PERHAPS it is the Acapulco-level temperature that is sending everyone loco, but the sex war appears to have entered a new, more intense phase this week.

Or is it sexist to even suggest that large numbers of men and women, those Mars and Venus residents, are at odds on everything from women in business to the hapless musings of sports commentators?

That is the trouble with the sex war: there is so much fog spewed, so many minor skirmishes masquerading as battles royal, that it can be difficult sometimes to know when to issue an order to "Calm down, dears" or sound the bugle for a major campaign on a point of principle over which there can be no capitulation.

Tensions were already high with the start of the Open at the men-only course at Muirfield. Alex Salmond, the First Minister, had previously announced his intention to boycott the event, calling single-sex clubs "indefensible in the 21st century". Nick Clegg and David Cameron finally caught up with the FM yesterday, with the Deputy Prime Minister describing male-only clubs as "inexplicable" in this day and age, and Downing Street letting it be known that the Prime Minister took a similarly dim view.

The result of all this disapproval is that this world-class sporting event on our home turf is going ahead without high-profile Government support north and south of the Border. Matters have now become so heated the R&A, the governing body of golf and an institution so stuffy it probably keeps its tie on in the bath, is to reconsider the matter. It is nothing so major or vulgar as a "review", though; this is a gentlemen's ponder. When the musing is over perhaps we can expect the conclusion to be delivered on parchment.

Over on the tennis courts there are other voices being raised. Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary (who, like Mr Salmond, is boycotting the Open), has written to the BBC director-general over comments made by John Inverdale about Marion Bartoli, the Wimbledon champion. Inverdale, who will also be commentating at the Open, had mused on air: "I just wonder if her dad did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe: 'Listen, you are never going to be you know, a looker. You are never going to be somebody like a [Maria] Sharapova, you're never going to be 5 feet 11, you're never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that.'" Inverdale has written to Bartoli to apologise but Ms Miller wants an update on any further action likely to be taken. At the last count, more than 700 complaints have been received.

Similarly, it is all kicking off, as an excitable sports commentator might say, over at the BBC television show The Apprentice, where the all-female final was between a self-dubbed "business Barbie" with a cupcake business and a young woman doctor who wants to make a mint from offering cosmetic procedures such as Botox injections. A poor reflection on women in business, say critics, a depressing step backwards masquerading as a leap forward.

Finally, there is the looming heavyweight bout over at the Today programme over the addition of a second woman, Mishal Hussain, to the presenting team's ranks. Ms Hussain did not take too kindly to soon-to-be fellow presenter John Humphreys asking her two years ago if she only got her job on television because she was good looking. Now they are about to share the office biscuit tin, who knows what crumbs and blood there will be on the carpet.

Surveying the battlefield, it is important to prioritise matters, direct resources where they are most needed and shuffle other counters to the side.

First, Mr Salmond was right on the money over Muirfield. Anyone who thinks otherwise should consider the outcome if he had not spoken out. The home of golf, as Scotland is punted in many a costly tourism campaign, would have been rebranded the land where dinosaur attitudes still roam. As it is, the main story about the Open is now the sexism row rather than the golf. The R&A's befuddlement at the furore is understandable – up to a point. This is not a matter on a par with anti-Semitism or racism, and for critics of Muirfield to pitch it as such is to diminish the struggles that have occurred on those fronts. The men-only matter is a question of perception, and the R&A simply cannot come up with a good enough answer as to why, in a society that deems equal opportunities so important it enshrines its ambitions in law, the R&A should not insist on doors being opened to all if it can.

As for the rest of it, the Apprentice, Husain v Humphreys and Inverdale, it is a struggle to care too much about the particulars. There are serious questions to be asked about women in business and women in employment in general, such as why they should be hit disproportionately hard when it comes to finding and keeping jobs. That problem, highlighted in this week's unemployment statistics, requires cold, hard, slog on training, child care, and many other fronts if it is to be solved.

On the Today programme, anything that lessens the effect of male nation speaking unto male nation every morning is welcome, but again, in the grander scheme of things it is the froth on very small beer.

Inverdale's comments? Stupid and sexist and ordinary men and women have told him so. For a Government Minister to now become involved and appear to demand further action (what does she have in mind?) smacks of gesture politics, even if she is also responsible for women and equalities – a task deemed so significant by her boss it is only part of her department's very large remit.

Out there in Medialand, feminism is having something of a moment. It is a minor moment, involving at best a few book deals for a handful of writers, but every little helps. What does not help is when so much energy and exposure is taken up by matters which are at best distractions from what is fundamentally important to women and girls.

Matters such as the right to go to school without someone firing a gun at your head. Put anything that occurred in the rich West this week against what happened to Malala Yousafzai at the hands of the Taliban and one soon sees where feminism's priorities should lie. To see and hear this 16-year-old's "one child, one teacher, one pen and one book" speech at the UN was to witness a true giant in the making.

The other stuff, the stuff of which everyday sexism is made, is a bit like our not so beloved Scottish midge. It needs to be swatted away, and encountering too many of the blighters can lead to extreme irritation.

Confront such bothers by all means, but there is a whole other world out there where women's rights are a matter not of ridiculous comments and media spats, but of life and death.