Because she doesn't fit your stereotype of what a maker looks like, and that challenge to your preconceptions can either be accepted or rejected. Some percentage of people will reject the challenge, and come to the conclusion that this person is not who they claim to be.

In short: sexism.

For further reading, see criticism of the "fake geek girl" meme.

I remember reading a study that posited low status men tended toward misogyny when they felt threatened by the skill of women they were competing against, and this was the first thing that came to mind as I was reading over this whole saga.

That may be true, but:

> the negative impact of my tweets was amplified by the fact that I, a white, Western, male CEO of a key company in the Maker community

This guy was not low status by any definition.

Just 'cause he's a CEO, doesn't mean he's not insecure and misogynistic...

Most of the comments here reference the fact that her skill is self evident. He could easily have felt threatened by her technical skill, and the fact he couldn’t plainly see it as other commenters did adds credence to his own deficit of technical ability.

The fact that he maintained a sustained slander campaign when he ostensibly had other priorities implies he felt that ‘exposing’ her became important to him, again a trait of insecure, low status individuals.

Replace "low status" with "insecure" as many high-status men have proven otherwise

Or so you would think, but as I recall her biggest detractors were SJWs complaining about how much skin she was showing. The whole idea of her being just a facade for some male engineer was driven by the feminist notion of "male gaze". By contrast, the "misogynistic nerd" crowd (Gamergaters and the like) were quite supportive of her.

I'm skeptical. All the high level summaries imply that most of the pre-Dougherty "fake" theories came from anonymous redditors. How do you know that was the "SJW" set?

Examples?