STANDING UP FOR EQUALITY
Montrealers join march for women
Hundreds gathered outside Place des Arts Saturday as Montreal hosted one of dozens of marches and other events taking place across Canada to call for empowerment and gender equality.
The local protest — billed as a march but really a rally on the esplanade of Place des Arts — began at 11 a.m. and was supposed to continue until 1 p.m. However, by 12:30, many participants had taken refuge from the cold, damp wind in nearby malls.
Celine Thomas, a recent McGill University grad in international development and now a research analyst on social connectedness, said she was taking part in the demonstration to stand with all people “who have been victimized.”
The protest was “about more than gender equality,” she said.
It was also a way of expressing support for diverse struggles for social justice, including the Black Lives Matter movement and battles over Indigenous, LGTBQ and disability rights, said Thomas, who held up a poster reading, “I believe you, I believe in you #MeToo.”
Nathalie Provost, one of the survivors of the Polytechnique massacre in which 14 women were killed on Dec. 6, 1989, said she did not identify with feminism at the time of the tragedy.
“My mother, her friends, the women of her generation had opened doors. To me, it seemed that everything was possible,” she said.
But later, she came to understand that women are not on an equal playing field with men and that the struggle for equality must go on.
The tragedy opened her eyes to the realization “that nothing was over, that mentalities do not change quickly,” she said.
Viviane Michel, the president of Quebec Native Women, said society needs to understand that women are not sex objects.
“We need to say loud and clear that we deserve respect,” said Michel, who said she was herself a victim of sexual assault.
In attendance was Sue Montgomery, the borough mayor of Côte-desneiges–notre-dame-degrâce. After the #metoo movement, “taking real power” at Montreal city hall is the “next natural step” for women, said Montgomery, a former Montreal Gazette journalist.
In 2014, Montgomery and Toronto journalist Antonia Zerbisias pioneered the movement to overcome the stigma of reporting sexual assault by founding the #Been -Raped-Never-Reported movement.
Josée Marcotte, a union vicepresident in the Fédération de la Santé et Services Sociaux, said she was there to protest against cutbacks in the health sector, which she said affect women disproportionately. Before the event, Marlo Turner Ritchie, a social activist and consultant working with non-profit organizations, said she would be taking part in the march to protest Donald Trump’s presidency, support the #MeToo movement and press for a national childcare policy in Canada.
“We’ve been able to see him in action for a year and it’s appalling and frightening, and I think people want to protest that,” she said.
“Obviously the #MeToo movement has been tremendous and that women in particular are rising up in ways that they’ve never done in the past and there’s such power to that,” Ritchie added.
“It’s a very symbolic act to speak out against injustice, whether it’s sexual assault, or racism or any kind of discrimination,” she said.
At least 38 communities across Canada hosted marches, rallies or other events on the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. Others were planned across North America and around the world.
The march was first held one year ago to protest against the inauguration of Trump, whose policies were seen as harmful to women, immigrants, minorities and other marginalized groups.
The protest movement has gained momentum with the emergence of the #MeToo movement denouncing sexual assault and harassment.
The event’s Facebook page showed that 1,100 had indicated they would be attending.