At the risk of merely digging my grave deeper (since I am a tad busy today):

I do however vehemently disagree with this: "In other words, just because women are generally going to not be good at defending their positions on terms that the men here will readily accept does not, by itself, prove they are wrong."

I apologize if it sounded like I was promoting gender stereotypes. I have my own personal biases that do sometimes come out that way. But let me be clear: My intent was to make the point that women are often ganged up and dismissed in a way that is toxic and really hard to cope with at all, much less argue effectively in the face of. So, given the degree to which women are underrepresented in STEM and on HN, I think a reasonable assumption is that most women here will have a certain lack of experience of effectively going toe-to-toe with the big dogs. It would be nice if the big dogs did not try to eat their lunch and, instead, engaged in some basic respect for boundaries while women try to get their sea legs as HN gradually changes to become more female-friendly.

I don't hesitate to debate with anyone here. For a long time, it really made my experience here miserable in a way that did not seem typical for what was happening with men who engaged in debate. I think the collegial environment that existed at that time, from which I was largely excluded, has deteriorated some, thus harming the experience for everyone. I would like to see the general atmosphere here improve to something more akin to what it was when I originally joined. But I would like to see it not reserved for the men this time around. I would like it to be a more inclusive environment.

So let me attempt to reframe that as: If a member here happens to not be good at defending their position, regardless of who they are, that shouldn't be reason to simply be dismissive of them or make them look stupid. It is a good general rule of thumb. If it is actually applied consistently, it will help level the playing field so women aren't facing such an uphill battle.

Edit:

As for making you feel unjustly attacked, I will note that my original reply to you was this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9147934 You opted to not respond at all to my assertion that people can tell such things. You just kept arguing that there isn't enough data, the example offered you by paul was not sufficient and so on. So, in the context of the general atmosphere, that began to look to me like, no, your inquiry wasn't really about "So, how do you know?" Instead, it was a polite way to be dismissive -- that when push comes to shove, "la la la not listening -- no amount of data will ever be enough." You seem to not be giving much credence to the things that are being said in support of what she said.

So that is where my parent comment of this particular discussion came from in asking why you are being so dismissive.

I do understand that it is often more engaging to argue with people where you disagree and that there can be a lot of non-sexist factors influencing your choice as to what to reply to in this discussion. But having been on HN a number of years, I have seen this far too often where I ever so politely have my character assassinated in ways that would make me look like a lunatic to protest it. It's really maddening. So the context and pattern of behavior here matter. I mention that since you seem genuinely interested in understanding how to do this better.

Take care.