Born and raised as a female in Montreal and now a feminist working at a Vancouver rape crisis centre, I remember and will always remember the massacre of women on December 6th, 1989 at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. I can clearly recall being at home and watching the television coverage of the shooting spree. I sat there horrified and confused, struggling to understand why this man shot these 14 women. Why would he shot them just because they were women? because they were feminists? Slowly, I started to realize the message he was sending out to us women. Women do not belong here. Women do not belong in engineering. These 14 women were venturing out into a male-dominated territory. A territory Marc Lepine was protecting to maintain by taking drastic measures.

Lepine's action is an extreme case of violence against women; however, it is no different really from the man who rapes or beats his wife. The message and purpose of both are the same. We are to stay put and if we don't we will quickly be put back there either with a putdown, a slap, a punch or a beating. The only difference between the Montreal Massacre and the thousands of individual cases of violence against women each year is more of us got to personally see and feel the impact of Lepine's violence. The individual cases of violence against women often go unnoticed and unheard of for many. Not for me though.

As a woman, as a feminist, as a rape crisis worker, I know the impact violence against women has. I have taken women to hospitals who have just been violently raped. I have helped women fill out police reports on their former lovers who are constantly stalking them and uttering death threats. I have moved women into our transition house who are black and blue from their husbands' fists.

Violence against women results in numerous restrictions on our daily lives. We have to think about what is the "safest" way to walk home is, we have to think about what the "safest" way to dress will be, we have to think about possible "escape" routes when a man is walking closely behind us at night, we have to think about the "safest" way to meet men, we have to think about the "safest" way to look after our drinks while out. We are told repeatedly how to be "safe" and how to "protect" ourselves from the dangerous strange men out there. Why then am I still taking calls from women each day who are brutally raped or beaten, not by strange men though, but by men who supposedly love them?

Giving us safety tips is not stopping men from raping and beating us.

1 out of 4 women will be sexually assaulted by the age of 18.

90% of sexual assaults are committed by a man they know.

In 2001, 69 women were killed by their current/former husbands.

We all can join in the fight against violence against women. We all now can go around to the learning centres here today or participate in one of the workshops to learn and talk about violence against women. Hear what is happening to women and how women are fighting back. For men, you can simply stop being violent choose not to rape or hit women. Men can learn what good and healthy sex is and what an equal relationship would look like. They can correct their own and other men's sexist attitudes. For women, we can join and organize with a women's group to take action against violence against us. We can start to break the isolation, the silence, and the shame surrounding the violence we experience.

I ask of each of you here to take this day, this opportunity, to talk, discuss and learn about violence against women. Then to decide what one action you can take right now and commit to it to help bring an end to violence against women.