CSMB statement on the 30th anniversary of the École Polytechnique de Montréal massacre

The Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences is currently holding its annual board meeting in Montreal on December 6^th, 2019. This is the 30^th anniversary of the École Polytechnique de Montréal massacre, where young women pursuing education in engineering were targeted specifically because they were women in a field that the shooter felt should be reserved for men. However, his anti-feminist hate extended beyond women in engineering and he went on to murder a woman in nursing and a female staff member. This violent misogyny has no place in Canada, in our educational institutions or our homes and yet we know that gender-based violence continues to exist at alarming rates in Canada. According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation – half of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16¹. What this means is that many of us in CSMB probably know a woman who has experienced gender-based violence, whether we realize it or not. Indeed, 67% of Canadians say they have personally known at least one woman who has experienced physical or sexual abuse¹.

On this December 6^th, as we meet in Montreal, CSMB recognizes that girls and women in STEM continue to face challenges to achieving their full potential and that barriers to progress through educational and career pathways in their STEM-related fields still exist. We know that this loss of human potential costs us all and that gender equity is better for society and in particular, better for the health and well-being of men. We know that diverse research teams lead to better outputs in science and that incorporating sex and gender+ based analyses in research is the most rigorous and best kind of science. Therefore, we must all work harder to remove misogyny from science – at all levels and in all forms, from the subtle sexist jokes in the lab or classroom, to the failure to include women in leadership positions. We must also make sure that stigma is removed and resources are available for those seeking help for abuse or mental health issues.

The executive of CSMB commits to supporting and promoting the most inclusive environment for all genders, and members of under-represented and marginalized groups in science, because we recognize inclusive science is in the best interests of all Canadians and Canadian science.

References

1 https://canadianwomen.org/the-facts/gender-based-violence/

Additional information – Gender Based Violence – Statistics Canada

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2019001/article/00017-eng.htm

Additional Resources in support of addressing mental health, male allyship to women, allyship in general, bystander training and equity, diversity & inclusion in STEM can be found at www.csmb.ca – add a link?

Mental Health – recent articles

https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2018/10/why-world-mental-health-day-matters-scientists

https://www.nature.com/collections/gnlwffjgtr

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01468-0

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06167-w

How can men be allies to women

https://www.awis.org/wp-content/uploads/Be-an-Ally-AWIS.pdf

https://www.catalyst.org/solution/marc-programming/

https://malechampionsofchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MCC-STEM-Progress-Report-2016-17.pdf

https://medicine.utoronto.ca/allyship-and-inclusion-faculty-medicine

Additional resources

https://serc.carleton.edu/advancegeo/resources/training.html