I'm older so I have seen language use change a lot. In grade school our teacher (woman) often used ”his" to refer to all students, such as "Everyone has to push in his chair, before leaving class". Apparently "his" was the gender free pronoun when addressing both genders, for centuries. As a kid I was a bit confused since his and her were being taught as the proper pronouns, as well as they/their.
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025
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I was taught in university French that in French, when referring to a group of males you say ils, for a group of females you say elles, and for a mixed group (even if it contains only one male) you say ils
What about mixed group with one female?
Ils. If it has at least one male, it's ils
Can't have the one man feeling bad about herself
It's especially stupid as the usage of a single they dates back to at least Chaucer. Little brains going to little brain.
In a variety of ways, gender inclusivity is a sticky wicket for many—probably most—languages. One can easily go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole on the topic starting here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language
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