I think it’s worthwhile, at this point, to define exactly what one means by ‘sexist’. According to Wiktionary, it means (as a noun):
A person who discriminates on grounds of sex; someone who practises sexism.
And as an adjective:
Unfairly discriminatory against one sex in favour of the other.
Now, looking at ‘discriminate’, we have two definitions:
(intransitive) To make distinctions.
And:
(intransitive, construed with against) To make decisions based on prejudice.
This definition leaves it a little unclear as to whether describing any differences between genders (including the obvious ones) is sexist, or whether only describing discriminatory differences between genders is sexist. Personally, I had always assumed that any difference counted as sexist, but only discriminatory differences counted as bad things to say; that is, that saying that boys are on average stronger than girls is both true and sexist.
From your post, I think that you are using a different definition of ‘sexist’, where only the discriminatory uses are considered valid examples.
I think it’s worthwhile, at this point, to define exactly what one means by ‘sexist’. According to Wiktionary, it means (as a noun):
And as an adjective:
Now, looking at ‘discriminate’, we have two definitions:
And:
This definition leaves it a little unclear as to whether describing any differences between genders (including the obvious ones) is sexist, or whether only describing discriminatory differences between genders is sexist. Personally, I had always assumed that any difference counted as sexist, but only discriminatory differences counted as bad things to say; that is, that saying that boys are on average stronger than girls is both true and sexist.
From your post, I think that you are using a different definition of ‘sexist’, where only the discriminatory uses are considered valid examples.