At the start of the #MeToo movement, many men expressed surprise at the number of women who had been the victim of sexual harassment and even assault. I was surprised by their surprise because I’ve lived in the world all my life. I’ve had to politely wiggle out of literal and metaphorical dark corners while working hard to create a narrative that this influential man’s suggestions were only an in-joke. I’ve had to protect my own bullies’ egos and reputations in order to keep working.

But most of what I know, I know from what I’ve seen and heard from other women. The men of Hollywood seemed outraged to discover that the way they treated women every day, was the way women were treated. I will concede that some men didn’t understand the scale of it or couldn’t identify individual perpetrators. I also suspect those same men didn’t want to know and had spent a lot of their working lives looking hard out of windows to avoid eye contact with women who were making SOS faces across tables.

When the movement began, it was a series of salacious stories and – if we are going to be honest, as #MeToo requests – these stories were treated like titillating office gossip. “Into a pot plant? In front of her? Was this at last year’s Christmas party when Alan let off the fire extinguisher!?” It was only when #MeToo turned into Time’s Up, and there was talk of dismantling the power structures that allowed the worst of this horrorshow, that maximum fury was unleashed. Men might have been happy to hear about Louis CK masturbating in front of a double act in a hotel room, but they couldn’t countenance changing their own behaviours that contribute daily to the culture that allowed this to thrive. Action is difficult.

Many men are actually very happy to leave behind a 21st century drunk-Don-Draper culture. They hate it too. But others are furious that these revelations mean their lives should change. Whenever I hear: “#MeToo’s gone too far now,” I think: “Well, that ‘women have to put up with any shit’ movement had a really good run.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I truly believed all men absolutely knew the difference between friendly and lascivious behaviour.’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

When I first heard men saying: “I don’t know how to talk to a woman now,” I parodied it as: “It’s getting so I don’t know whether I can grope a woman in the workplace or not!” I truly believed all men absolutely knew the difference between friendly and lascivious behaviour. Of course men understand the difference between flirting and coercing … don’t they? Then I started watching these particular men’s faces while they spoke and I changed my mind. These men aren’t the same as the Hollywood lawyers professing shock at the worst allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Some of them genuinely don’t know. What we are witnessing here is some men developing empathy in public.

What they are really saying is: “I have never thought to wonder how my words and actions routinely land with women. I don’t know how to behave around them any more because I don’t know what might feel embarrassing or predatory for them, even though I’ve dated women and worked with them all my life. None of my female friends would feel safe to tell me if I had a bad reputation.’’

Men underestimate level of sexual harassment against women – survey Read more

I’m not suggesting these same men have no empathy in general. They’ve developed empathy in all the places that society built consequences for them. The power structures have in-built penalties for them annoying their bros, but not for making a suggestive comment to a female colleague in a lift. Wherever there is consistent lack of empathy in society there will almost certainly be a power imbalance so permanent that it looks normal. We teach children to empathise. If a toddler snatches a toy from another child they often don’t notice the toy-loser is crying. You have to take the toy back to build in a consequence so they get it.

I’ve heard men argue that they can’t be expected to know if women thought past sexual experiences had been consensual – but if you wish to put a part of your body inside someone else’s, you need to be very very sure they want that body part there.

I used to think the “#MeToo’s gone too far” brigade knew exactly how we felt and that they were feigning naivety, because women have always had to be alert to men’s feelings: “Will Harvey kill my career if I say no?” I do have some sympathy for these men now. It must be difficult to learn empathy in public, in middle age. Now that they could lose their jobs, for the first time they’re genuinely asking, “When I’m here, how do you feel?” That’s a very good thing.