Artificial symmetrization? ====================================
French has masculine and feminine genders, but no neuter, unlike German or Russian. All three genders did, however, exist in Latin, which also had declensions (the form of a word varied according to its function in the sentence). For many Latin words in the second declension, the accusative form, used for direct objects, was identical in the masculine and neuter. In Old French, this case gradually displaced all the others, which explains why these two genders merged in French. In the 17th century, grammarians turned this into a rule that some regard as a manifestation of sexism: the masculine takes precedence over the feminine. So-called "inclusive" writing seeks, by making grammatical gender completely symmetrical, to redress the supposedly inferior status that French grammar has imposed since its inception. An excellent article by Brigitte Axelrad in the magazine Science et pseudo-sciences (issue 323, January–March 2018), entitled Are You Ready for "Inclusive" Writing?, offers an overview of the issue. You can read it on the AFIS website.
Changing language by decree! ====================================
One current initiative aimed at combating sexism is "inclusive" writing. It uses spelling conventions designed to uphold gender equality. Raphaël Haddad published a Manuel d’écriture inclusive (Inclusive Writing Handbook), subtitled "Advance gender equality through the way you write". According to the handbook, writing a non-sexist text requires following three simple conventions so that women are no longer rendered invisible:
> 1 - Use gendered forms for the names of positions, ranks, occupations and titles, for example "female carpenter" or "female firefighter." In an egalitarian world, the converse would be to mark feminine nouns as masculine: "male cleaner," "male homemaker." > 2 - Use both feminine and masculine forms — paired forms, gender-neutral terms or the middle dot — and say "she and he do," "the members," "female and male candidates for the presidency of the Republic"… > 3 - Stop giving "Man" a prestigious capital letter, and write, for example, "human rights" or "rights of the human person" rather than "rights of Man".