Now, though, I see it more that these compliments are good for everyone,
and women are *right* to expect them and to be put off by how
unsupportive the community seems in the absence of that. So I try to
make an effort to compliment more anyway, without regard to gender.

Right. What you seem to be saying, in most of your reply, is "compliments are good, regardless of whether it is directed at a man or a woman." I agree with that, and I think our community needs to get better at compliments (as well as acknowledgements in general). What I took as particularly demeaning was the notion that women, in particular, need more of this style of compliment (which I took as condescending).

Perhaps I'm going about it the wrong way, but I feel that the best way to make women feel more included is to treat all people, male or female, with the same respect. I would find it humiliating and excluding if I was a woman and I found out that men were specifically giving me compliments because their "woman manual" told them that women need more compliments than men.

Huh? Where do you get the implication of condescension? It sounds
exactly the opposite to me: speaking to another person as an equal. “You
did that in half the time I did it, well done.”

If achievement-based compliments sound automatically condescending to
you in that way, then yes, I'd say you may be over-sensitive.

It's not achievement-based compliments, it is the comparison with yourself that I find vaguely condescending. Because, as I said, there's this hidden "even", as in "you did that in half the time that it took even me!" But in any case, I was making a minor point and it was about that style of compliment in general, not about gender issues.

Matt