I think it is more likely a lack of empathy, combined with the view that the internet is somehow not the "real world" and an entitlement complex of incomprehensible size.
But I do think a lot of the aggression towards women stem from insecurity and lack of ability to comfortably converse with opposite gender. Those in my mind are social skills.
The fear that the universe is zero-sum is the major way that regressive elements maintain societal control. The rich guy takes nine cookies, elbows the middle-class guy, and says "hey, the poor guy's gonna steal your cookie!", and the middle-class guy hops to. It applies here just the same--if you're so unable to get outside of your head to entertain the idea that maybe games not targeted directly at you could maybe, just maybe, expand your horizons a bit and make your life better, while making life better for other people...well, you freak out, and apparently you don't stop freaking out.
Personally, as a straight white dude, I am marvelously unthreatened by the idea that people make games for people who aren't me. I encourage it. But then, I have the basic reading comprehension to not try to say with a straight face that "gamers are dead" was a pejorative rather than market analysis, so I was probably never in the wheelhouse for the hatemongering.
I am only speaking to the manner in which presumably a few people decided to address a women online.