“she will be extremely embarrassed” – And if someone offers you treif, and by refusing to eat it you will embarrass them, etc., then it’s OK to eat treif, according to your logic. (?)
The Chazon Ish zatzal held that shaking hands was an issur gammur and Yehareig V’al Yaavor. I cannot speak for “all poskim.” All I can say is that Rabbi Yitzchak Abadi heard directly from the mouth of the Chazon Ish zatzal that (with regard to shaking hands) you should DIE and not transgress. Other poskim are more lenient, in cases of EXTREME necessity. But one must do everything in his power to avoid being in a situation where he knows that he will have no choice but to shake a woman’s hand.
One is required to forfeit up to 20% of his wealth to fulfill an obligation from the Torah.
One is required to forfeit every last penny that he owns to avoid transgressing one prohibition of the Torah, once in his life – but he is not required to give up his life for this (except for three sins).
“There are thousands of frum, erlich baal baatim that will shake a woman’s hand in a business situation based on the advice of their rov. You are dreaming if you think that this is anything but a mainstream view.”
Nowadays you can get a Rav to say just about anything and give any sort of heter for any sort of nonsense. It doesn’t change the halacha. Halacha is not determined by taking a poll of what people “think” is OK, or by taking a poll of what people do (and determining, in the course of said poll, that “thousands” of “frum” people do this, and therefore it must be OK). Halacha is determined by the rulings of the gedolei Yisroel (Rav Moshe, the Chazon Ish, etc.).
How many of these “frum, erlich baal baatim” talk during davening? Does that make it OK? How many of them daven at the speed of light? How many of them are mechallel Shabbos because they are completely ignorant in the laws of Shabbos?