The online harassment of women is not a new topic of discussion. From the ongoing assaults faced by the women of Gamergate to the everyday trials individual women experience on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and elsewhere, the issue is both commonplace and epidemic. And it stretches into the world of sports journalism, where everyone is the target of vitriol but women see the brunt of the targeted, personal attacks. Such was the goal of Just Not Sports in producing the #MoreThanMean video which went viral earlier this week.

In the video, unsuspecting men are tapped to read violent and vulgar social media posts directed towards ESPN’s Sarah Spain and 670 The Score’s (Chicago) Julie DiCaro, while having to face Spain and DiCaro while they did so. The result was affecting and arresting, shedding light on a problem we all know happens but that many did not entirely understand the full extent of regarding the nature of these posts. The majority of the reaction once the video launched was positive, but of course negative voices emerged — talking about harassment often, bewilderingly, leads to more harassment. And, predictably, FOX Sports’ Jason Whitlock and Clay Travis were among those dissenting voices.

The two were quick to respond and in the typical fashion. Travis was reveling in the attention that he got from upset “PC bros” after tweeting a series of criticisms including how “murder threats” are just what Twitter is about and determining that he has things more tough online than Spain, DiCaro or any woman in sports media.

Whitlock derided the video and campaign as nothing more than “public relations” for “Social Justice Warriors,” and mocked those who want Twitter to be a “safe space.”

The problem with Whitlock’s and Travis’ criticisms is that they are missing the point of the #MoreThanMean campaign and what it is calling attention to. Whitlock and Travis have made brands out of drawing negative attention to themselves and battling numerous perceived “enemies.”

Their latest target, at least while it still draws their attention, has become women (and women in sports media) being harassed by anonymous internet troll-types – by and large by a male-dominated group – while, of course, making this all about themselves instead of the women trying to lead the discussion of such an issue.

The difference between Spain, DiCaro, other women in sports media (including myself) and Whitlock and Travis is that the latter pair purposefully are trying to incite reaction – often purposefully negative reaction – as their brand identity. Spain, DiCaro, myself, and other women in the sports journalism game, meanwhile, are getting these horrible, violent, targeted misogynistic comments simply because of doing our jobs.

Women in sports media are “instigating” by existing; Travis and Whitlock are, on the other hand, instigating as part and parcel of who they are as media personalties. The difference is obvious.

But the icing on this inedible cake is that Travis and Whitlock are doing it while a specter of gendered inequality hangs over FOX Sports.

Colleen Dominguez, who joined FOX Sports as a reporter in 2014, has filed a lawsuit against FOX, alleging age and gender discrimination. The suit includes allegations that Dominguez was told “we don’t handle veteran female reporters very well,” and that her assignments rapidly declined. She alleged the decision was justified by one producer who once sent Dominguez a text message which read in part that “Just because 5 men at a company want to be gratified by 24-year old women doesn’t make you bad at your job.”

Ironically, Whitlock’s words here might be best turned towards his own employer.

So while Dominguez is fighting for the right for veteran female reporters to be treated equally, and equally as well as her younger female (and presumably any-age male) counterparts, Travis and Whitlock have been given free reign to insert themselves into this story with no regard for the women in the industry who have faced severe, violent and unwarranted attacks simply because of their femaleness and audacity to make a career in such a male-dominated world.

And why would they? The money FOX Sports gets via clicks and interest is in Travis and Whitlock constantly finding someone to argue against, even if it’s people who want to raise awareness for the horrific abuse women receive online. Punishing them for this behavior is out of the question when this behavior is why they are there in the first place.

Travis and Whitlock aren’t wrong — men do get harassed online. And their tweetstorms don’t excuse any abuse or threats that they have received. But that’s not the point of the #MoreThanMean video and not the point that has been made by women in sports media who have talked about this problem for years and continue to do so. And no matter how often we explain it, it ends up feeling like screaming into the void. We repeat, repeat, repeat ourselves and yet deaf ears keep piling up, or worse, we face backlash created by the egging on of the Whitlocks and Travises of the world.

This isn’t about ending disagreement. This is about the fact that women online, are the vast majority of victims of extreme, gendered and violent messages and that men are, by and large, the ones to perpetrate. It’s about a culture of both entitlement and anonymity that allows these kinds of things to start, continue, escalate and go about unchecked. And it’s about exposing that what we, as women in this realm, experience isn’t as simple as a “shut up,” or “you’re stupid,” but things far, far, far worse.

It’s one thing for FOX Sports to encourage their “anti-PC” war, but it’s quite another to build a narrative that it’s a network hostile to women. FOX should consider that given the optics of their continued support of Whitlock and Travis trying to squash any substantial conversation about #MoreThanMean while at the same time dealing with the very significant claims in Dominguez’s lawsuit.

The entire episode puts in stark relief what Spain, DiCaro and the rest of us women in this media space have to deal with – individual harassment, the disbelief in how much one can take, and the reducing it to “gross political correct social justice warriors.” Instead of taking this seriously as a real problem, it turns into just another debate point with the institutional support of a major player in the world of sports media. The #MoreThanMean campaign is just a stopping point in the discussion of the treatment of women online and in sports journalism, and not an end point. Especially it seems at FOX Sports.

Full disclosure: I was a participant in Just Not Sports’ #MoreThanMean campaign, appearing in a podcast with Julie DiCaro related to this week’s viral video as well as a participant in this weeks’ Blogs With Balls conference panel with DiCaro, Sarah Spain, WGN’s Amy Guth and USA Today’s Maggie Hendricks on Treatment of Women in Sports Media.