Article Review: Harrassment and abuse

Tonight I let my cat out on the balcony, but then got bored and came inside. I don't completely trust her, so I sat at my computer and looked through my various RSS feeds for something to entertain me while she explored her 20-30 square feet of wild blue yonder.  I ended up reading a blog post by Felicia Day about some trolling she recently experienced. Looking through the comments (because this was one place I could look through comments and see mostly encouragement and positivity), I found a couple of links posted by people trying to explain why men can be so demeaning and abusive towards women.

The first one, a cracked.com post on men hating women started really interesting and making some good points. His first point, that men are trained by movies and TV that they will get a "hot" woman for their trouble (whatever that happens to be) seemed very logical to me. The second, that men are trained to see women as decoration, was one most women are very aware of but was another perspective on it. So far so good. Then it all went downhill, with the remaining reasons basically being about how men can't help themselves from falling into the lowest common denominator. It reinforces the concept that there is some deep physiological contrast in men and women that MAKES men act certain ways. To me this is just as demeaning towards men as the things I complain about are towards women.

The second one from the BBC with the specific context of harassment in gaming is more measured and a pretty good read although it doesn't really add anything new to the discussion. The one man interviewed who claims that women should just expect this because it's what guys do is disturbing, and again goes back to the excuse that men have to be crude (and cruel) because they are made that way.

Thoughts? Is biology an excuse for abusive treatment of women? Why are women in gaming considered to be open targets?

(Time to go try to let the cat in for the eighth time. She's been making her mind up for the last half hour... how stereotypical of her)