What is the deal with the ugliness in comments to female bloggers?

[Hello_Kitty]

I write for a local progressive blog. I cover mostly local news but also do some opinion pieces on major political issues. Like many bloggers, I'm often snarky and sarcastic but nothing approaching what you'd read on the Rude Pundit or Wonkette. My views are the standard liberal ones and not any different from a number of male bloggers in my community. Yet, the anger and vitriol directed at me by commenters is staggering. It's one thing to disagree with me but I've been called the horrible vulgar names and even threatened. My detractors often make insulting comments about my appearance, which is that of an average 40 year old woman and has no relevance to my opinions anyway. My male blogger friends don't get nearly as much crap as I do. The only one who comes close to being as abused as I am is a local newspaper columnist who is very scathing about local political figures. He's a large man and much of the insulting commentary about him targets his weight.

Honestly, I love doing my blog but I'm scared to open my comments sometimes. We moderate so the really bad ones don't usually show up but I still have to see them. I'm no delicate flower and I'm not going to stop writing. It feels like an attempt to silence and intimidate me and I know that other female bloggers experience the same thing. I remember it being especially bad years ago on sites like Usenet. The minute you identified yourself as a female you the whole tone of comments toward you changed. It got to the point where I stayed out of chatrooms and blogs because it was either a)identify yourself as a female and put up with a ration of shit or b) keep your gender ambiguous and read horrible things about your gender.

What gives with that? :shrug: