Even though male players aren’t in any way the only sexist offenders, in video games or anywhere else in the world, despite how you make it sound like, I do agree that, just like with all Toxicity, it should be apprehended by the Report system.
Until then though, I should also suggest to Mute and Avoid, as there are things you can do in order to minimize the effect toxic people have on you.
The behaviour you’re describing should be treated with the same gravity as cheating; as in, if you can collect proof that somebody went all in on a sexist/racist/homophobic attack against another player, even if its only one instance, that’s a permaban.
Rude remarks, guy got mad and called you a bot and told you to uninstall, sure, that can be the kind of stuff we vote to silence people over using Blizzard’s current system, knowing full well that most people will probably never be actioned and, if they do, they will be given far too many warnings before any real consequences reenacted. It’s whatever. Those are the kind of ‘accidents’ that happen when you put a bunch of socially incompetent middle schoolers and basement dwellers in a game together.
But there’s really no excuse to be ripping into a female player with threats and degredation about her gender. That’s not something you say because you were mad, or because you thought it was funny, or because you got carried away. It’s something you say because you’re a garbage human being and you want to hurt somebody for being different.
As for the victim blaming in this thread… Jesus. I can have a thick skin and not be upset by what strangers on the internet say to me… and understand that they have no right to behave that way. Anyone who hasn’t figured that out yet is part of the problem.
I think OP was simply referring to sexism towards women which is generally perpetuated by men…Not “men are the only sexist offenders”.
It isn’t bringing up anything new or surprising to anyone. And ultimately won’t do anything to combat bad internet/gaming culture.
As for Blizzard, I really don’t know what people realistically expect them to do. Most of the suggestions in here are from emotion, not logic.
Try a voice synthesizer. 
If you sound like Arnold you may inherit a new set of problems.
May I introduce you to the wonderful concept of counter-sexism, OP? Whenever a guy gives you unfriendly remarks like you mentioned, just make a derisive comment about their peen size and/or their sexual orientation (you don’t personally need to find anything wrong with nonstandard sexual orientations, it’s just very likely that they do, and consequently feel offended by it). Keep humiliating them by laughing at them. Give them an endearing nickname like “two-inches” or “nega-coque” and call them by that whenever they speak. But the most important point is to keep ridiculing them. People like that cannot stand it.
However, if you keep taking them seriously and show them you’re emotionally affected, they will take that as confirmation and amp up their game. Don’t do that.
If it’s in text chat, how do they know you’e a girl unless you tell them? And if it’s in voice chat, that’s on you. I still can’t understand why people would ever use voice chat. First thing I did after getting the game is set the “never join” or whatever for voice chat and never looked back. In fact, it had the opposite effect - girl I was playing with for like two years asked me to get a mic just to go voice chat.
Won’t do you much good, cause they’ll just buy a new smurf (and I’m guessing he was already on a smurf, cause the lower the level the more likely they are to go full toxic).
Never. These are still paying customers buying smurf accounts, so can’t get rid of those.
But hateful women are fine?
We won’t reach the ‘Until then’ point unless we make a noise about it, unfortunately.
Boi, you for real? Do you have any idea how many people you’d need for that? Doesn’t matter how many mods you get, each can listen to only one game at a time and there’s two teams. Not only is that impossible from a logistics point, they’d have to spend so much money on it.
Go to report and actually quote what someone said (rather than just sending a blank report page). I dunno if they have some tech to check for the exact words that happened in the game, but it’s better than just pressing “report”.
-Reeee, I’m getting harassed!
-Use the given tools to block and report those people?
-REEEEEE I don’t need your solution! I wanna whine without actually solving the problem so I remain the victim!
This is just sad, please use the avoidance tools and report regularly. Blizz already bans a lot of people based on true reports, the proper job you could (but seemingly don’t want to???) do is to write an explanation in the report, mute, avoid and just MOVE ON. Everyone gets insulted in heated games, you’re not an exception just for being a girl. Do your job and report, like everyone else.
