attitudes towards our colleagues, male and female alike.
Sexism is still rampant in the field of engineering, and it's not very far beneath the surface. It's not enough not to behave in a sexist manner yourself- it's time we started calling other people on it.
There's too much sermonizing on December 6, when what it should be telling us is to act and let our actions speak for themselves.
...of course, this has lead me to the following idle musing: do feminist organizations have Womanifestos?
But seventeen years ago yesterday (December 6, 1989), fourteen women were murdered at a tech school in Montreal. There's little doubt that this was motivated by the killer's sociopathic hatred of women, in particular women in technical areas of study. Being a technical student myself, I am well aware of this day and of the need to treat the deaths of these women with solemnity and respect.
That being said, I'm glad I'm in St Catharines and not in Waterloo today. Every male at school feels like dirt today, no matter what our views on women are, because some fuckup went and pushed our progress towards acceptance and equality back two hundred years. But that's a call to action, I suppose- we can't shake this off our collective conscience because somebody else did it, but we can take responsibility for our own actions and attitudes towards our colleagues, male and female alike.
Sexism is still rampant in the field of engineering, and it's not very far beneath the surface. It's not enough not to behave in a sexist manner yourself- it's time we started calling other people on it.
There's too much sermonizing on December 6, when what it should be telling us is to act and let our actions speak for themselves.
...of course, this has lead me to the following idle musing: do feminist organizations have Womanifestos?