Not only do these women receive orders of magnitude more death threats than your typical online celebrity, but people do in fact come to their homes, contact their relatives, harass them at work, mail them stuff, etc. Consider also that some studies have shown that more than a third of all women have been sexually harassed or assaulted at some point in their lives, which is mostly invisible to guys like me[1].
That must be a pretty terrifying place to be. If that was me in Anita's shoes, I doubt I'd be able to just wave off these death threats, especially if friends and family were being targeted as well.
The comment you linked was quite excellent and changed my perspective a bit. I read the whole thing.
However, I'm not sure I'm convinced that someone like Anita necessarily has gotten more death threats than someone like Jack Thompson, and I also don't know if her being a woman plays a significant factor. I'm willing to accept that's true with evidence, but there isn't really evidence (and no easy way to find or gather such evidence). Death threats are unacceptable but the kind that have been sent to Anita seem to be more of the Internet troll variety than anything else.
That must be a pretty terrifying place to be. If that was me in Anita's shoes, I doubt I'd be able to just wave off these death threats, especially if friends and family were being targeted as well.
[1]: You can start reading at this comment — http://www.metafilter.com/85667/Hi-Whatcha-reading#2777344 — and keep going for a good long while. This thread changed my outlook a few years ago.