“WHAT am I supposed to say?”

That’s the question on many mens lips right now as they try to familiarise themselves within our Brave New World and learn how to tread the line between being an ally to women and bring about cultural change without ending friendships from atop a sanctimonious soapbox.

Speaking about a particularly vile colleague who has a penchant for sexist, homophobic and racist gags over work lunches, one male friend told me this week, “As much as I want to call out his ‘jokes’, it’s hard being the only one that ever does it.”

“How many times can you be the only one that ever says anything before it escalates and gets seriously uncomfortable?” he asked.

I wanted to reply, as many times as it takes, but as it happens, I didn’t need to.

For weeks now, Hollywood veteran Dustin Hoffman has been rebuffing claims that he sexually harassed a 17-year-old intern while working on Death of a Salesman in 1985, defending his actions with excuses like, “no one told us these girls were 17” and “you do things; you say things; it’s a thing,” and the particularly offensive, “there’s a point in her not bringing it up for 40 years.”

But now, after weeks of famous men offering support to victims through the misguided “I have sisters and daughters and a wife” spiel, a British comedian has delivered a masterclass in how to tread the line that so few are familiar with.

Dustin Hoffman accused of sexual harassment Dustin Hoffman accused of sexual harassment

“This is something we’re going to have to talk about,” John Oliver said to Hoffman this week during a panel discussion in New York. “It’s hanging in the air.”

The conversation between the two started calmly enough. They were part of a larger group conversation discussing a manner of things. Oliver only went there when Hoffman directed the conversation to the space. He let Hoffman speak and listened to what the actor had to say. Take away the film cameras and the suits and it could have been a conversation happening around a dinner table or at the pub. But — and this is a but that matters — Oliver decided not to let Hoffman’s reasonings slide.

When Hoffman released a statement in response to the allegations that read, “it’s not reflective of who I am,” Oliver responded, “it’s that kind of response that pisses me off. Because it is reflective of who you were. If it happened — and you’ve given no evidence to show it didn’t happen — then there was a period of time, for a while, when you were a creeper around women.”

When Hoffman hit back using the classic defence tools of ‘you weren’t there’ and ‘it was a different time’ and ‘I wasn’t the only one behaving badly’, Oliver again persisted.

media_camera Dustin Hoffman. (Pic: Valerie Macon)

“It feels like dismissals or re-contextualising it is not actually addressing it. It doesn’t feel self-reflective in the way that it seems the incident demands.”

When Hoffman started to get frustrated at not being believed, Oliver offered reason.

“I get no pleasure in having this conversation but you and I are not the victims here; that’s the thing,” he said.

When Hoffman asked Oliver straight-out whether or not he believed the victim’s claims, he replied, “yes. Because there’s no point in her lying.”

Without raising his voice or puffing out his chest or raising his fists, Oliver called bullshit. And he called it big.

He believed the victim, he listened to the other side of the argument, spoke out when the context was right, and didn’t ask for a pat on the back afterwards. He was measured in his argument, didn’t make it about himself and called a recontextualised spade a spade. He gave woman a reprieve from the exhaustion that comes from simultaneously being a victim, an educator, and an emotionally exhausted being. He gave us a video we can send to those friends who don’t know what to do and allow us to simply say, this. We want you to do this.

The fear that men will see sexist, often borderline abusive behaviour happen, that they will hear those ‘jokes’, that they will be privy to that which happens when women are not around and do nothing is something women feel intensely. It’s the same fear we carry when we’re deciding whether or not to report the assault we’ve experienced.

We don’t want a fist fight or a screaming match in our honour. We just want you to believe us and call bullshit on those who are protected by the fear others have of making a scene.

Katy Hall is a writer and producer at RendezView. Find her on Twitter at @katyhallway.

Originally published as This is what a good man looks like