Dec. 6, 1989, will always remain etched in my mind. I was teaching in the anatomy lab at OVC when I heard the tragic news that a lone gunman had opened fire at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique, killing 14 innocent women.

Like many people, I have spent every Dec. 6 since that horrifying moment thinking about how quickly it changed the lives of so many people. And like other historical events involving a devastating loss of human life, the Ecole Polytechnique killings reach across the decades to provide us with an opportunity for education and contemplation.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Montreal tragedy and is an ideal time to reflect on the issue of violence against women. We have come a long way on this issue, yet we still have much to learn. It's a subject worth contemplating not just on Dec. 6 but every day of the year. We owe it to the women who lost their lives 20 years ago to grapple with this issue publicly, to debate and discuss it in the open.

The murders at Ecole Polytechnique amounted to an extreme and deliberate hate crime. The man who took the lives of the innocent and vibrant students regarded women as the enemy. He felt threatened by them. His irrational hatred metastasized into the sick belief that women stood in the way of his acceptance, as well as his success in school and life.

Although this was a senseless act and the victims were random, it was not a random act. The killer first stormed into a classroom, separated the women and the men and shot the women, selecting his victims solely on the basis of their gender. He then stormed through the hallways targeting women, shooting to kill. In addition to the 14 women murdered, 10 other women and four men were injured before the killer took his own life.

Since this catastrophe, Canada has made great strides in tackling the issue of gender-based violence. The Montreal murders prompted legislative changes, innovative research, new approaches to looking at gender, changes in attitudes and additional services for those who experience abuse.

But so much more work remains to be done. Gender-based violence is still prevalent, and it touches us all in one way or another. Different situations vary in extremity, and some forms of abuse are subtler than others, but the cumulative effect is significant and damaging. Root causes also often share a common thread: abuse of power, misdirected anger, misunderstanding and the acceptance of dangerous ways of thinking and behaving. And overwhelmingly, the victims of such violence continue to be girls and women.

In 2005, the World Health Organization completed a multi-country study on the issue involving 10 countries and some 24,000 women. It found that gender-based violence is a prevalent, sometimes daily threat for girls and women around the globe. In fact, it accounts for more death and disability among women than the combined effects of cancer, malaria, traffic injuries and war, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women. The abuse has many forms: sexual, physical, emotional, labour exploitation, discrimination, etc. The physical and emotional effects are devastating, both for the victims and for those who witness the abuse, especially children.

This is not merely a public safety or public health matter. At its core, gender-based violence is a human rights issue. Any time a person's rights are violated, the ripples touch all sectors of society not to mention all individuals and it behooves us all to find ways to help eradicate it.

Progress has been made, yet stereotypes and stigma continue to be problems when it comes to violence against women in Canada and abroad. It's vital that we confront gender inequality by dealing with issues of both men's and women's roles and identities, particularly perceptions of masculinity, in order to address all sides of understanding and acceptance.

In addition, fear, shame and guilt continue to prevent women of all ages from reporting abuse, talking about it publicly and taking action. One way to change this is to facilitate a more open dialogue about the prevalence of such crimes and the harm they cause.

At U of G, we have supported the Women's Campus Safety Initiatives program, which funds education, programs and services on women's safety, sexual harassment and violence against women. The results have been very positive, leading to many important initiatives over the years. Violence against women is ultimately a consequence of the historical imbalance of power between men and women socially, economically, politically and it must be remedied. This happens when we as a people with a shared love of our community  strive to ensure that our university, city, province and country are places where everyone, regardless of gender, receives respect and equal opportunities for education and personal and professional advancement.

We need to keep encouraging girls to strive for success in any field that interests them, whether it's science and engineering, medicine, or arts and social sciences. Women who have achieved great things in these fields are ideal mentors for guidance and inspiration.

Women must continue to be elected and promoted to leadership positions where they can contribute their ideas and experiences, make a difference and serve as role models for others. Each of us must work to ensure that all men and women understand that gender-based violence has no place anywhere on our campus, in our community, in our country. The agonizing times when such abhorrent behaviour was tolerated whether out in the open or behind closed doors must be buried in the past.

As a result of the tragedy in Montreal 20 years ago, Dec. 6 has become known as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. This is a day to commemorate those who have lost their lives as a result of gender-based violence. At Guelph, some people wear white ribbons (the symbol of the anti-violence against women movement) or attend a ceremony at the Memorial Cactus Garden in the Thornbrough Building, which houses the School of Engineering.

However you choose to mark the day and honour the memory, remember how vital it is to keep this issue at the fore. Think of the things each of us can do to prevent violence against girls and women. By doing this, we each do our part to ensure that the women murdered in Montreal 20 years ago and all other victims of the same hateful scourge down through the ages did not die in vain.