I WAS eating breakfast in a hotel restaurant in Carnoustie yesterday morning when a group of four golfers sat down at the table next to me. They were up from England for a few days: silver-haired, lightly tanned, the kind of harsh Essex accent and smooth cockiness I always associate with guys who have their own small business, are used to ordering people around, and have done pretty well for themselves, ta for asking, and yes that is my Jag parked out front, what do you drive yourself…

Soon enough their chat turned to “the gays”. “It’s like, they don’t want to be equal, they want to be treated better than everyone else,” said one. “Yeah, they’ve even got their own flag. What’s that all about?” said a second, to chuckles. Things went on in this vein for a bit before they passed on to Brexit (in favour) and then to comparing the expensive kit they’d brought for coping with the foul weather outside.

As I lingered over the last of my pot of coffee, they stood up to go, these masters of their own mini universe, all pastel polo-shirts, woollen sweaters, and patterned slacks that wouldn’t have disgraced a 1970s New York pimp. There was more laughter, some back-slapping, and then they headed off to continue lives of frictionless ease, material comfort and nonchalant, unreflective prejudice, the biggest challenge facing them which wood to choose against the wind.

It’s tempting to dismiss blokes like these as standard 19th hole bores. They didn’t get on to race or gender, thankfully, but it’s not hard to guess what their views would be. Even as the world around them changes, they glide on, impervious and untroubled, lazily bigoted. They have no sense of what they are, or why it might not be ok.

Today, though, we can no longer dismiss them as a dying breed, as throwbacks, as anachronistic frogs being slowly boiled in progressive water. One of their kind sits in the White House, the most powerful man on the planet, spewing out endless bile and paranoia and doing all he can to turn the clock back on many of the hard-won victories that have made life easier for minorities long oppressed either by design or neglect. White America’s response to eight years of a black president – a decent, thoughtful, dignified man – was to elect a spoilt, rich white manchild with a proven record of sexual aggression, a huckster trailing a litany of business failures, a bozo displaying all the intellectual capacity of a golf tee. The message, looking back, seems clearer than ever: you’ve had your shot – now it’s time for the worst white man we can find, just to remind you who’s boss.

Donald Trump is merely the dayglo orange figurehead of a much darker social phenomenon. The alt-right, an agglomeration of hormonal teenage boys, failing 20-somethings, failed 50-somethings and outright fascists, is the predictable response of a societal hegemon that sees its centuries-long dominance rapidly disappearing due to the effects of liberalism, the consequences of immigration and the ebbing of the supremacist attitudes that allowed it to stay at the top of the tree for so long. It is a scream of rage by entitled men in tan chinos against a better, fairer, more equal world.

Then comes Harvey Weinstein, a fat, ugly psychopath who used his vast Hollywood power to abuse scores of women over decades and is only now getting his comeuppance. In the days since the first revelations about his behaviour emerged, countless ordinary women have used social media to tell their own stories of abuse or exploitation using the hashtag #metoo. The heartbreaking extent of it, that few if any women have managed to get through life without a colleague or boss or potential boss or stranger or all of the above treating them like chattel, like something less than a fellow human being, is staggering. The arrogance and inhumanity of so many men who have glibly used physical or financial power to bend women to their will is, for want of a better phrase, gender-shaming. Even now, as the scandal blows around us, it doesn’t take long on social media to find far too many guys who still simply aren’t listening.

So that’s the first thing we men might do: listen. Don’t try to explain, don’t set out your 10-point plan to fix things, don’t – for god’s sake – blame those who’ve faced their fear and risked so much to come forward. Just listen. To your wife, your daughter, your mother, your female colleagues and friends. Hear what it’s like for them. Understand that to be born a straight, white male remains a winning hand in life. For all your problems, you’ve had it easy. The world is set up for you to succeed: if you put your shoulder to the wheel, it will turn. That isn’t true for everyone – there are lots of people for whom that wheel proves stubbornly resistant.

And if you feel “victim fatigue” kicking in – because, my, there are a lot of “victims” demanding your attention just now, from women to gay people to transsexuals to non-whites to immigrants and refugees – remember how lucky you are not to be in that category. You have no right to deny these people your ear, your compassion, your shame, your efforts to even up the scale. The word “patriarchy” is often dismissed as a whinging feminist trope, but it is real. You – we – are it. It is a structure of values, norms, behaviours and actions large and small that we unthinkingly reinforce every day.

Ever the optimist, I believe something good can come out of this sombre period. At the very least, you’d hope the kind of man who behaves in a Weinsteinish way – and not just sexually –will think hard before doing so again. You’d hope more women will feel able to take a stand against abuse, that there is a degree of safety in numbers. You’d hope the rest of us would be more alert to the environment around us, would want it to be safer for everyone, and would be prepared to support and defend victims and their right to come forward.

But it all goes so much deeper than that, doesn’t it? For all the equality legislation, the displays of tolerance, the big jobs now going to women and members of minorities, this remains a straight, white man’s world. Attempts to rectify that shouldn’t be met with violence and flaming torches, but solidarity. Put your shoulder to the wheel.