That’s generally what Mr. Levs is contending. “If I gave up my child for adoption, and some other guy at Time Warner adopted her, he would get 10 weeks off, paid, to take care of her,” he wrote on his Tumblr page. “I, however, the biological father, can’t.”

It’s hard to predict exactly how the commission will view his claims. But Justine Lisser, an E.E.O.C. lawyer and spokeswoman, offered some insight into what may be considered sex discrimination in a hypothetical situation. It’s not necessarily wrong, for instance, if women were given a certain period of paid leave to recover from pregnancy and childbirth, while men (and women) were also entitled to the same period to recover from other medical conditions.

But it would be considered sex discrimination to give women paid time off to care for a newborn, but not give the same time to men. It would also obviously be wrong to have such a policy on the books, but then penalize men for using it. “We see this in some caregiving cases,” she said. “Women are presumed to need caregiving time off, but men are presumed not to be invested in their jobs if they want to take the same time for the same reason and are either denied it or demoted after using it.”

Mr. Levs’s lawyer, A. Lee Parks Jr., a civil rights lawyer in Atlanta, acknowledged that the policies could (and potentially should) be different for men and women. “The bizarre thing here is they give a significant amount of time if you are a certain type of parent,” he said. “So, they made a value judgment that, in those situations, that there is really a period where you need to bond.”

If you’re curious about the legality of your company’s policy, legal experts said to look at it as a breakdown of recovery time and bonding time. “Men should get the same bonding time,” said Cynthia T. Calvert, a senior adviser on family responsibilities discrimination at the Center for WorkLife Law. She suggests that employers designate six to eight weeks for recovery, and then anything beyond that should be deemed bonding time, and available to all parents.

Workplace experts who read Mr. Levs’s blog said he appeared to take the right approach. He started the process two months before the birth of his daughter, followed his company’s protocols and kept the matter confidential. You might start by simply asking your supervisor or human resources department for more information, just to be sure you’re understanding the policy correctly. “You don’t want to come on too strong, but at the same time, you want to be sure you’ve done everything in the system before you bring in the lawyers,” said Ms. Calvert, who also consults with employers to shape their policies and train their supervisors to avoid discrimination. “Because then, everyone gets their armor on. People don’t view you as a team player anymore.”