There are so many questions that come out of this. The most pressing of course is, was the thread pulled because it was meant to be a female only thread? Such threads are created in the first place because of the intimidating environment created by some senseless, aggressive male gamers who don't think that women should be invaded 'their personal gaming space'.
source: statista
The problem for male gamers inclined to take this view is that the gender split in gamers in shortening all the time to the point where at the start of 2014, 48% of US gamers were female. That is not a proportion that can be shrugged off as an insignificant minority and for any of the male gaming community to think that would be a falsehood. As platforms evolve, the gaming community is growing to incorporate a wider range of people that in the past would not have fitted into the typical gamer mould- that is something that should be embraced, yet still people want to live in a time where games were for men who, so to speak, had no life.
Star Citizen is by no means the only example however. Spend a few hours on any MMORPG or multiplayer shooter and regardless of gender you're likely to suffer from some kind of abuse- for some reason however some find it acceptable to make it gender specific in the case of women.
It is true that gamers have a somewhat tarnished reputation. A stereotypical image would be of a socially awkward teenage boy who develops an aggressive streak while spending the majority of his time on some kind of video game. We only have to look to current affairs, where recently the Daily Mail made the (albeit somewhat tenuous) link between the game playing habits of a teenage boy and the charge of murder that he is facing.
When things like such as blatant sexism occur, stemming from influential members of the community (I'm talking about the moderator in this case), it is hard to see how the reputation of what is generally a very positive and progressive group of society can be improved.
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