Headlines:

Many languages consider gender very important.  As often happens, I started to write a response to someone on another website and expanded that response into a blog here. 

The use of "he or she" (or) "he/she" started in the 1970s in English. In many languages (German and Spanish, for example) you can't make words "gender neutral" so I see it as an useless effort. However, some women are offended by being called "he" in English even though I was taught that "he" in general means "he" and "she" went talking about people in general. However, I have started to use he/she or other forms, so that I my writing is more inclusive and so that I do not offend anyone.

Details:

In English, gender was historically used in interesting ways. Hurricanes were always named after women and storms were called "she" making them feminine.  Ships were also female, as in, "The Titanic was a huge ship but she sank on her maiden voyage."  Signs on the roadside told of "Workmen Ahead" and a postal worker was always called a "mailman."  This attitude is still reflected in America in the fact women are paid less than men for most jobs, even though that has been illegal for decades.  Things began to change during World War II when many women went to work in factories to support the war effort, despite the fact those jobs traditionally were only given to men.

To change the attitudes of people, the women's rights movement, which started in the 1800s, began to call for changes.  Indeed, today, 1/2 of all hurricanes are named after women and half after men.  Indeed, even non-traditional English names are used. Wikipedia* says the 2015 names will be:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Atlantic_hurricane_season

Postmen are now called postal workers and the roadsigns say "Workers Ahead" along the roads and not "Workmen" so the women can feel like they are full members of our society.

But what about the he/she issue.  In elementary school, in the 1960s, I was taught that we done have a word for shim (her and him combined) and the combination of "she" and "it" does not work at all!  No one wants to be called an "it," the English neutral or neuter (without gender) word.  So, I've taken to using he/she or him/her at times.  For example, if you write a letter to a manager but you don't know the person, you can say that you want to know him/her better and you hope that he/she will respond to you.  Once, I received a very angry note from someone when I used only male pronouns in something I wrote, telling me I should be more inclusive.

But can we really change the language?  The answer is yes, but!  The concept of "yes, but" means, "yes" we can "but" there's more to be said.  For example, German uses "der, die, and das" while Spanish uses "el, la, los, and los" all for the English word "the" and all nouns are either feminine or masculine (in Spanish) or also neuter (in German).  So, while "yes" we can change English, "but" it really doesn't make too much sense, especially in some other languages.  I found Chinese takes an interesting approach with "她，他， and  它" which are all pronounced "ta1" in Chinese! 

To me, trying to change a language too much is a little silly.  But one thing that always changes is language.  As we like to say, "The only thing that stays the same is the fact that everything changes over time."