Disclaimer: this is not meant as a defence of the behaviour in question, since I don't exactly know what we're talking about.
For my own part, I observe a small but significant number of people who seem to believe that LessWrong ought to be a community where it's acceptable to differentially characterize women negatively
LessWrong characterizes outgroups negatively all the time. I cautiously suggest the whole premise of LW characterizes most people negatively, and it's easier to talk about any outgroup irrationality, in this case women statistically, than look at our own flaws. If we talked about what men are like on average, we might not have many flattering things to say either.
Should negative characterizations of people be avoided in general, irrespective of how accurately we think they describe the average of the groups in question?
If you see characterizations that are wrong, you should obviously confront them.
I agree that there are also other groups of people who are differentially negatively characterized; I restricted myself to discussions of women because the original question was about sexism.
I cautiously suggest you could say the whole premise of lw characterizes most people negatively,
I would cautiously agree. There's a reason I used the word "differentially."
Should negative characterizations of people be avoided in general, irrespective of how accurately we think they describe the average of the groups in question?
Personally, I'm very c...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.