Montreal has been reckoning with misogyny since a gunman walked into École Polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989, separated out the men, and murdered 14 women simply because they were women.

The shooter left behind a hit list of prominent feminists and an ugly screed. But since those women were difficult to access, he took out his resentment on victims who represented everything he hated.

It took a long time before we were ready to call it a femicide, even if it was obvious from the first frigid night. But we’ve spent the last 37 years defying the sinister motives of a killer: creating new opportunities for women in male-dominated fields; promoting equality; advocating for gun control; fighting all forms of violence against women; and honouring the legacies of the dead with scholarships and bursaries that lift new generations of trailblazers.

This was necessary and important. It provided some measure of healing and a way to transform grief into something meaningful.

But it has become increasingly clear this is no longer enough to combat the misogyny that fuelled the massacre. Hatred of women is on the rise again. If anything, it’s more poisonous than ever — and more pervasive.

As a new report by the federal parliamentary Standing Committee on the Status of Women reveals, antifeminist ideologies are rampant in the echo chambers of the internet and young men are highly susceptible, whether they are deeply troubled or merely insecure. A few haphazard clicks and algorithms that serve up a diet of toxic content push many down a slippery slope into the manosphere.

There, they find regressive ideas about women and gender equality — and sometimes even more extreme views. There, the concept of male........

© Montreal Gazette