This is a superbly written, incisive article, and I don't feel it's appropriate for me to comment on much of it, but here's an anecdote that I think illustrates your point. I'm using false names for obvious reasons.

At my former workplace, my female boss of many years, Amanda, whom I otherwise greatly respected, could be needlessly severe with female staff, in ways that often distressed me. On one particular occasion, I had a full-blown argument with Amanda because she wanted to fire a female underling of mine called Sara. Why? Because Amanda's teenage daughter told her she overheard Sara "disrespecting" me. This "disrespect" was mere muttering over a task I'd assigned to her that she considered onerous.

I was furious for multiple reasons: 1) I didn't mind my staff blowing off steam when things got busy or pressurised in our department, so I wasn't thin-skinned about Sara feeling a need to complain about me. She was excellent at her job, and that was all I cared about. 2) That kind of blowing off steam Amanda was more than tolerant of with male employees. 3) Amanda accepted this information second-hand from her teenage daughter as fact (who wasn't an employee and for all I know could well have exaggerated matters). 4) There are strict laws in the UK preventing firing people for silly reasons like this, but Amanda was determined to find a way around it, and contrived another reason.

I argued and argued for Sara to stay, but in the end, Amanda prevailed and insisted she was let go. I was livid, and felt immensely ashamed about the entire business. Sara was a great worker, and (her blowing off steam about me aside) we got on very well together. It was all extremely unfair.