Because women are the easiest target, essentially.
The people who do this essentially are pure sociopaths, and they pick the easiest targets because they're bullies. Women are an easy target for several reasons:
1. Isolation. Women are a minority in tech and there's a larger social stereotype that women can't do math/are incapable of advanced reason/whatever tosh you want to throw in here. That means it's easier to tell women they're trash and undeserving and have them believe it. There's not a lot of people most women can go to to complain about this or receive validation that these are poisonous lies without triggering another stereotype, being weak and vulnerable.
People would rather sit in silence and take it than be seen as a whiner.
2. In performance oriented cultures it's very common to shit on each other as an in-group building behavior. People who can 'take it' are the in group and people who get offended are the out group. Bullies can exploit this by knowing exactly how far they can push and make it seem like good natured ribbing even in a public social context. More subtle bullies can take things further by establishing unique contexts for minor slights to give them greater meaning that isn't there for other people, so that when the victim complains they seem irrational and crazy to observers. (Another stereotype of women.)
3. Cultural factors. All those stereotypes regardless of how much truth there is to them become self fulfilling prophecies. Women are weak and vulnerable is essentially an advertisement for bullies to go target women, bullies enjoy hurting women more for reasons that could be basically summed up as actual misogyny.
As for harassing men as well, they do. They just use different words when they do it. It might be helpful to throw out terms like 'women-hating' or 'misogynist' and zoom out a bit to look at the ways bullies hurt people in different contexts. Bullies don't care who you are, they will hurt anybody who will give them the warm fuzzies of having gotten someone. And to do that they will use whatever tactics or words will hurt.
These people use rape threats and death threats against women because they hurt. Women as a class are the most receptive to this sort of negative input for various cultural and yes physical reasons I won't elaborate on. But bullies have all sorts of tricks to use on other people. If you're a typical heterosexual male they'll tell you you're gay and unmanly. If you're gay and proud they'll tell you you're deviant scum. If you're a minority they'll call you racial slurs and insult you with stereotypes. If you have visible pimples they will tell you you're ugly. They will pick out whatever salient features are available to hurt you with and use them. It's less helpful to think of a lot of these people as racists or what not so much as optimization processes for suffering and tears.
They don't care who you are, they will hurt anyone.
The people who do this essentially are pure sociopaths, and they pick the easiest targets because they're bullies. Women are an easy target for several reasons:
1. Isolation. Women are a minority in tech and there's a larger social stereotype that women can't do math/are incapable of advanced reason/whatever tosh you want to throw in here. That means it's easier to tell women they're trash and undeserving and have them believe it. There's not a lot of people most women can go to to complain about this or receive validation that these are poisonous lies without triggering another stereotype, being weak and vulnerable.
People would rather sit in silence and take it than be seen as a whiner.
2. In performance oriented cultures it's very common to shit on each other as an in-group building behavior. People who can 'take it' are the in group and people who get offended are the out group. Bullies can exploit this by knowing exactly how far they can push and make it seem like good natured ribbing even in a public social context. More subtle bullies can take things further by establishing unique contexts for minor slights to give them greater meaning that isn't there for other people, so that when the victim complains they seem irrational and crazy to observers. (Another stereotype of women.)
3. Cultural factors. All those stereotypes regardless of how much truth there is to them become self fulfilling prophecies. Women are weak and vulnerable is essentially an advertisement for bullies to go target women, bullies enjoy hurting women more for reasons that could be basically summed up as actual misogyny.
As for harassing men as well, they do. They just use different words when they do it. It might be helpful to throw out terms like 'women-hating' or 'misogynist' and zoom out a bit to look at the ways bullies hurt people in different contexts. Bullies don't care who you are, they will hurt anybody who will give them the warm fuzzies of having gotten someone. And to do that they will use whatever tactics or words will hurt.
These people use rape threats and death threats against women because they hurt. Women as a class are the most receptive to this sort of negative input for various cultural and yes physical reasons I won't elaborate on. But bullies have all sorts of tricks to use on other people. If you're a typical heterosexual male they'll tell you you're gay and unmanly. If you're gay and proud they'll tell you you're deviant scum. If you're a minority they'll call you racial slurs and insult you with stereotypes. If you have visible pimples they will tell you you're ugly. They will pick out whatever salient features are available to hurt you with and use them. It's less helpful to think of a lot of these people as racists or what not so much as optimization processes for suffering and tears.
They don't care who you are, they will hurt anyone.