Many Iranian women feel empowered by sharing their personal experiences on social media for the first time. They seem to not be worried about being judged anymore and are using the #metoo in their public profiles just like women in more open societies. A hashtag translated into Farsi also evolved, #من_هم. (Man Ham or “me too.”)

The boom of sexual harassment websites and apps is "clearly responding to a need," says Jhumka Gupta, an epidemiologist at George Mason University who focuses on issues of gender-based violence. "I think these platforms are great because the control is given to the women," she says. "They don't have to go through the police or public authorities who may not take them seriously."

Globally, according to the World Health Organization, 35 percent of women experience either physical or sexual violence at the hands of their intimate partner or sexual violence at the hands of someone else. Sit on that for a second: 35 percent. One in three women. Underlying that figure is women’s silence, as though we had all signed an invisible nondisclosure agreement at birth. Only occasionally, when acts of extreme violence shock us to the core, do we look up and instead of despairing, we speak. We tell our stories to each other. But then what happens?

"Whether they were marching in the streets, running for office, or launching a movement against harassment and abuse, women spent 2017 pushing for change and insisting that their perspectives be heard."

Giving in to the demands of protesters who took to the streets across India, the government brought in a tougher new law to deal with crimes against women. But the biggest change has been the one in attitudes - sexual attacks and rapes have become topics of living room conversations and that is a huge deal in a country where sex and sex crimes are a taboo, something to be brushed under the carpet, not discussed at length.

As male harassers and assaulters have been unmasked over the last few months, the reckoning has largely been confined to the realm of the white-collar worker, particularly in industries with big names familiar to the public. While the social stigma against reporting harassment may fall away in some sectors of the economy, women with less social capital have yet to see the names of their harassers — or even simply reports of widespread patterns of harassment in their industries — splashed across front pages. In other words, blue-collar and pink-collar jobs — the sort society has traditionally assigned to women — have not yet had their moment of catharsis. A question remains as to whether they ever will.

Racism and sexism are inextricably intertwined. Navigating a biased system exacts a toll, from lost career opportunities to the energy expended on internal calculations for dealing with inappropriate behavior and self-doubt. Many writers, activists, and scholars have worked tirelessly to highlight the cumulative impact of these experiences in the context of race and gender alike. But the justified outrage around sexual harassment has eclipsed the discussion on race while borrowing its language. It’s as if America can only care about one injustice at a time, and—once again—white people come first.

Anger at men’s behaviour has erupted in the US several times in the past: from the “smash the masher” movement of the early 1900s, where women fought back against street harassers with hatpins and umbrellas, to the feminist “speak-out” sessions of the 1970s to the support for Anita Hill in the 1990s. But what led to today’s tipping point? While the #metoo campaign played a crucial role, other elements also helped create a tinderbox waiting for a Weinstein-like spark.

The biggest backlash risk is a fake accusation that will undermine genuine accusers. Whether for personal, vindictive reasons or for political, strategic reasons, a woman will falsely accuse a high profile man of sexual misconduct, the story will get attention and then when it's proven to be fake, the backlash will begin. The response will quickly be: "You see, all these stories aren't true. Women are making it up." The next fear is that men will get so nervous that they're going to be accused of harassment that they will simply stop hiring, meeting or socialising with female colleagues. There are reports this is already happening. We will get shut out of the room where important decisions are made because men fear our presence? How ironic would that be?

To create a lasting shift in how men treat women, experts say, prevention is key. "The way we've always responded is through intervention after the fact," Bunch said. "Someone has to be harmed; someone has to go to the hospital; someone has to go to the shelter; someone has to go to human resources. We want to go upstream and prevent it so that it doesn't happen in the first place."

The thing that really surprised me was what felt like an outpouring of men actually listening. No sympathy, no defence, no #NotAllMen, no tell me again what harassment really is aka let’s make it all about me. Several men tweeted to #MeToo with the hashtag #IHearYou to signify that they’re here to listen to women’s grievances with harassment. Several men tweeted #IHearYou with messages of apologies for the collective male attitude towards women and with a simple assurance that they weren’t there to offer women advice (about time!), but are here to simply listen.

As the #metoo campaign erupted across the United States, a similar campaign unfolded across France under the hashtag #balancetonporc or #squealonyourpig. As in America, French women have begun naming and shaming their attackers. Since it started, several prominent figures have been targeted in French assault claims, including a lawmaker in President Emmanuel Macron's party, a judge on France's equivalent of reality show "America's Got Talent" and Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan, a leading lecturer in Islamic studies.