Alex Phillips: It's hard to imagine a sector that isn't due a communal catharsis to wash out toxicity

Apparently the NHS is about to have its MeToo moment, as The Times reports that female surgeons are speaking out about sexism and sexual harassment at work.

Is anyone even surprised? Medics playing demigods, the thrill of power, the sheer arrogance needed to crack open a rib cage or cut open flesh.

Frankly it's hard to imagine a sector that isn't due a communal catharsis to wash out toxicity.

Even convents have been blighted throughout history by frisky friars and pervy priests. And if you want to see misuse of power and sexism on steroids, well Westminster is the misogynist's Mecca.

But the problem is, as soon as a woman deigns to speak up about the sort of gratuitous rubbish we have to put up with, day in, day out, it seems to unleash a further torrent of abuse.

I wouldn't speak up about it if I were you, at this point in your career. Ugh, you man-hating feminist.

Who does she think she is? So we stoically shut our mouths and crack on, because what else can we do?

And so the cycle continues, until a large enough cohort of people call it out so that the perpetrators wouldn't dare open their traps or keep their hands to themselves.

So if you overhear degrading locker room chat, or see a figure in authority abusing their position, or a troll slinging abuse on social media, you have a voice.

You can intervene. And you can choose to be the change.