I made this point myself a while ago, the idea that harassment is tailored to the person and that yes, the kind of asshole that would troll and harass you is probably also a misogynist, a homophobe or whatever else (because well, they're an asshole). It's a tragic reality that the threat of rape is an extremely effective thing to use to hurt someone emotionally and is more effective against women than it is against men because its something women on average think about more often than men (though there are exceptions, such as say a victim of child abuse or an ex-convict, who may have either experienced rape himself in a prison environment or was almost certainly exposed to the possibility of it). The recent PEW study indicates that harassment types vary, but not that women are harassed on average more than men. They are harassed in different ways because an abuser identifies the most effective attack vector for the person and exploits it to do maximum emotional damage. As a heterosexual white man, things that an abuser might attack include career success, appearance, sexual history/prowess, social status, my masculinity in general, my sexual orientation or in many cases, one of the most effective, members of my family. A homosexual is more likely to be attacked for merely being gay and an abuser may attempt to exploit the persons insecurities about their sexuality, assuming they have any or perhaps attempt to invoke memories of previous homophobic abuse they may have suffered. Someone might argue that to not endure homophobia is a privilege. I can see your point to some extent, but to an abuser that is not a shield, not at all. It merely means they have to select a different tool for the job. Are these groups harassed MORE on average than your average male online? Well [citation needed] on that one.

Now this is all a conversation that could be had. But instead apparently it's more important to tell people that they are greatly privileged because there are more posters of men on the walls of Gamestop than there of women. Right, ok, that might be a bit of a first world problem there. You want more diverse characters in games? Great, 100% behind you on that one, let's do it, lots of games are boring and more diversity in characters and writing would help alleviate some of that. You want to attain it by condemning perfectly good characters we already have? Slut-shaming Bayonetta? Lying about Hitman: Absolution? Wilfully misrepresenting the work of developers as misogynistic? Making outrageous, uncited, unscientific claims about how videogames cause players to develop misogynistic attitudes in real life? Using silly circular logic like "the more you think you aren't affected, the more likely you are to be affected". Is that going to achieve any good what-so-ever? Justice achieved through lies is not justice.

If you want to cure the problem of assholes online well. Good luck, I don't know how to do that, but you could probably start by not deliberately antagonising people you disagree with and refusing to engage in any form of rational discourse. That might be a start.

Bring me your female leads, your female villains, your reasonably clothed NPCs. Bring me your transgendered, your varied ethnicities and sexual orientations. Bring me your overweight, your mentally ill, your disadvantaged minority groups of all kinds. Just, leave the bullshit on the boat. No, mayonnaise is not a gender.

--TotalBiscuit