I know, your first thought is ALWAYS. Bear with me, however, as I examine the edge cases. What qualifies as an edge case will vary from person to person, I imagine.

Starting with the most extreme case that is so extreme it's hard to imagine it being labeled as discrimination, consider our dating choices. Most of us (literally) discriminate on the basis of sex in those conditions, and almost no one would consider it wrong.

Moving slightly along this chain, we reach beauty contests. Some people have challenged sexual discrimination in these as well, but not too many find a problem with the sexual discrimation aspect inherent in almost all beauty contests. (That's not to say that they don't have other flaws being picked over.)

Next in my chain comes sport contests. As the recent issues with Caster Semenya remind us, there's a reason why sexual discrimination is used here, as well. Of course, in her case, it's even harder to reconcile, but for sake of argument let's stick with the unwarranted assumption that we can always tell males from females. In almost every test of physical speed, strength, and endurance, the elite men operate at a level significantly superior to the elite women. (A noticeable exception is in ultramarathons. Once the race distance gets to about 100 miles, psychological strength dominates and women can be the overall winners.) So, the reason for sexual discrimination in these cases is to give women a chance to win. That does seem a tad paternalistic, but it's also understandable, IMO. Waters get muddied by cases where women want to play with or compete against the men. There seem to be more of these cases every day.

Next, let's consider insurance costs. Women pay more in health insurance, men pay more in car insurance (at least young men do - since my wife and I share insurance, I haven't really kept track of such differences any more). Is this fair? If not, how should it be rectified? If insurance was government run, rectifying the inequities wouldn't be too hard, but with private companies, we tend to want to be cautious of asking them to foot the bill for such rectification.

Next, let's consider the political sphere. Men still dominate here, as well. Two reasons for this come to my mind: (1) we're less likely to vote for female politicians (for numerous reasons, such as them being considered b*tchy where men are considered strong, etc.), (2) women are less likely to run for public office in the first place (for numerous reasons, but #1 above would be one such reason, I imagine). I can't really imagine a legal challenge to this type of discrimination, but an activist approach should help.

Finally, the job market. Almost all Americans (and presumably all dagbloggers) would agree with "equal pay for equal work" in theory, but once you leave theory, some quickly find ways to pick at this as well. First of all, how do we define "equal work"? There are male dominated fields and female dominated fields, and male dominated fields pay more money (even for females in those fields). Secondly, are employers allowed to consider experience? Most people think they can, but how do we resolve the problem that women are more likely to take time off from their careers to help raise a family? (Not all women, of course, but enough that it'll affect the averages significantly.) Even after controlling for these variables, women still tend to earn less, and I think at least part of that might be due to men feeling more free to be assertive in asking for raises (see #1 in the political discussion above for why that might be true). Finally, some bosses are just pricks. See Ledbetter for an example of that. For the last case, we can imagine a way to address it, but what about for the other cases?

Although I realize this is now quite long, my primary purpose in writing this is to generate discussion, so I return to my original question as a starting point: When is sexual discrimination wrong?