> and have never been attacked on the basis of their sex
Do you really know this, or do they just never ever mention it?
I agree that everyone with enough followers will be the victim of attacks. But those attacks often take the easy route - someone who is Jewish will have anti-semitic rants posted about them; a woman will have graphic depictions (in text or imagery) of what people "want to do to her"; etc. It's fine to call a hateful attack sexist if it's using sexist tactics for the attack.
And it's a fact that women are more likely to be attacked than men. This is easy (but laborious) to prove - you get a list of conferences and speakers in 2012, then ask speakers if they had any attacks, then categorise and finally run some graphing / plotting software.
Thanks - all good points :) As usual, the small sample of women I know is not necessarily indicative of anything, but of all the women I know, not one of them has complained about sexism; for all I know any of them could have been subject to it.
I have been subject to a few attacks myself over the course of my life for being born a Jew (although technically I have always been more of an atheist or agnostic). But it never once bothered me that much, because I know many Jews have had it far worse, both in the past and present. Likewise, I kind of cringe a bit when we complain about these #firstworldproblems, because there are women who are getting stoned to death for cheating on their husbands right now. I don't think that sexism should be ignored, but I do think we have a tendency to focus on the most trivial (relatively speaking) instances of it.
Yeah, but do you take the time to scold other Jewish people who do get bothered by that stuff?
Also: let's not drag out the Bigger Fish to Fry Fallacy (there's probably a better name for that...). Just because problem B is worse than problem A doesn't mean it's not worth it for some folks to focus on A. Also: what are you doing about either of these problems? That is to say, what is your moral standing to tell others which problems are worth pursuing and which are not?
Do you really know this, or do they just never ever mention it?
I agree that everyone with enough followers will be the victim of attacks. But those attacks often take the easy route - someone who is Jewish will have anti-semitic rants posted about them; a woman will have graphic depictions (in text or imagery) of what people "want to do to her"; etc. It's fine to call a hateful attack sexist if it's using sexist tactics for the attack.
And it's a fact that women are more likely to be attacked than men. This is easy (but laborious) to prove - you get a list of conferences and speakers in 2012, then ask speakers if they had any attacks, then categorise and finally run some graphing / plotting software.
(I didn't downvote you BTW.)