I downvoted you, as someone who spent years hanging around on IRC large parts of my free time, and who based on your comment questions how much experience you have with IRC.

For a while, it was my main source of social interaction overall. 20 years ago I used to pick up women on IRC - most of my dates for years came that way.

At the same time, while certainly there are women and minorities on IRC, I've seen few environments that could turn incredibly ugly and sexist and bigoted so quickly, or that could wear women in particular down so quickly and drive them away. It at least used to take an incredibly thick skin to be a woman on IRC.

In fact, back in the day, one of the most effective way of picking up women on IRC, was to simply set yourself apart from what they quickly became used to, by making fun of the endless stream of horny teenage boys anyone with a somewhat female-sounding nick used to have to deal with, no matter what channels they were on.

The extent certainly does vary by network, and channel, but watching over the shoulder of a woman using IRC anywhere without very strict policies and very specific audiences can be very enlightening unless they hide their gender. And many do.