Woman developer here. That's the one piece of advice I give to men who ask what they can do to help. I've had way more men come to me privately after an incident to apologize for being a witness and saying nothing than have actively stepped in to stop what was going on. I wish it were the other way around.

why should they? I mean that honestly because context matters.

Why didn't you say something? Why should they be expected to step up and say something if you yourself are not willing to (was it a superior, for example?). Was there some brouhaha in which they sat silent while you had to defend yourself?

And why not ask them if you can submit their name to HR as a witness to the behavior instead of getting disappointed in them for not doing it themselves?

At the end of the day, the only person who is ultimately expected to stand up for you, is you. It's that way regardless of gender.

edit: I still don't understand why HN allows replies to some posts and not others, but to respond to the post below me.

Because it's unfair to ask a man to put themselves at risk protecting a women when she, herself, refuses to put herself at risk. This isn't about male vs female, this is about a person putting themselves at risk for another person, and the fairness of it.

This is specifically why I asked for context.

So you don't care about injustice you witness and you don't want others to either?

Women already have less power because they are in a minority. It seems as though you want them to take responsibility for all cultural change.

It sounds as though you don't think there is a problem.

I think expecting a male to put himself at personal risk for a women who won't put herself at personal risk is unfair.

We have no context, we don't know if the person in question doing the injustice was superior in the company, or not. All we know is person A did something bad to person B, and person C did nothing about it.

Why shouldn't we ask my person B did nothing either?

Because there is a power imbalance.

I don't agree with mreiland about not sticking up, but I also want to point out something important that I get the impression that many feminists miss: That men in general have more power than women in general does not mean that all men have power, or that even most of them are in a position of power.

This is true, but in a male dominated environment, there are usually men who have more power than women and if they don't use at least some of their power to support the cause of equality, they are supporting the status quo.

you think the male should put himself at risk of being fired because the female may get fired if she does it?

That's not equality, and I would defend anyone who stays quiet in such circumstances. Don't ask the random male to go to bat for you if you're not willing to do it yourself. Common sense.

You're confused about what equality means. When a group has less power, they have more to risk.

You are staunchly defending the status quo, and insisting that all change is the responsibility of women.

No, everyone else is confusing an entire gender with a person.

It is not fair to ask person A to put themselves at risk for person B when person B is not willing to put themselves at risk for themself.

This isn't about gender, if it were two men, no one would blink twice at me asking why the software dev didn't put themselves at risk. But because we have a social expectation of protecting women, even by women themselves, people expect the male software dev to put themselves at risk for the female software dev, even if the female software dev is not willing to put themselves at risk.