Actually, to many people harassment isn't a serious thing. It's just a "casual" snide comment about being cute or looking hot. Many men don't realize they're making women feel uncomfortable in geek circles.
It makes me sad that HN reinforces the fact that women have a hard time participating in s/tech conferences/tech forums/g
PyCon was 20% female this year which was a remarkable milestone. Along with this milestone came an amplification of why it was so hard for PyCon to reach that milestone.
And, yeah, blame your employer for making a poor judgement call on this. If I were you I wouldn't want to work for a place that fires people over Internet drama anyway.