sarcasm always wins out in the end

That is interesting. Obviously my perspective as an outsider looking in is skewed by the demographics of my flist, which is unlikely to be a representative selection. I would say I've never seen much overt sexism, in terms of bashing women and the like, which is certainly an improvement on some fandoms. (SPN fandom, I'm looking at you now.) It's surprised me because a lot of my friends-who-are-into-bandom are vocally squeeful about women in fandoms we share, but I really hear them talking about bandom women. I don't know that many bandom folk, though, so this may not really mean anything.