Calling out a mildly sexist comment in an unrelated thread: how? Or don't?

[theangelJean]

In a webcomic thread, someone has made a comment that (a) alludes, extremely vaguely, to some real-world events, and (2) contains an idea that is interesting, but also incorporates some harmful sexist assumptions.

For the record, I don't think part (a) crosses the line into "politics" and I don't think (b) crosses the line into "offensive". I could report it and let the mods decide, but that's not my question.

Is there any forum-acceptable way for me to engage with the poster, if I wanted to disentangle some of the sexist assumptions in part (2)? I feel like they (the assumptions) are harmful enough to be worth calling out, and there's a potential for a productive discussion to separate the interesting idea from its sexist baggage. Or would that count as me bringing "politics" in where it doesn't belong?

Obviously I wouldn't do this in the webcomic thread, as it would be wildly off-topic. I was actually thinking of PMing the poster to discuss. Just checking if doing so would be against forum rules?

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: As you noted, on whether it's violated any Forum Rules, reporting it is the best approach.

In deciding whether to engage in any conversation that you think might violate the Forum Rules yourself, we always advise you to err on the side of caution.

If you can sufficiently disentangle discuss the sexist assumptions in whatever the idea is in a way that doesn't bring in politics, isn't flaming/trolling toward the other poster (or other posters, generally), and doesn't otherwise violate the Forum Rules, then by definition, you're on the right side of the Forum Rules.

But I don't think there's any way we can actually answer your question in a broad, rule-based way. It's going to be incredibly context-dependent.