[sp332]

"Professional" comes across as dispassionate on the internet (and often face-to-face as well). Swearing is one way to express emotion in text.

[Aaronontheweb]

Coming across as irate and unbalanced, which the author's swearing did in this instance, does nothing but detract from his / her point.

You can be assertive and "professional" without sounding like a shriek.

[mbreese]

I agree. The original post was a trite little comment that a) didn't match the tone of the book excerpt (which seemed pretty evenhanded) and b) was illustrative of the exact attitudes that can make women in tech feel marginalized.

The only acceptable response is to forcefully smack it down. I thought pnmahoney's reply was exactly the right tone.