At the extreme end of this inequality spectrum is the killing of women: Mses Zara Aleena, Sabina Nessa, Ashling Murphy, Sarah Everard, Nicole Smallman, Bibaa Henry. The list of names goes on and on (in the UK, a woman is killed every three days by a man, finds the Femicide Census). But there is also a sliding scale of everyday violence: a 2021 UN survey found that more than 70 per cent of women in the UK had experienced public sexual harassment. This rises to 86 per cent among those aged 18-24.

Of course, women know that not all men present a danger, but we can also never be sure which ones do.

After every tragedy comes the predictable encouragement, from politicians, from police, from parents and partners, for women to be more careful, to not walk home alone, to take out your headphones, to not drink too much. But where is the call for men to do something, anything, to end male violence? Why do we so readily accept that violent men have the right to exist and women just have to find innovative ways to work around them?

Since being cyber-flashed in 2017, I have reported extensively on the everyday violence and discrimination women face, and spoken to hundreds of women about their experiences, as well as writing a book, How Men Can Help, about the role of men in fixing this societal issue. I know many men who want to do more but feel stuck.

Like Tom (all names have been changed), 29, who told me about an occasion at the pub when another man in his group started berating a woman. He felt uncomfortable, but said and did nothing. The offending man presumably went home thinking everyone had condoned his behaviour. Or Henry, 22, who explained that after a bouncer had made an inappropriate gesture towards his girlfriend, he’d asked for an apology, which led to him being physically assaulted by the bouncer. He asked, ‘How can I be an ally if I just get hurt?’

Women do not need men to be knights in shining armour, but we must shift the narrative. For too long, women have been burdened with solving a problem that is simply not theirs to solve. There are ways that men can begin to do this work without simply putting themselves in harm’s way.

Research by Police Scotland in 2021 found that men are still widely off the mark when it comes to understanding how women experience harassment. Three quarters of women said groping or grabbing was a regular experience for them, but only a quarter of men thought it was common. Only half of men thought cat-calling was frequent but three quarters of women said it was.

Men have to accept that violence is both widespread, and that it is gendered. A 2016 study from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden looked at 20 years of data from 1990 to 2010 and found that nine out of every 10 killers (90 per cent) were men. And it isn’t just killing: in England and Wales, 98.3 per cent of rapists are men. And 92 per cent of domestic abuse defendants in the year to March 2020 were men. Australian sociologist Dr Michael Flood says, “Most men don’t use violence against women. But when violence [against women] occurs, it’s largely by men.”

The #NotAllMen hashtag is, at best, totally unhelpful and at worst, intentionally problematic. It is a straw man argument that serves to derail a conversation and make the issue all about comforting individual men. Women already know that not every man is a rapist or murderer. Labour MP Ms Jess Phillips said on a panel in January 2022: “We’re having an argument back that no feminist ever started.”

It also plays into the monster myth that suggests violence is only happening on the fringes of society, done by people we don’t know. Only 16 per cent of rape is committed by strangers, the most common perpetrator is a partner or ex-partner (44 per cent). In Ms Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, we see how fragile the binary “nice guy” and “bad guy” setup is. The protagonist Cassie says: “Every week, I go to a club and I act like I’m too drunk to stand. Every week, a nice guy comes over to see if I’m OK.” These men then attempt to take advantage of her.

Social experiments and real-life horror stories have shown that in situations where strangers are being hurt or need help, too often we walk on by. The 1964 murder of Ms Kitty Genovese, 28, in New York was witnessed by 38 neighbours, but none came to her aid (one eventually called the police). We frequently just let things happen. But intervention in everyday cases of violence against women is crucial because, as Lieutenant-General David Morrison, former chief of the Australian army, said, “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept”.

Mr Jackson Katz, author of The Macho Paradox, has taught bystander intervention for decades. Katz says this is not about just throwing yourself into violent situations, but knowing there is a “menu of options”. If you’re in a pub and witness a friend speaking aggressively to his girlfriend, your only choices aren’t to either put yourself in the middle or do nothing. You could try to distract either party by inviting them to the bar; take the girlfriend to one side later and tell her you noticed what was happening; tell the friend that you thought he should have handled it differently.

Research has shown that men frequently overestimate the volume of women’s contributions and underestimate their own. An analysis of 100 public meetings by the Victoria University of Wellington showed that on average men asked three quarters of the questions when audiences were equally gender split. And when women do speak, they are perceived differently: one 2012 Yale University study found that when male executives spoke, they were seen as competent, whereas female executives were seen as less competent the more they spoke.

Women also face not being given credit for their ideas: in 2016, it was reported that female White House staff in the Obama administration were using “amplification” to hammer across the points of women in meetings. If a woman offered an idea that went unacknowledged, another woman would repeat it and give her colleague credit.

In order for men to understand the problem of gender violence, women’s voices must not be drowned out; they must be listened to and given a stage. Dr Fiona Vera-Gray, professor at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University, says by doing so, “We need [men] to start feeling empathy for what it is like to be a woman.” To get started, consider listening to Ms Caroline Criado Perez’s Visible Women podcast, or reading feminist writers such as Ms Audre Lorde and bell hooks, or the work of Ms Laura Bates who began the Everyday Sexism project.

One of the most useful things is for men to see how they might have perpetuated harm, even unintentionally, and commit to making change. From small everyday things – laughing along or staying silent in the face of sexist jokes – to the bigger harms.

Ask yourself: have you ever made assumptions about who would be the primary caregiver in a heterosexual relationship? Or unequally divided the share of labour in the home? Have you ever made a judgement about the response of a female co-worker to a situation – too emotional or irrational – that you wouldn’t have applied to a man? Or have you ever felt the need to cross-reference a woman’s understanding of a topic with Google because you find it hard to believe she’d have such knowledge?

All of this builds into a pyramid of harm – the devaluing of women across society — that supports the sharpest and most dangerous point.