America has awoken to an epidemic — so what do we do now?

Reading the news one might assume sexual harassment and sexual assault only occurs on Hollywood casting couches, in congressional offices and campaigns, and around television newsrooms.

While abuses by famous figures dominate headlines, the ugly truth is that sexual harassment and assault is a nationwide epidemic that affects Americans of all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds, political affiliations, and professions.

{mosads}The challenge is this is not simply a matter of policy and regulation — it’s a cancer within our culture. Right now, 70 percent of U.S. employers provide sexual harassment training and 98 percent maintain a harassment policy, yet every day there are nearly 900 new survivors of sexual violence and nearly half of all American working women still say they have, “personally experienced an unwelcome sexual advance or verbal or physical harassment at work.”

Here’s the sobering truth: When reports of harassment and assaults by influential people are no longer frontpage news, a junior staffer or hotel maid will still be just as likely to be assaulted tomorrow as they were yesterday, unless we use this moment to permanently alter the underlying culture of misogyny and objectification.

Congressional actions have primarily focused on addressing abhorrent behavior in the two chambers. After the most recent scandals, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) teamed up to mandate training for all Senate employees and the House is expected to follow suit this week.

Leading advocates Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who has been relentlessly pushing the Military Justice Improvement Act for years, and Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who has repeatedly proposed mandatory training, have joined forces to introduce comprehensive federal legislation, the ME TOO Congress Act, to reform training, reporting, and enforcement in Congress.

Rooting out sexual harassment and assault from the halls of Congress is an incredibly important first step, but much more is required to eradicate harassment and assault across all sectors of society.

For every wrenching tale from Hollywood or Congress, there are thousands of untold nightmares unfolding in local communities and women state legislators, including in Maryland and California, are demanding solutions. Comprehensive plans, like one I’ve proposed for Maryland, could spur real reform in a society where 1 in 6 American women experience sexual assault, yet less than 30 percent of survivors feel comfortable reporting incidences of sexual harassment at work.

We must ensure that all survivors and bystanders have accessible, anonymous, and responsive avenues for reporting harassment and assault. The ME TOO Act does this for Congress, but we need systems in every state that support all survivors, regardless of where they work. For Maryland, I’ve proposed a dedicated “Office of Sexual Harassment and Violence” that operates an anonymous reporting hotline, complete with wraparound support services for survivors of assault or harassment.

Offices like these in every State would ensure complaints are handled seriously and with accountability and sensitivity, guaranteeing survivors know their rights and options under the law.

From an enforcement perspective, we absolutely must stop repeat predators, because sexual harassment and assault are pattern behaviors that persist unless forcibly stopped. Congress must partner with states to ensure law enforcement agencies have sufficient resources to end the rape kit backlog (which is estimated at well-over 200,000 kits), investigate and prosecute sexual offenses, and share information to catch repeat offenders across jurisdictions, including adopting innovative technologies, such as Project Callisto.

We also need much greater public accountability. Every individual seeking public office, a government job, or contract should be asked to disclose whether he or she has ever engaged in sexual harassment or sexual assault, just like existing financial and legal disclosures for thousands of public and private sector jobs.

Ultimately, however, policy and accountability measures will fail unless we launch a nationwide effort focused on prevention and cultural change.

We should reward companies and institutions willing to undergo voluntary audits of their workplace culture and engage in effective training programs, like those offered by A Call To Men and Mentoring Violence Prevention, with gold-standard certifications and procurement preferences.

We should encourage curricula in middle and high schools that openly and constructively discuss consent and welcome attention. We should help colleges adopt the best practices to change culture on campuses. When combined with improved reporting and accountability, this bottom-up approach can address destructive behaviors and attitudes at their root.

The shameful treatment of Anita Hill a quarter century ago shook us, but did not result in the changes necessary to improve working conditions for women across America. If the parade of well-known men brought to shame by the courage of survivors is to be more than temporary headlines, we must translate the outrage of the moment into enduring change.

And bold, firm policies that demand and drive cultural change at every level are the least we can do to honor the courage of the survivors who put everything on the line to come forward.

Krish Vignarajah is the former policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama and a candidate for governor of Maryland.