How did the WRC get started?
Near the end of 1991, a handful of men in Ontario and Quebec decided we had a responsibility to urge men to speak out against violence against women. Crimes committed by other men should not only be of concern to women. We decided that a white ribbon–worn during the week leading up to the second anniversary of the massacre of 14 women at the Universit de Montreal engineering school–would be a symbol of men’s opposition to men’s violence against women. After only six weeks preparation, without any organizational structure, perhaps as many as one hundred thousand men across Canada wore a white ribbon. Men, along with many women supporters, distributed white ribbons in schools and universities, in offices and on shop floors, in government departments and churches, from Victoria to Goose Bay to Inuvik. Beyond those who wore a ribbon, hundreds of thousands of men were drawn into discussion and debate on the issue of men’s violence.
