Sexist posters spark criminal investigation at Waterloo

Alanna Wallace
CUP Ontario Bureau Chief
WATERLOO, Ont. (CUP) – Campus security at the University of Waterloo has been amped up since a misogynist attack was made on female candidates early February.
An anonymous attacker put posters depicting Nobel Prize-winning chemist and physicist Marie Curie over the posters of female candidates. The posters read: “THE TRUTH. The brightest woman this Earth ever created was Marie Curie, the mother of the nuclear bomb. You tell me if the plan of women leading men is still a good idea.”
Fraudulent emails claiming to be from UW president Feridun Hamdullahpur with the attached poster were also sent out.
“On Feb. 9, in response to seeing the posters up around campus that denigrated women, they were taken down immediately by campus police,” said Ellen Rethore, associate vice-president of communications and public affairs for UW.
Security on campus grounds and buildings has been heightened and long-term safety plans have been examined, and the university’s police service has launched a criminal investigation to determine the identity of the attacker.
“This whole issue has also been identified and is on the agenda for our diversity committee,” Rethore explained. “The diversity committee will clearly be paying full attention to the situation and that will be something I expect we will hear back from them on in the future.”
Natalie Cockburn, who was elected vice-president of education during the February campaign, expressed her displeasure that the perpetrators would use the electoral process as a way to proliferate their message.
“It was fairly unfortunate that an individual would choose the election process as a way to send a message of this nature out,” she said. “And I don’t think it was necessarily a personal one – I think it was an attack at women in general.”
In the wake of the events, the university’s women’s centre and the queer and questioning community centre have been temporarily closed, though they assured the community their services could be accessed through e-mail and telephone.
Despite using the election as a vehicle for the attack, Cockburn said she is hopeful women will not be discouraged from participating in on-campus elections, particularly since the attack seemed to be “a statement against women at large.”
“There are a lot of fantastic women, a number of fantastic women that just have so much to offer,” said Cockburn. “And I really hope that they won’t be discouraged to come forward and exercise their potential.”