Unfortunately, practical experience of what people mean when they advocate less politeness in the cause of more communication says otherwise.

That is a rather offensive piece of pattern completion you just did there. If you want to characterize what you have seen on this thread as "repeated special pleading for bad communication skills" then you may be putting your finger on something important. But when you try to conflate that with the incidents reported in your link, then you are engaging in a particularly inappropriate form of stereotyping. Where, on this thread, have you seen overt hostility to women? Or any other form of nastiness?

As with any other male-dominated community, we exhibit traces of sexism. But I see no evidence that rationalizations against politeness here are some kind of cryptic anti-woman signaling. Some of us, of both sexes, really do prefer to receive our negative feedback undiluted.