@Matt I really do appreciate your desire to achieve balance and make your site welcoming for women. Honestly though, what is it that makes something related to Startups a "woman's issue"? What could you discuss that specifically relates to my genetics or gender identity? I'll bet the answer is very little, in which case, all you do when you invite me to the table as a woman is to mark me as different from the everyone else. But that's beyond the scope of this question/comment. I'd really be interested in an honest, open chat about it though, if you want to create a room for it.

I think it's important to note that if you are identified as a 'discriminated class', your appeals won't make a difference. Discriminators will only be affected by the opinions of their peers, which is why it is so very important to object to this kind of behavior if you are part of the 'privileged class'. For example, misogynists won't listen to feminists, but they will respond to alpha males saying "misogyny is unmanly".

Is it feasible to make it so that comments don't bump the post?

+1 particularly for praising the user for raising the issue in the correct way. I've had situations escalate in comments before when the user just didn't seem to understand that we wanted to hear it, just not there.

Writing exceptional code doesn't make abusive behavior not abusive. If he were a poor contributor, or even a medium contributor, what would you do?