The Orlando gunman has been identified as Omar Mateen, of Fort Pierce, Fla. It was hard to swallow, but only a dullard could reject the logic outright.Īnd, at least partially as a result, open sexism and misogynistic humour became far less okay after Polytechnique, at least in polite company. Men who'd never as much as lifted a hand to a woman in their lives were told that even so, if they'd ever smiled at a sexist joke or tolerated discrimination against a woman, they'd done their bit to shape a culture that culminated with the funerals of those 14 women in Montreal.
In December 1989, Marc Lépine armed himself with a Ruger Mini-14 semiautomatic rifle and headed off to Montreal's École Polytechnique, hunting women.