I think what he is trying to say is that their cruelty manifests as sexism. As in, they perceive the target's sex as the lowest-hanging fruit that they can attack, and they know it is likely to hurt the target, so they go for it.
It's like making fun of someone because they are short. That doesn't make someone a "shortist." It just shows that they are cruel human beings.
I see sexism as more of a fundamental belief. As in, the person went through some thought process that they think is logical, and they have reached a conclusion (that they think as logical) that women are inferior to men. This then comes out in their behavior even when the intention is not to cause harm. It's an attitude that exists independently of cruelty.
Again, how do you know that? That seems to be wishful thinking. Also, the end result is the same, either way. The intent doesn’t really matter all that much, if only because the mindset of someone going to sexism or racism to be cruel is seriously fucked up.
I’m certainly not racist or sexist when I want to be cruel to other people, even if I’m extremely angry and willing to say a lot to hurt the other person. Going there wouldn’t even cross my mind. (I tend to go for age, I think. That exposes my own ageism, something I still have to deal with. I don’t think that’s ok, either, and I also think being ageist is not ok.)
So, your working hypothesis based on that comment is that they're an otherwise friendly and fair-minded person, but when they see that a woman wrote a blog about programming they feel the need to go out of their way to write a comment telling them to stfu?
Anything's possible, I guess. But, based on my particular lifetime of experience with people, jerks are usually jerks in multiple aspects of their life.
You can be cruel without being sexist, and you can be sexist without being cruel. Every time sexism comes up, comments like this get trotted out. These people are bottom-feeders. They have no ability to affect anything in their own life, so they make hurtful comments on the internet to try and affect others, just so they can feel like they're in control of something.
Stamping out sexism isn't going to stop them from doing that. They're not reading these articles or these comments. If they are, they're just happy that someone is paying attention to them.
I think there are far bigger fish to fry when it comes to fighting sexism than going after some basement-dwelling mouth-breathers who don't actually matter. You could actually focus on normal, good-intentioned people who have just been brought up in a culture of sexism and would happily change if it were pointed out to them how they're hurting others.
edit: I shouldn't say they "don't matter" as I've never been on the receiving end of it, and it probably matters a great deal when you are. I just meant that the ability of these people to affect someone's life beyond making hurtful comments on the Internet is minimal.
The idea that somebody must have logically thought about sexism before they can be sexist is bizarre. If I just feel in my gut that women are inferior and never give it any further thought, how on earth is that not sexist?
I didn't say "logically." I said they thought it was a logical thought process, whereas what really happened is that they made their decision first ("women are inferior") based on some gut feeling, and then rationalized it.
