Sure, I've disliked the way people have treated me, on occasion I've disliked it even when they had a good cause, at the end of the day though the way I was treated wasn't at issue, the cause was. And yes, I throw away my immediate emotional response in any situation like that so I can get to the core of the issue and actually decide if there is valid information to take from the event rather than simply something to complain about.

And if there never is valid information to take from the event, and it's truly just an endless tirade of "you're a woman, shouldn't you be in the kitchen making me a sandwich?" level prattle, that in itself is a person telling you that they're not worth your time interacting with, which is useful information of another kind.

> Political correctness is just short-hand for "don't be racist, don't be sexist, don't be a prick". Pretty simple.

That's your definition of political correctness, but that sure isn't the universally agreed and undisputed definition thereof.

But even accepting it, it opens a whole lot of doors; What is it to be racist? simply acknowledging some statistics that are unfavourable to some ethnicities is by some definitions racist. What is it to be sexist? Not to swallow wholesale typical claims of gender discrimination from women's groups with skewed supporting statistics without looking at the entire picture, or even to be aware of certain information that skews the debate in the opposite direction than currently has the mainstream cultural high ground? What is it to be a prick? To acknowledge realities regardless of the fact that other people may find them uncomfortable?

All of these things are useful, You can't plan affirmative action programs or associated actions to address problems with ethnic groups unless you can quantify what those problems actually are. You can't address the real problems with gender equality if you simply swallow all the propaganda on one side of the argument and instantly think you have the whole story. And you can't fix your own problems if you're unaware of them because noone ever saw fit to tell you because doing so would make them a prick. That's my fundamental problem with it, political correctness promotes premeditated ignorance of various facts which are inconvenient to culture.

A taboo on the objective examination of reality is never a good thing.

> It's naive to think that politics and emotion can somehow be kept out of any human endeavour.

I actually agree with this, but I disagree with your prescription, as soon as you acknowledge the inevitability of it and set up political solutions as a prescription, you simply hasten the downward slide. If on the other hand you firmly allocate the entire pursuit into the waste of time category, any kind of politicking will be out of place, and it won't simply be an endless argument over which kind is appropriate and which kind is not.

> You've got such an undeveloped idea of gender equality that when someone directly talks about it, you want to label it 'sideline histronics'.

I'm not labeling this particular episode sideline histrionics, that's why I originally laid out the two possibilities. The poster doesn't provide enough information in my opinion to actually make a judgement as to which of these cases it actually is.

My statement about sideline histrionics was precisely that it is a tactically sound move for those that engage in them to attempt to frame them in a more mainstream way that makes it appear that their personal grievances are a real and widespread problem that requires addressing by everyone.

> You, yes YOU, the individual using the handle etherael are part of the problem.

I think that lumping people like me in with the "get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich" crowd is simply allowing them to mask their own sideline histrionics with something much more rational and you do yourself no favors by doing so. But if you still see fit to judge me in such a fashion then I'd simply point out that by doing so, you move yourself out of the set of people whose opinions I take seriously.