Doing nothing because you fear the verbal reprisals of a group of immature misogynists seems, to me at least, the worst of all possible options.
Right now resolution of these incidents goes like this:
Hear ugly -> politely ignore in person -> report to others
This is like calling the police because someone shouted in your face and you can't handle it. The correct answer is handling it yourself. The police don't have time for that shit, and I've seen way too many people think that's what the police are for (even calling 911 because someone was shouting at them, or laid a hand on them -- though the latter gets a little more complicated). Here's how this sort of thing should go:
Hear ugly -> stop socializing and make offender cry
1. Someone says something ugly.
2. "Whoa whoa, everybody stop. Shut up a second."
3. "What did you just say?"
4. Continue silencing the table.
Do not let anybody else stop you or get involved.
5. "That is completely unacceptable."
6. "You owe your victim an apology."
Do not stop until you get an honest one.
7. If the offender whimpers, good. You got through.
8. If the offender refuses apology, eject the offender.
Seriously, be the change you want to see in our industry. Quit calling the cops to make other people fix your problems. Stop being polite to assholes. Your politeness is what feeds them -- they know you won't confront them.
In an ideal world, it'd go something like this:
Hear ugly -> confront offender -> extract apology -> inform others
Hear ugly -> ensure safety of ones self and others -> inform others
And in one respect, making a change isn't my first priority. My first priority is making these places a safe place for people to be. Making the people who would otherwise make this an unsafe space rethink their actions is a secondary goal.
I see the safety argument making an appearance here yet again, even though neither Adria nor the woman in this story were in any danger from the person (as far as I can tell). If you think jokes make PyCon or GDC an unsafe place, I'm sure everyone who's ever been sexually assaulted would like a word with you about what 'safe' means. It's making the assumption that people who joke inappropriately will eventually be rapists, and we should therefore warn everyone to stay away from them, which is fundamentally flawed.
Just deal with it in person. If he's a repeat, eventually it'll catch up with him enough. Of course, there's no saying something this controversial without geek feminists trotting out the "you're just shutting up the victim" line, which is complete hogwash. I've been called a rape apologist for making the point about dealing with something privately. People do change, even in the extreme scenarios, and the age of rapid social media and Internet communication demands ever higher vigilance over our actions online.
There are two outcomes, if we extrapolate this to the ends: we shame someone publicly and effectively destroy a career, eliminating any possibility of improvement as a human being and the contributions that person might have brought to the table, or we deal with it in person and attempt to steer him toward the right path. The default tendency to feel hopeless about fixing something is swaying this choice the wrong way.