When I first started blogging, about 10 years ago, I would also post on slashdot.
I started getting a lot of traffic. Along with that, I started getting harassed.
It was some of the vilest stuff I've ever read in an online forum -- attacking me, my family, my personality, and so on. I found it quite disturbing, as if one of my friends was secretly insane.
I finally had to institute blocks. After about 100 blocks, I was able to bring the blog back under control.
At that point, I stopped promoting my blog so much. I was happier just to write for myself.
They say there's always 2% of folks that you're not going to get along with. There's also probably 0.2% of folks who actively wish you harm. On the internet with 2B folks? Those percentages add up big time.
My point is that gender is important here, but I'm not sure it's anywhere near being the entire story.