> I think there are two reasonable answers.

> 1. The people that do the abusing are the only ones responsible.

> 2. The people that set society's expectations are partially responsible.

Men are responsible for nearly all workplace harassment, and white men have set society's expectations. The standard of beauty in our society is set by what white men find attractive. The standard of dress, hygiene, speech, appearance and behavior is as well. Notice how all the "workplace appropriate" hairstyles are traditionally white hairstyles, for example. Try getting a job with dreadlocks, or if you don't speak the white dialect of English, or if you can't afford a suit.

It's up to members of the patriarchy to acknowledge our privilege, and speak out about these issues that exist in our own community. You can feel indignant about having never harassed a woman and yet still being responsible for the bad behavior of other men. But it's nothing like the harassment women face, and to continually focus on it is entitled.

Or in your own terms:

1. The people who do the abusing (harassment) are likely not the best actors to fix the problem of harassment

2. White men are the ones who set society's expectations

> I do not see any reasonable way to declare all men responsible and zero women responsible.

I feel like you've ignored practically all of my responses to you.

Are you talking about a hypothetical female CEO (or something similar)? Already addressed.

Are you talking about addressing street or workplace harassment of a third-party, like a bystander? Already addressed by my example of my ex-girlfriend experiencing street harassment. The reason she doesn't engage in these things is that she's been physically stalked by groups of men, multiple times, after calling them out. She didn't expect that to happen. There's no way for her to rationally gauge whether or not she "could have stopped harassment without much risk", because the last time she did that, she was put in a situation where she unexpectedly feared for her life. Many, many women have similar stories. Sometimes when women speak up about harassment, they get shot. There is no way
to rationally gauge risk in these circumstances. Harassment is violent behavior.

Speaking up for a third-party woman makes no difference in this situation, which is why I keep saying third-party doesn't matter.

> I'm going to have to ask for statistics about men and women speaking up about the harassment of third-party women.

Third-party doesn't matter. But I will point you to the EEOC's charge statistics: http://eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm

You have to make a leap to get there though; the vast majority of sex discrimination charges are filed by women, and you can't file a retaliation charge unless you've first alleged sex discrimination. I admit the data isn't perfect, but to deny it would be disingenuous.

But I'll also ask you: do you think men are frequently retaliated against for speaking up about the harassment of women? Is this really something I should have to find evidence to dispel?

> I think if person C has an obligation to help, they have it regardless of their gender.

I understand the hypothetical you're making completely. If person C is a woman, she has no obligation whatsoever. It doesn't matter what her job is or what resources she has. She has no way of ascertaining risk in that situation. She also has no obligation to report the incident after the fact. Women are punished heavily for reporting harassment, as the EEOC charge statistics show. Women are forced out of school and their jobs for reporting harassment. Often times third-party women themselves are harassed by the person they reported, to say nothing of the onslaught of harassment they can experience from third parties. Filing sexual harassment complaints in Silicon Valley can get you blacklisted. The mythical situation you're conjuring where a woman can stop harassment when she sees it without risk to herself or others simply doesn't exist. It's an elaborate strawman.

===

Police can't bring about cultural and social change. They can punish harassment, but they can't stop it from happening. If this were how law enforcement worked, the US wouldn't lead the west in incarceration.