Yeah, sure, I'll try to clarify. I'm not advocating that we should stop them from speaking with any kind of legal measure. I value free speech too highly for that. I'm referring to the specific comments that I paraphrased. I don't think those posters have any specific malice towards women. I don't know them, but they're probably smart, generally respectable guys.

But they are an example of people who are apparently unwilling to acknowledge that maybe the harassment some women receive online or in the workplace could possibly be outside the realm of their experience. We have one group of people, women in tech, who are saying that they are being harassed (and providing examples of specific threats against them). Then we have a certain subset of men in tech who are saying "I know better than you do, and I say that you aren't being harassed any more than men are." That attitude is the problem (as well as the people in the community who don't immediately call them on it).

People with no personal experience in the matter saying it's not a problem and ignoring the fact that those who do have personal experience are saying that it is. And I think you could make a case that the underlying cause is that somewhere deep down they believe themselves "smarter" (or something) than women. How else can you tell someone that their own interpretation of how they are treated is incorrect?

Does that make sense?