She called his elevator joke offensive. He called her complaint ‘frivolous.’ Who’s right? - The Washington Post

"“Ladies’ lingerie.” It was a lame, outmoded joke — the sort of thing you say in a crowded elevator to alleviate the discomfort of being jammed among strangers, an artifact of the days of fancy department stores with operators announcing the floor stops.

Those two words — the speaker remembers saying “ladies’ lingerie,” a passenger who was offended recalls hearing “women’s lingerie” — have turned into the latest exemplar in the academy of political correctness gone wild.

The episode, which has not been previously reported, occurred last month in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association. Richard Ned Lebow, a professor of political theory at King’s College London and the 2014 recipient of ISA’s distinguished scholar award, made the remark after someone in his elevator called out to ask for floor requests.

Simona Sharoni, professor of women’s and gender studies at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, took offense....[S]he [lodged] a formal complaint lodged less than four hours later...."