Can you explain your first sentence? I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I'm not defending bigotry/sexism/etc. Hopefully, you didn't take my comment that way.
Your original comment was to the effect of 'things are bad if they are illegal, but otherwise they're not.' He's calling you out on your sense of morality because whether a thing is right or wrong does not, to most people, derive from it's legal status.
Stealing would still be wrong if it were legally acceptable, which some forms arguably are.
I didn't think you (as in ia) was especially defending it, I was just trying to point out the logic was very wooly. Though re-reading my comment I was a little hot under the collar, so apologies for that.
I'm pretty sure that when I defend the right of, say, OWS to protest, I'm not defending whatever it is they're protesting.
They went for a breezy tone and forgot to pass it through Legal. I doubt they're sexists. I'm sure sexism would, in this day and age, hurt them more than anyone else.
That's not really the case in the software industry. There really are very few women in the field. That's why we need to call out stuff like this — so that female programmers' lack of visibility doesn't become an excuse to marginalize them.
I don't think it was intentional on the job poster's part, but the fact that he didn't catch how it sounded of proofreading definitely indicates a blind spot to sexism.
Stealing would still be wrong if it were legally acceptable, which some forms arguably are.