"He" (and "men" rather than "people" or "humanity" or other substitutes) was the "neutral" or "collective" or "universal" pronoun of the English language until

"He" (and "men" rather than "people" or "humanity" or other substitutes) was the "neutral" or "collective" or "universal" pronoun of the English language until very recently. My recollection is that the academic debate began sometime in the 70s during the rise of feminism (when I was a teenager) and the popular debate began sometime during the 80s. I suspect that it was not common to suggest substituting pronouns for extant writings until the 90s or maybe 00s. For a time, some used "he or she" (perhaps some still do) to avoid offending activists, and others tried the use of "one," though most attempts were awkward. Incidentally, "gender" referred to words, and "sex" referred to people and animals. In other words, forms used to collect personal information always requested "sex" (M or F), never "gender." I don't recall when that change occurred, but probably sometime in the 90s. I'm not trying to incite anyone, just observing that using "gender" to refer to living beings and substituting "he or she" or "she" or "one" or other constructions for the "universal he / men" are very recent phenomena, forty years or less.