This week my social media walls have been filled with #MeToo as one female friend after another has courageously taken a stand.

A simple hashtag has highlighted the shocking scale of sexual violence suffered by women at the hands of men.

Now I know men can be, and are, the victims of violence perpetrated by women.

Such acts are equally unacceptable.

For now however I’m focusing on female victims.

This issue became personal to me when someone close to me was the victim of a sexual assault. I felt utterly helpless.

I spoke to female friends and read-up on the subject. Sexual violence statistics were not just figures to me anymore, they were girls and women that I knew and cared about.

The ongoing scandal in Hollywood where scores of women have been abused by studio boss Harvey Weinstein is of course much bigger than one man.

I’ve been working in this field a long time, long enough to know this isn’t about one person, one industry or even one country.

This is about male culture. I’m not saying that every man is capable of sexual assault but we are part of a culture that appears to accept the behaviours and attitudes which support such violence.

The culture we bring up boys in is toxic. It places men above women. It suggests sex is a game where there are winners and losers.

For too many there remains an unacceptable blurriness around consent.

Harvey Weinstein was invisible in plain sight because there was nothing unusual about a man doing what he is alleged to have done.

The silence of men around these issues is the ‘infection’ that keeps the abuse going.

We simply can’t sit back any longer. Men must do their bit to create a culture where this can’t happen. Harvey Weinstein is both a teachable and a reachable moment for men.

It is clear many men are appalled. Be reassured by this. How often do we assume people around us know how we feel on a subject like this? Never assume, talk about it, shout about it. You will be in good company.

Every day there are opportunities to challenge the attitudes and behaviours that create men like Harvey Weinstein.

Women have been highlighting this issue for decades. It’s time for men to join that conversation. It’s time for men to step-up.

Graham Goulden is a former chief inspector with Police Scotland. Although recently retired, he currently works with the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit in the development of the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) programme in schools across Scotland.