(July 12, 2015 at 1:37 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: ... treat the women on the forum with particularly less respect than the men...
That sort of thing is unfortunately common. It is unfortunate that there is no simple, easy fix to stop people from being prejudiced. Stupid bigots are stupid, so it is hard to get them to see reason.
To avoid it online for oneself, one can select a gender neutral name (or one associated with males) and never post a picture of oneself and never say that one is female. For men who want to observe the difference, they can join a forum with a feminine name and never say they are male, and see how they are treated over time.
Long ago, my wife communicated on computer message boards, and used a gender neutral name. She noticed very different treatment than what happened in real life, as she was treated just like an adult man on the message boards. She was an underage girl at the time. But she could hold her own in conversations with adult men, and they had no idea who they were communicating with.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.