I have often had reason to be glad that I am a male rather than a female in my chosen profession. There are many more work opportunities available for male actors for starters.

But also males are also much less likely to have to deal with employers who think that an employee’s gratitude might reasonably be expressed by engaging in intimate acts with them.

Many actresses have told me stories about being pursued around the room by producers at auditions, or being visited in hotels late at night when on location with unsavoury invitations.

Some are better at dealing with these situations than others. Some can simply look benignly at the would-be lothario and tell them to go away and not be a silly boy and it works.

But they shouldn’t have to. The majority, when young and perhaps naïve and therefore the most obvious targets, are less able to confront a powerful person and can even, with no reason, blame themselves for giving the wrong impression.

Whether they accede or fight back, the results to the victim can be life scarring and the overriding conclusion that we should all draw is that no one should ever have to have to deal with predatory advances from those who have power over them and no one should feel unable to share their fears or experiences with those whom they have every right to hope will protect them.

Recent events in America have highlighted that the problem exists in a particularly unpleasant way in the film industry and the perpetrators have been protected by a wall of silence from people who could have helped and were not prepared to put their heads above the parapet.

And there still remains a tendency for the whistleblower to suffer the most.

And until that changes unscrupulous bullying, powerful men will continue to think that their power is somehow an aphrodisiac that enables their arrogant abuse.

And while the White House provides a platform for a president who has bragged repeatedly about his abuse of women and thinks locker room talk is acceptable anywhere, let alone in the corridors of power, it will be a long while before women can feel as safe as they have every right to feel wherever they are.