[braveo]

> I would like to believe that if the panel person was a male, it would have elicited the same building irritation from the audience. Although, I'm less sure that someone would have spoken up.

This makes me think of a complain I saw years ago from a woman about how she was treated on a mailing list. Apparently someone got aggressive with her and one of the things she complained about is that no one stepped in to defend her.

My response to that was along the lines of "they probably expected you to defend yourself".

Your comment reminded me of that, and even then I thought the same thing. Many women are used to getting defended, but men generally aren't and have learned to defend themselves.

So I think you're right that it would've been less likely for someone to defend the panelist if said panelist had been male and for much the same reason. You would expect the male to defend themselves.