DECEMBER 6, 1989
WHY IT’S
IMPORTANT TO
WOMEN IN ENGINEERING
1. GO TO WORK
To all the women in engineering: go to work. Go to school. Study the profession. Every day get up and continue the work you enjoy in this profession.
You might not post about this on social media, but the fact that you’re going to work and continuing in engineering means you are
making a difference.
3 THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY AND EVERY DAY TO HELP
Why does it make every woman in engineering not just sad, but also angry?
Every woman in engineering feels this at a personal level. A tragedy that is so horrific and unimaginable brings out not only tears, but pure rage and anger. Why? Because on some level, we still experience sexism in our profession. It’s been 32 years since the incident. Those women would have been in their 50s. They could have been our
co-workers, managers, professors, mentors…
What happened?
The École Polytechnique massacre was an antifeminist mass shooting in Montreal at an engineering school.
Fourteen women were murdered and 10 women and four men were injured.
On December 6, 1989, Marc Lépine entered a mechanical engineering class at the École Polytechnique and ordered the women and men to opposite sides of the classroom. He separated nine women, instructing the men to leave. He stated that he was "fighting feminism" and opened fire. He shot at all nine women in the room, killing six. The shooter then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, targeting women for just under 20 minutes. He killed a
further eight before turning the gun on himself.
Source: Text copied from Wikipedia
