In general, the idea is that actions designed to improve outcomes for underprivileged groups are acceptable, and actions designed to improve outcomes for privil

In general, the idea is that actions designed to improve outcomes for underprivileged groups are acceptable, and actions designed to improve outcomes for privileged groups are not. In other words, "it depends". This obviously undermines the "don't discriminate based on gender" norm, which is quite easy to understand, and replaces it with "only discriminate against the privileged". Unfortunately, while it's quite easy to work out what gender someone is (or identifies as), privilege is a more slippery concept. We could say that men are privileged relative to women. This shows up in the data on educational attainment and wage differentials, which have historically favoured men. Actually, in the case we're currently discussing, of younger people who are in the typical intern age bracket, women already outperform men in both education and pay[1]. It's actually not at all clear that young women are an underprivileged group relative to their male counterparts, so we should probably start treating instances of bias in favour of young women against young men as just as objectionable as bias in favour of older men would be. There's probably going to be some time lag involved here, as it will take some time for people to update their priors on this subject, but I can easily imagine affirmative action in favour of men within the next decade or two. This is one of the main arguments against allowing positive discrimination - when the time comes to acknowledge that this discrimination is obsolete, there's not much incentive for those who benefit from it to do so (any more than there was any incentive for men who benefited from the old male privileges to acknowledge that it was time to end them). Personally, I think this is why we need to ensure that discourse on this issue remains civil and focused on fairness, rather than "men vs. women". [1] http://womensissues.about.com/od/womenintheworkforce/a/GenderPayGapClosing.htm http://womensissues.about.com/od/womenintheworkforce/a/Gende...