98
Yesterday was the thirty-first anniversary of the Polytechnique femicide
I meant to post this yesterday, but literally didn't know what day it was.
December 6th, 1989, was a profoundly sad day for our community, here in Québec, when an anti-feminist man entered the engineering school of Polytechnique in Montreal with a firearm with the intention of killing as many "feminists" as he could.
The shooter entered a classroom at the end of a corridor, ordered all the men out and then shot the girls. He then went out and kept shooting women on sight before killing himself. That man murdered fourteen women, in cold blood, and why ? Basically because he was angry that men were "denied" places in engineering schools since those places were being taken by more competent girls, who in his opinion should have gone back to the kitchen to be housewives like his beloved mother was.
I was born in that same city a year later, and I can testify to the profound trauma that was left on our community by that femicide, and attest to the fact that it has made many women feminists.
I am sharing this because of how close it still is to my heart, but also because the thirtieth anniversary last year was a peaking moment for me.
Indeed, the Women's Federation of Quebec had a man as president (he claims to be a lesbian and has breast implants) for a couple of years. Last year, after making disgusting comments about how he wanted feminism (and the federation) to be less oriented towards the needs of women and more towards the needs of everyone who "identifies as a woman", he attempted to plan a series of events to sensibilize the public to the realities of TIMs during the commemoration week of the femicide... And even though I myself was still somewhat of a TRA at that time, I got called transphobic and a terf for saying that the events of Poly had nothing to do with TIMs.
The event was also co-opted by Morgane Oger, who attempted to appropriate our trauma by claiming that he, "as a woman" in an engineering school at the time, had been terrified that he might be next... Even though he didn't begin to appropriate womanhood until over twenty years later unless I'm mistaken and noone, least of all an angry MRA, would ever have mistaken him for a woman in 1989 (and probably wouldn't now either).
Those fourteen women were not murdered because they identified as women. The one survivor from the classroom even stated to the shooter that she wasn't a feminist. This shooter did not care about their gender identity or expression. This shooter wanted them dead because they were females who refused to be subordinates. Period.
And we must remember that, and that men have no business appropriating our literal murders.
(And right as I was finishing this post a literal TIF walked in and cheerfully said hi. Damn timing lol...)
Imagine the brutality, when all of the wardens were men and women were left to the male prisoners in general pop to abuse. Of course, it's appalling that TiMs are now being housed again with women, but I'm assuming the conditions back then were far worse with even more intermixing. Considering the status of women in 1800s society, men must have felt they could do ANYTHING to a woman branded as a criminal or prostitute.
Edit: This made me look for similar info on women's prison in the USA, and an interesting New Yorker article came up. The final paragraph is strangely focused on undermining the idea that an all-woman-run facility would be any better for women.
I am not sure if the conditions in the 1800s were worse, or perhaps, in a twisted way, better. (With regards to the rape, at least - I take it as a given that food and such are better nowadays.)
Consider this: Poor men were also imprisoned for the pettiest of crimes back then, so there might have been a few decent men in there, and the rapists who were fellow prisoners might not have been able to get women alone. Plus, being in one room with the other women in prison would have made it easier to look out for each other, even though women would probably have been there in much smaller numbers. (Or perhaps not, seeing as underage children were just thrown in along with the mothers)
Nowadays, much care is taken to only select the rapists who actively want to be in women's prison to imprison women with them, guaranteeing them access to victims that is completely unhindered by other people. Plus, in the 1800s, no one cared if prisoners washed. Now, they seem to be shepherded into group showers, from what I heard.
The final paragraph is strangely focused on undermining the idea that an all-woman-run facility would be any better for women.
I can't see archive links anymore - is it the one that goes on about how the first women's prisons were intended to make women more feminine?
(Anyone here suspecting that's just what the feminists back then told the men so that they would be allowed to found women-only prisons? I mean, I wish any modern woman could come up with something that would motivate men to back single-sex prisons. Anything. I don't care how bonkers it would sound, if it keeps women safe from rape in prison.)
I can only imagine what those women went through
An all woman prison system would be ideal, I don’t see how that could ever be a bad thing
I get that it might be hard to recruit, but they could work on that
I mean, one might find it handy to keep one or two men on staff to do the heavy lifting, or act as backup with really dangerous prisoners, but ... I cannot see how an absence of men would negatively affect the prisoners at all, or the guards, most of the time.
Yes, it'd be convenient to be able to cheat by having a strong female prisoner be handled by male guards, but you could also just use double the number of female guards. They do manage to deal with dangerous prisoners in men's prisons, too, despite not having the cheat option.
(And that's if you even ever GET the Hannibal Lecter kind of horror murderer in female version. I don't know that there ever was one, most female serial killers used poison, which is bad, but no one will put them in charge of the prison kitchen, so ...)
Id say, if possible, no men at all but I feel staffing would be hard
I just don’t think women are as attracted to police/prison guard work.
I’d find it very hard. I’d feel bad for people and I like making friends
Essentially I’d end up getting played by women ten times more clever than me
Can it be called an anniversary when women's right to women only prisons has been abolished again already? 🤔
Or am I misinformed and all those reports of men in women's prisons are from other countries? (I think I remember at least one scandal where they had to remove a man from women's prison? But there is so many, I tend to get confused.)
Thank you @vestalvirgin for your piece on Women’s history that led me here
Aaaand that's being undone