SDAI, I will not comment much on your remarks about women and the Web. But I do think it's true that in certain respects men have thicker skins. As Larry J says, men tend to regard debates as battles. Therefore, they don't mind getting a few scars. On the other hand, ever been married or have a long-term relationship with a woman? Women know how to hold up their end of a fight, too.

To a certain degree, I think Mary Anne may simply have felt outnumbered here. Which of course she was. This is a conservative board, with only a few moderates or liberals willing to post here. She probably felt others were ganging up on her.

Yet she was able to handle that so long as she felt she received the same respect here accorded to conservatives. For the most part, the people of Habitable Zone are class acts compared to the garbage found in most other places on the Web. Many here, even if they disagree completely with someone who is not conservative, will usually try to stick to the ideas and arguments and not to make it personal.

But not everyone can do that all the time. Sooner or later someone takes an attack on his conservative agenda personally, and responds - personally.

Because Mary Anne was in the non-conservative minority, she saw this more than once. From her perspective, enough was enough.

It's hard for the conservatives here to see that so easily. They are part of the majority, so they rarely see anyone lash back at them in response to an attack upon the liberal agenda. When they do, they have plenty of allies and support on their side ready to come to their aid to crush the opposition. Not much pain experienced on the conservative side. Because they don't really see it, it's hard for them to be aware of it.

Returning briefly to your comments about women, they do tend to be a little more civilized than men. Men like fart jokes and the Three Stooges. Men like Austin Powers and Ace Ventura. Men like to put civilization behind them from time to time. Men like war.

Women usually prefer civilization, even if they can appreciate men and their interests, even if they find soldiers heroic, even if they sometimes laugh in spite of themselves at guy humor. But women will never find the endless urination scene in Austin Powers as funny as men do.