There were catcalls and abuse, a demand to “smile, love”, and pointed questions about where I was going and who I was waiting for. Loading As I tried to make myself smaller - as if by bowing my head and hunching my shoulders I would be less visible - a guy hung out of a car window yelling obscenities in my direction while the driver beeped his horn. I stood there in tears - a woman alone in the dark just wanting to get home - wishing it would stop. Wishing someone would intervene. And thinking of all the women who never made it home safe. At first I was annoyed at myself for not being tougher, and for not taking my friend up on his offer to walk with me.

But then my annoyance gave way to fury that I should blame myself for this all too familiar feeling of being unsafe on the streets of my own city. I stood there in tears, a woman alone in the dark just wanting to get home, wishing it would stop. My question to the “good” men who didn’t join in but looked me in the eye and saw my fear and discomfort and did nothing, is why? Why, after all the candlelight vigils for murdered women and promises to step up and be better, did not one of you say, this is not ok? If we’re to believe your impassioned protests of “not all men” when women complain about misogyny, then why do so many of you stay silent when your mates act like this?

Your outrage at violence against women is worth nothing to us if you ignore the behaviour that leads to it. Loading Street harassment is insidious and it’s exhausting. While most men don’t think twice about how they’ll get home from a night out in the city, for women, personal safety in public spaces is an issue we grapple with daily. According to an Australia Institute survey, 87 per cent of women have experienced at least one form of verbal or physical street harassment. Plan International’s Unsafe In The City survey, released last year, found 83 per of young women in Sydney had experienced cat-calling.

Almost a third had been touched inappropriately or had their path blocked, and more than half had experienced menacing behaviour by men. Women reported that street harassment had most commonly begun between the ages of 11 and 15. Loading We’ve been conditioned since childhood to believe it’s our responsibility to change our behaviour and minimise our risk in public spaces but it’s not our actions that need to be policed. If you are a bystander to the mistreatment of women, you are part of the problem.

What made my experience last week particularly deflating was that exactly the same thing happened to me a few years ago after exactly the same AFL opening round fixture. A group of drunk blokes leaving the football circled me as I stood waiting for a taxi, with one calling me a “f***ing slut” when I chose to ignore his repeated “compliments.” While only one was abusive, the rest laughed, rolled their eyes or did nothing. While only one was abusive, the rest laughed, rolled their eyes or did nothing. I love football but there is something about the tribal nature of men’s elite team sport – often fueled by adrenaline and alcohol – that brings out the worst excesses of masculinity.

It was the same pack mentality we saw last week when Carlton forward Tayla Harris faced a barrage of abuse online, with sexist comments being given tacit approval by hundreds of men through Facebook’s like button. The burden of changing this behaviour must be carried not only by men who perpetrate it but by those around them who enable it. My plea to men who find themselves in these situations – where silence or passive acquiescence seems like a safer option than challenging the group - is don’t let this be the standard you accept. Stop excusing harassment and sexism. And don’t walk past it. Because we don’t get to walk past it. We have to live with it every day. And frankly, we’re sick of it. Jill Stark is a journalist and author of Happy Never After: Why The Happiness Fairytale Is Driving Us Mad