Marc Lépine Essay

December 6, 1989, was one of the most horrific days in Canadian history, that is the date of the Montréal Massacre. A lone gunman with a deep hatred for females walked into the university that day, separated the males from the females and murdered 14 women and injured 13 other people then took his own life. Marc Lépine targeted only women because he felt that women were taking over all the jobs and there would be no jobs left for men. He blamed all females for ruining his life and stated that he was fighting feminism. Marc Lépine was and still is responsible for destroying many lives that day but he was not born misogynistic we are not born to hate we are taught it. Could his father Rachid Liass Gharbi be responsible for Marc’s misogynistic

Rachid Gharbi views on women were extremely misogynist. He felt that women were beneath men and strongly believed that they were only intended to serve men. Marc at a young age had witnessed his father be verbally and physically abusive to his mother and sister, he too was victimized. Marc would get hit so hard in the face sometimes leaving bruises for a week. Mr. Gharbi would say loving words to his wife then out of nowhere beat her for little things. Parents are the first example children have of what a healthy relationship should like, children witnessing this type of abusive and manipulative behavior is unhealthy. According to statistics Canada “Previous research has found that witnessing spousal violence can result in a range of negative consequences to children, including emotional, psychological, cognitive, social and behavioral problems” (Sinha, 2010). Mr. Gharbi would beat the children to the point where their noses would bleed and when Monique would go to console them Rachid would not allow her to. He stated it that consoling a child is considered spoiling them. During an interview with Monique, the topic about her ex-husband arose and she said “He was very cold, I don’t think that he was

Since birth Marc was constantly exposed to his father’s misogynistic ways, he did not have a positive male role model in his life. He was beaten so bad as a child that his father would leave marks on his face for a week at a time and he even drew blood. Marc witnessed his mother repeatedly being physically and verbally abused and he was confined to a room with a children’s potty so his father could enjoy a meal in peace. The lack of a good role model for Marc was a huge factor in who he grew up to be. He did not have an actual father to show him how to treat women, that men and women are equal beings, and that using violence to solve a problem or get his way is not right. If Marc was put into a Big Brother program after the divorce, there is a good chance that all the brainwashing his father did would have been undone. He would have had a strong male role model to teach him that feminism is not something to hate rather something to embrace because it fights for women’s rights that would befit his mother and little sister. Also after all the trauma Marc Lépine endured he should have received more than just one year in family therapy. He should have been placed with a child psychologist to help him work through everything from his feelings of abandonment to the abuse to seeing his father coastally violently abuse his mother. The abuse was documented during the