But today's tone deafness astounds even me. They have no allies left.
They also immediately destroyed the narrative that reddit just hates Pao because she's a woman. Victoria was one of the most popular and well respected admins ever.
Even the tinfoil hats at /r/conspiracy trusted her not to manipulate.
Is there anyone left NOT mad at reddit now? Maybe SubredditDrama....
So your statement is correct but perhaps people's attitudes to gender still influences their response to Pao.
Food for thought
That seems more logical to me. If you're in a powerful position, you have to 'own' unpopular decisions. And the decisions of those higher up affect larger numbers of people. Meaning that there's a higher probability of receiving a hateful email from the 1 crank in a group affected by a decision you made.
In contrast, men have no problem being liked and respected in positions of power. Women managers tend to be viewed as nurturing pushovers or bitches.
It would indeed be simpler if liking decreased as social distance increased, but the world is not always so simple, and a thousand years of gender stereotypes and oppression don't end in a century.
On the contrary, compare her reception to that of powerful men who behave badly, and she seems to be benefiting from favorable treatment. Powerful men who have attracted the internet's ire by abusing the legal system with frivolous lawsuits, such as Darl McBride, Jack Thompson, or Charles Carreon, have attracted a lot more hate than Pao, and that's just for their legal hijinks, not to mention that they didn't do anything approaching what's happening to Reddit.
Furthermore, I have a hard time seeing why the powerful deserve special sympathy, especially when compared to the non-powerful.