Yeah, all of this, and the idea that any of it is going to change without people actively fighting against it is asinine, honestly. Reporting something through the HR chain is almost never effective (if you’re even in a big enough company to have HR, and you’re not being harassed by the very managers to whom you might otherwise report), and it’s often detrimental. Have we all forgotten that HR exists to protect the company, not the employees?

I don’t know what the best way to solve problems like this is, but the solution is probably not “trust the same authority that engendered the culture to fix it.”