On a Tuesday morning in July, when men on her team began to
  joke that an office intruder was coming to rape everybody,
  Danielle decided to speak out about what she described as the
  "very toxic atmosphere" created by jokes about violent sexual
  assault.

I'm not laughing, but again I'm really not shocked and would not expect a response to this incident beyond the apology already offered.

So we have to treat women differently than men? Sounds a bit sexist.

If you don't care about being respectful, don't bother finding out.

There may be consequences if you don't, there may not be. Me, I want to be respectful, so I start with a safe neutral ground and go on from there.

I fear that the swing in PC culture is going to cause more harm than good for "inclusiveness" now that the pendulum has swung too far.

Most people have a thick enough skin to get over it, so the people around them don’t all have to adjust to their feelings.

Sure, people do have thick skins mostly, but you shouldn't rely on that. Again, it's just about being respectful of people.

So, be accommodating in a way that means people are treated differently, but just don't call it treating them different?

10-4 loud and clear, good buddy.

Perhaps, but it's not something that is obviously unacceptable. I would put it on the same level as making a joke about an intruder coming to bomb/shoot everyone. Certainly it's in poor taste, but that's the level of humour you find everywhere.

Thing is, it's not found everywhere, there are very respectful workplace environments. If people do cross the line it is called out and dealt with and quite quickly things converge on what is acceptable and what's not.

In most workplaces (in my experience) people talk openly about sex and relationships, which would probably violate even these "flimsy" policies.

Sex is natural, and it's natural for people to want to talk about it. The important thing is whether you are deliberately harassing someone, whether you should reasonably know that your behaviour is abusive, and whether you stop doing it when you're told that it upsets someone. I've always worked in places where the majority of people are quite reasonable, but I realise not all workplaces are like that.