Incorrect.
Those solutions are being done. You need to read the thread.
I made a nice analogy about stick poking not too long ago. Even if you get poked with a stick then leave the room, you still got poked with a stick. Then you enter a different room and get poked again, rinse and repeat.
But please lets not belittle the serious issue that is taking place. Ladies aren’t just getting ‘insulted’ like any other person, they can handle that. Its the sexual harassment that needs to stop.
Create another thread about it. We aren’t condoning their actions, but this is about a serious issue about men that sexually harass the females in our community.
Stick to the topic at hand and help come up with alternatives for the problem at hand. Yes, muting and blocking is already being done. But it isn’t enough to stop it.
I feel like this is bait but ill bite.
Weird world we live in. 
The only way you are going to “stop” this problem entirely is by banning all men from playing the game. Or at least muting them as soon as a female player is in the game. Otherwise, you will always have instances of “the problem”.
More generally, it’s a necessary consequence of freedom of expression that people are going to express things that offend or insult you. Still you don’t want to “stop” that. What you want is proper recourse after the fact for people whom it affects too negatively.
In the concrete situation at hand, that would mean a properly staffed and moderated report system that has enough reasonable arbiters so that both the catastrophes of a) no consequences at all and b) automatic consequences for anyone accused are avoided. That would cost money. So what you want is for Blizzard to spend more money on moderating the game.
I’m sorry, but there is no other reasonable solution.
But it’s not a issue if its male on male violence which is basically 99% of the time?
Welcome to the online world.
If you weren’t female, you would still get attacked.
Luckily for me I am an Aussie and Diamond border and have only had this happen a few times. Yanks haha
My on my main my battletag for years was my name “Jessica” and back in 2018 I changed it from my name to just something different and it’s been that way since.
I finally lost it after a Rialto game when a group of men in would not leave me alone, even when I left the voice chat.
I eventually also began talking less on the microphone, basically I’m just silent now. I hate it, I’ve been gaming since I was a toddler, and Overwatch and TF2 are the only games I’ve experienced such men. On TF2 it’s worse they KICK you from the game if you talk on the mic, luckily Overwatch doesn’t have a vote kick.
To be clear, the OP was just speaking about her own personal experience as a female player being verbally attacked and bullied by a male player (who presumably used specifically misogynistic language against her), so that’s why that particular situation is being discussed here. That’s all; there is no part of her post that declares other kinds of abuse and harassment to be “unimportant”.
I’m very confident that everyone here can agree that ALL abuse and harassment is bad and needs to be addressed, regardless of gender.
And again, I remind everyone to always REPORT these abusive players when you encounter them. Because if we don’t report them, Blizzard won’t be able to find them amongst the thousands and thousands of other people playing the game. The playerbase is so large, they count on us to bring these things to their attention. Therefore, it is VERY IMPORTANT for us to do our part.
If I may offer another quote here, to help visualize the effectiveness of reporting? Sorry if I’m getting annoying with this; I just feel like people could use to hear it, since many seem to have lost faith in the system. (Source: this post)
I would especially like to point out this part in particular:
only about 1% of players are ever so consistently toxic that they ever reach the levels of suspensions or permanent bans
We can take this to mean that a majority of these abusive players may very well be deterred from behaving in such a manner if they get penalized for it, or perhaps even after being warned.
(PS: I hope Wyoming doesn’t mind that I keep quoting them like this; they’ve just provided so much useful information about this stuff)
i mean i could get poked once and say f this and dip.
if people are harassing you and not working together anyways then why subject yourself to it. they likely arent working with anyone else. its not much different from someone who feeds all game or isnt ever around when theyre needed.
if you get poked 40 million times then some of that has to be your fault.
ive been called literally every single name in the book and played Cod, halo and gears of war all at their peaks where there was 0 regulation. i dont flinch and developing a thicker skin is crucial for your mental state.